Google presents you with two options when you sign up with Google AdWords: Express and the classic Google AdWords experience. But what’s the difference between Google Adwords Express and Classic Adwords? The right choice for your business depends on your familiarity with managing online advertising campaigns, the type of ads you want to run, and the resources you have available to work with AdWords.
What Is Google AdWords Express
Google AdWords Express offers an experience that’s tailored to small business owners looking for basic online advertising options. It’s a simplified version of AdWords that is configured with user-friendliness and low ongoing maintenance in mind. If you never worked with this type of platform before and you don’t have experienced staff available to do it for you, this can be a good way to dip your toes into pay-per-click campaigns.
Google offers a templated experience to walk you through each step of the process. The main thing you create is the ad itself. After that, you pick the business type and Google fills in the keywords and sites to display your ads on. The platform manages ongoing optimization, so you don’t have to spend a lot of time following up with your campaign after it’s set up.
When you’re a small business owner already juggling too many responsibilities, being able to automate this part of the process can be the difference between running ads online and avoiding campaigns entirely.
But beware!!! It takes just one mistake, (the wrong geographic targeting, the wrong budget, or many other pitfalls) to literally lose thousands of dollars with not one lead to speak of.
What’s The Difference Between Google AdWords Express and Classic Adwords?
Google AdWords Express has a few significant drawbacks due to its simplicity. The biggest issue is the inability to choose your own keywords. Google has a preset list for that business category. They aren’t necessarily the right phrases for your specific company, so you could end up wasting time and money on these campaigns. You get full control over your campaign when you use Google AdWords over Express.
Expanding into different ad formats is also impossible through AdWords Express. If you want to experiment with new ways of presenting your message and reaching your audience, you would need to switch to the standard Google AdWords platform. Here are a few examples of ad formats you can use after you make the change: video, image, app promotion and call-only ads.
Optimization opportunities are lacking in Express. You have limited visibility into ad performance, so figuring out ways to improve your campaigns can be frustrating. You get full access to this data through the standard AdWords platform, which helps you understand the success and failure of your efforts.
Google works with a range of partner sites that can display ads that you purchase through AdWords. You don’t get control over where you show up on Express, so if you want to ramp up your ad campaigns you need to move away from this platform. The partner network can be an essential part of bringing in a broader audience, so not having access to that may make it difficult to reach your goals.
Google AdWords Express should be used in the rarest of occasions. When you’re making your decision between this and the traditional platform, try to consider your available resources now and in the future. You might be overwhelmed by AdWords’ learning curve at first, but if you have a significant business growth goal in mind, starting with the traditional experience may make more sense.