AdWords vs AdWords Express, Which one do you choose?

You have finally decided to try out PPC. You sit down to create your first ads.

You google AdWords and are greeted by Google’s friendly sign up page. At some point along your journey, you get asked the question, Sign Up for AdWords or Sign Up for AdWords Express?

These two buttons seem innocent at first. But, as you look into what they mean you get more and more confused.

By the end of your signup journey, you end up sad, cold, and lonely. Sitting in your basement under a bare bulb writing angry letters and swearing off Digital Marketing of all kinds for life!

 

AdWords Express, So Simple It’s Dangerous

The problem is that Google made AdWords Express to help people just like you. It’s easy to use, has very few advanced options. It’s just what you need to get up and running in a few easy steps.

Then they just left it there. Innocently waiting to help you get up and running in no time. Sitting there waiting to trap you in its web of helpfulness.

Because Google made the choice seem so obvious. You don’t know what you’re doing, and after all, you just want to get your name out there and let the leads roll in. SIGN ME UP!

Quick note, you are stuck once you choose Express. But I digress.

 

Your Options are pretty limited

Weeks pass, your ads are doing well but you’d like them to do a bit better. You read about some advanced technique. Maybe you want to try a SKAG (Single Keyword AdGroup) or something simple like negative keywords.

You quickly find that it doesn’t work. You are pretty limited in what you can actually do. It’s pretty much a platform that lets you enter keywords, set up some ads, and press go.

That’s it. You can’t do much beyond that. You can’t track conversions, set up automation or scripts, you can’t even set up your keywords as anything besides broad match. As you may or not know there are four different match types in AdWords.

Broad Match
Broad Match Modified
Phrase Match
Exact Match

They all have their place and can be quite useful. To create a SKAG as mentioned before you would need to use at least 3 of them. You won’t be able to with AdWords Express.

 

So what to do

You need to consider your choices carefully. If you want something simple that is easy to setup and leaves you very few options in the future then AdWords Express is for you.

However, if you want to track calls and conversions, implement negative keywords so you aren’t paying for junk clicks or anything more advanced you should definitely stick with regular AdWords.

Which account did you choose? How did it turn out and did you wish you had chosen the blue pill?