AdWords (Google Ads) vs AdWords Express (Smart Ads): What Small Businesses Should Know
If you’re a small business looking to advertise on Google, you may be considering Google Ads (formerly Adwords) vs Smart Ads (formerly AdWords Express). Google ads can be a great way to drive traffic to your website. They display next to search results related to keywords that you set up ahead of time.
You might also be aware that Google recently rolled out a new version of Google Ads, the system by which you run ads on Google, called Smart Campaigns (formerly AdWords Express). Though definitely easier to use than default Google Ads, Smart Campaigns take some important choices out of your hands that you might not be aware of.
Below we explain how Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising works and then provide a breakdown of the differences between Google Ads and Smart Campaigns.
How Google Ads Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Online Advertising Works
Essentially, Google Ads is a giant clearinghouse of keywords you can bid on. When you create an ad, you’re prompted to enter keywords that are specific to your industry so that when users search for those keywords on Google, your ad pops up. When users click on your ad, they’re redirected to a specific link, typically a landing page for your company’s website. Google Ads can help you get exposure for your business, especially if it’s relatively new and is not showing up as high on search results as you’d like it to.
You only pay when people click on your ad (hence the term “Pay-Per-Click”). Depending on your industry keywords range from $1 per click to $50 or more per click, but the average is around $1-$2.
Why Smart Campaigns Are Seductive
What is described above as a relatively simple process is actually fairly complicated. If you’ve never run a PPC campaign before, you might find yourself quickly overwhelmed by all the metrics you need to pay attention to:
- Cost-Per-Click (CPC): The average price you’ll pay for each click on an ad.
- Budget: Your daily budget for ad spending.
- Click-Through-Rate (CTR): The rate at which users are clicking your ad, compared to how many times your ad displays.
- Keyword matching: There are actually 4 different types of keywords you can target in Google Ads: broad match, broad match modifier, phrase match, and exact match. Google Ads default to broad match, but that option is often the least effective route.
In addition to paying attention to these metrics, it’s important to keep an eye on how they change over time, probably on a daily, or at least semi-daily, basis.
Because many small businesses don’t have the time or expertise to run successful Google Ads campaigns, Google created Adwords Express to automate this process (and then eventually rolled AdWords Express into Google Ads as Smart Campaigns).
AdWords vs AdWords Express
On the surface, the two products seem comparable:
From this table created by Google, it would even appear that you’re getting more from AdWords Express/Smart Campaigns. After all, you get automated management and a solution if you don’t have a website. All you seem to miss out on is ads on other related websites and advanced ad formats. Where’s the bad?
Like most automated systems, however, Smart Campaigns simply aren’t there yet when it comes to managing your ads.
We recently ran an experiment. Because we wanted to be able to steer clients toward Google Ads or Smart Campaigns, we ran an ad as a Smart Campaign for a month and then ran the same ad in as a fully optimized Google Ad. Here’s what happened:
- Our Cost-Per-Click (CPC) dropped by over 2000%: You read that correctly. The same ad running on AdWords cost 2000% less per click than it did on AdWords Express.
- Budget: We kept the budget the same to ensure reliability of the experiment.
- Click-Through-Rate (CTR): At the same time that our cost for running our ads went down, our average clicks went up by 800%.
What Happened? Keyword Matching
Remember when we said that there are 4 different types of keywords you can target when running a Google ad? And remember when we said that broad keyword matching was typically the least effective method? Well, what that table above doesn’t tell you is that Smart Campaigns default to broad matching.
The reason this makes a difference is that there are such things as “negative keywords.” Negative keywords are so-called because they negatively impact the likelihood of your ad displaying. This is often because they’re too general.
Consider the following keywords for example:
- websites
- custom wordpress websites
“Websites” would be a negative keyword for us, because we only specialize in WordPress websites, so people clicking on our ad from the keyword website might get frustrated if they want a website built in some other technology, such as Joomla! or Drupal. “Custom wordpress websites” is a much better keyword for us because it more accurately describes what we do.
Because you don’t have full control over what keywords your ad is matched with in Smart Campaigns, you might find yourself paying more for worse results than you would with Google Ads.
The Winner in the AdWords (Google Ads) vs AdWords Express (Smart Campaigns) Debate? Google Ads by a Mile
Based on our experiment and some other research we’ve done lately, we will definitely be recommending to our clients that they take the time to learn the full version of Google Ads or hire a consultant to run ads for them in that platform. PPC advertising is simply too complex to outsource key decisions to technology at this point. Perhaps in the future we’ll run our experiment again to see if Smart Campaigns has improved.
Google AdWords Pros and Cons for Small Businesses - Content Garden
April 19, 2017 @ 2:20 pm
[…] this, Google recently rolled out Adwords Express, an easier-to-use version of AdWords. Based on our own independent research, however, we can’t recommend this product as it ends up costing considerablymore per click […]
January 19, 2018 @ 9:08 am
Great comparison. How do we get Google to not default us to Express?
January 22, 2018 @ 5:41 pm
A great question. To do that, you need to skip their usual onboarding procedure from something like Google My Business and just go directly to: https://adwords.google.com/
January 31, 2018 @ 11:00 am
Thanks for this share.
Recently one of my client forced (almost) me to shift to AdWords Express from AdWords as they heard that Express one is going to be more profitable for their business. I told that AdWords Express will cost much more because all targeted keywords are broad match there by default. But finally I did what my client told me. Now they will know why I was reluctant to use AdWords Express.
January 31, 2018 @ 6:20 pm
Yes, it’s always tricky when a client asks you to do something you know isn’t in their best interest. Ultimately, it’s their money, though. Let us know how it goes. Good luck!
February 13, 2018 @ 3:10 pm
No arguments here! Sorry you had a bad experience. Let us know if you’d like to talk about some better solutions.
February 20, 2018 @ 2:16 pm
You might want to engage us for our 1-hour free consultation. There are definitely ways to improve your cost-per-click in AdWords. Let me know if you’re interested and we can set that up.
February 28, 2018 @ 11:16 am
I have been using AdWords express, But switched to Adwords just now. It would be great if you could assist in the process.
February 28, 2018 @ 1:43 pm
Happy to help!
April 9, 2018 @ 12:38 pm
Marlon,
Good catch. I’ve revised the sentence to read: “You read that correctly. The same ad running on AdWords cost 2000% less per click than it did on AdWords Express.”
Cheers!
May 15, 2018 @ 5:24 pm
Adwords won’t let me use “WordPress” “WPress” “Word Press” or “WP” in any of my ads. Like you, I only do WordPress sites now. Got on a chat with them and they are so useless and couldn’t give me any suggestions. The WordPress website itself says that we are allowed to use “WP” but Google still flags it…
May 15, 2018 @ 6:14 pm
Hmmm. I’ve never tried to run a WordPress ad on AdWords. According to this you can’t use the term because it’s trademarked: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Ad-Approval-Policy/Any-problem-with-quot-WordPress-quot-word-in-my-ad-text/td-p/594656#
June 22, 2018 @ 9:14 am
I work for a church that received grant money to use towards AdWords Express.
I am new to the position, and have never used AdWords Express before (or AdWords for that matter 😉 ). We have some ads (free English as a second language classes) that have received a lot of clicks, and then some ads (advertising a charity run) that have received none. I want to make sure that our ads are effective and that we’re using this grant money wisely.
Can you offer assistance with that, please?
July 5, 2018 @ 12:48 pm
Absolutely. Please email us at guiseppe@contentgarden.org to set up a free 1-hour consultation.
October 8, 2018 @ 11:00 am
Guiseppe, you are allowed to use Trademarked terms so long as you have written consent of the owner. From the sounds of Robert’s comment, WordPress has written consent somewhere that WP can be used. I’d recommend just letting google know and they can then review the ad with that in mind. It’s worth a shot! 🙂
October 9, 2018 @ 3:25 pm
Robert,
Here’s a different perspective! Worth a shot!
November 7, 2018 @ 4:33 pm
What Shan said is correct. WordPress says in their documentation that we are allowed to use “WP” without permission in advertising, but Google won’t allow it still and there is no way to get through to the mega-corp and get someone that can actually make this change across the board instead of ad by ad…
November 12, 2018 @ 1:14 pm
Robert,
You can contact AdWords customer support at: 1-866-2GOOGLE (1-866-246-6453) for United States.
The Google AdWords support number is open from 9:00 am – 8:00 pm EST Monday – Friday.
We’ve had to call on behalf of clients before. Typically the customer support specialists are pretty good at resolving issues.
September 12, 2018 @ 11:02 am
I´ve running an Adwords Express campaign for several months now: numbers seems nice, but the bounce rate which is about 70% is way too high and this ain’t right al all! I am more like a self-taught kinda guy. I tried before Adwords (the regular one) and looked overwhelming, with switches and bolts and lights everywhere. Seemed too complex for me to start the initial setup process, so when offered the Expreses version I jumped to the chances.
Now I see why this was a bad idea. I will jump again to the regular Adwords and figure it about how to make it run. Thank you for this article. This has become my shifting point!
September 12, 2018 @ 1:23 pm
You’re welcome! Please let us know if you need some help.
How To Market Your Small Business Right Now - Content Garden
January 15, 2019 @ 3:14 pm
[…] than you might otherwise. There are a few different options out there, but Google AdWords (NOT AdWords Express) is the gold standard and gives you the best bang for your […]
January 28, 2019 @ 2:36 am
Thanks for pulling the curtain back and giving us an inside glimpse, at the way things should be, if we’re serious about using PPC strategies successfully!
January 28, 2019 @ 2:28 pm
Thanks! Education is a big part of our mission.
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April 13, 2020 @ 9:36 pm
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