In your research about how Google ads can benefit your business you likely heard about google ads express at some point. Google ads express is pretty straight forward; you put in your business name, a two sentence description of what it is your business does, your monthly budget and your credit card information. It actually is this simple, but that is not necessarily a good thing which we will discuss later. 

A google ads expert on the other hand, will set up a full google ads account with all of the features and integrations possible. They will have an understanding of the complicated features and know how to use them. The many customizations available on google ads is what makes google ads tricky to use but it makes it more effective in advertising. Below we have summarized the key differences between using ads express and hiring professionals to manage your google ads. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

	Ads express	Ads professional
quick and easy set up	yes	no
automated management	yes	no
advanced ads (e.g. video,remarketing)	no	yes
Data and reports interpreted for you	no	yes
Custom ads unique to your business	no	yes
Control timing, targeting, and optimization of ads	no	yes
pay only for clicks	yes	yes
mobile ads	yes	yes
ads on google search and maps	yes	yes

Optimization Strategy

Ads Express is going to do automated optimizations that benefit google. Their goal is to get more people to click on your ads so that they can charge you the full budget without too much care for what the traffic does once it is on your site. A google ads professional is going to optimize the ad campaigns based on what the traffic is doing on your website. Our goal is not to get you as much traffic as possible but to get you the most relevant traffic possible. We are optimizing for conversions, not traffic and are using on-site metrics to help us determine the value of those visitors.

• Different businesses have different goals. A gym wants to sell memberships, a store wants to sell products and a content creator wants to sell subscriptions; all of these business models require different strategies which we can employ. Ads express will only employ the same blanket strategy for each.
• If your business wants to dedicate a campaign to a specific promotion or event, Ads express cannot perform this function; However a full ads account can. We can create an ad dedicated to showing your specific promotion to a specific audience for a specific time frame.

Targeting

Ads Express has limited targeting options to reach the proper audience with your ads. A Google ads Professional will make personas for your clients and develop a demographic targeting methodology to reach those people specifically. This includes optimizations for location, age, gender, language, time of day, interest groups, and more. These targeting methodologies are not available to ads express

• Ads need to be targeted, Unlike Ads express we are able to target specific audiences such as older, younger, male, female and people who express interest in specific activities such as outdoor sports or computers. Ads express targets everyone and that is an expensive and ineffective list. We target the audience that is most likely to make use of your services.
• The most important factor about google ads as a whole are the keywords used, and ads express does an indirect poor job at this. Ads express only uses broad match keywords, this means that the keywords are set up to include any and all synonyms; at first glance this seems like it would be a good thing but this costs you more money and does not get you any return. For example if you own a catering company and ads express bids on the phrase “caterers in zip code 12345”, because ads express uses broad match keywords  this ad may be shown to people looking for a buffet in zip code 54321; and if those people click on your ad, you pay for it. This is one example of the many specific details needed to make your ads functional that ads express is unable to do.

Reporting analysis

Ad express reports show an interpretation of your ad’s performance specifically designed to make it look rosy and bright. However, these reports lack the needed professional interpretation to make a plan for improvement and iteration of the campaign. An ads expert will be able to look at what is happening and properly segment out the areas that need to be improved.

• A professional chef can make the best use of cooking ingredients, ads data are understood best by an ads professional. More important than our ability to interpret the data, we can apply it to improve the existing ads.
• We will interpret and apply the data for you as well as clean it up and present it to you in an easier to digest format. We will create a custom report that displays the information you care about, and we are always happy to discuss the details of the report with you

Google Ad Extensions

Extensions for ads include things like phone numbers, call outs, site links and more. These ad enhancements can make a huge difference in the performance of your ads and are not fully available within an Ads Express account.

• Ad extensions allow your ad to stand out compared to other ads; Ad enhancements are features that highlight your ad or business to put front and center in a google search. Users will be able to see images, phone numbers, specific pages highlighted and more. 
• Below is an example of a google ads campaign that is making use of sitelink extensions and call extensions. This allows the ad to take up more space in the search so it is more visible; and offers users information about what you have to offer before clicking on the ad; the other ad is just the ad. One of the ads below is created with Ads Express the other is done by an ads professional, can you tell which is which? .

Support

Getting in contact with a support person at google is just as challenging as you would expect it to be. Google is a massive company so it shouldn’t be surprising.

• When you do get a person they will know nothing about your business because it was not their assignment to know your business. For solutions regarding your question or concern they will refer to their script of solutions, their solutions and answers will be repeats of the “help” section in ads express.
• We, like other ads professionals, are people you can easily contact if you have questions or concerns about your google ads. We can offer general information or solutions and specific information or solutions specific to your needs.

It is important to remember that Google is a business, it is in their best interest to do what generates the most profit for them. Google obviously has a long track record of success so it is easy, to take the easy approach and rely on google ads express, but doing so in this case is much like leaving a fox in charge of the hen house. We are happy to provide you with more information if you would like to know more than what is covered in this brief explanation, feel free to contact us!