The Benefits of Google AdWords Express

Benefits of Google AdWords Express

Recently, I have been asked by our clients to explain the benefits of Google AdWords Express (formerly known as Google Boost). Google has written a fairly straight forward post about this newly re-branded service which I have summarized below.

Google AdWords Express

Customers looking for local products and/or services already search Google to find what they are looking for. By creating a Google Places business listing, you can make sure these local customers will be able to find you online through Google Search. When you add Google AdWords Express, you can advertise your business on Google and Google Maps and attract more visitors to your website or to your Google Place page.

Google AdWords Express acts similar to Google AdWords in that you can set your monthly advertising budget and determine your search keywords and Google will display your ad based upon the search criteria entered by that local customer. The advertiser will only pay for the clicks that their ad actually receives. It’s that simple! AdWords Express aims to reduce the learning curve of setting up an ad campaign by shifting some of the heavy lifting over to Google’s end. For example, the automated system recommends keywords and bidding amounts rather than expecting the business owner to have that expertise.

Unlike AdWords, the business owner does not have to create multiple ads per Ad Group. There is only one Ad per campaign thus limiting the amount of work to be done by the business owner BUT the owner can create multiple campaigns targeting different keywords per location.

AdWords Express Benefits

Some of the benefits of advertising with AdWords Express are:

Create an online ad quickly and easily (faster than AdWords)
Attract more local customers to your website or Google Places page
Pay only when people click on your ad not for impressions
Ability to measure the effectiveness of your ads in your Google Places dashboard
Integrated into your existing Google Adwords dashboard for easier analysis and reporting
May reduce click costs because AdWords Express already has the location of your business on the ad
Created for the Small Business owner for it’s ease of use and local target audience

Google states that “Google Adwords Express is the quickest, easiest way to advertise your business on Google. Just provide a few details, and your ad will be ready in minutes”. Although true for many businesses, if the business does not select the appropriate service category (there are many per vertical) they can quickly pay for frivolous clicks that do not convert into leads.

As a Marketing Practitioner, I actually have some clients integrate Adwords Express into their existing Online Advertising strategy. Some clients actually receive a better ROI from AdWords Express than with traditional Google AdWords PPC thus shifting some of the funds from traditional PPC over to AdWords Express. This NOT always the case but because AdWords Express integrates into your existing AdWords dashboard, you can quickly determine the cost per click and cost per conversion this making this solution transparent from a budgetary standpoint.