How To Switch From Google Ads Express To Google Ads Expert

So you've started working with Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) by creating a Google Ads Express account and you've been running some basic ad campaigns. While Express is great for the beginner or those who simply want a steady stream of traffic without all the complications it does severely limit your ability to optimise as all strategies for auction bidding are handled by Google.

If you would like a little more control over what you spend, how you spend it and where you spend it then its time to switch to Google Ads Expert. 

So what is Google Ads Express and how is it different from Google Ads Expert?

Google Ads express is a far more simplified platform for running pay-per-click (PPC) ads. AdWords proper is a very complex advertisement platform with highly robust functionality. For someone who hasn’t spent hours upon hours learning how to master Google Ads, it can easily be overwhelming to use. In fact, I would strongly advise against trying to use Google Ads to run an ad campaign without proper training.

Google Ads Express greatly reduces the complexity, making it more inviting for less-experienced people to run a basic ad campaign. The ad creation wizard helps to make the process quite intuitive for people with more modest digital marketing skills and removes all the complex campaign optimisation options and allows machine learning to run your campaigns as they see fit.

The downside, however, is that you're competing with seasoned PPC managers for traffic who will know how to use bidding and Google will just run your budget as they see fit.

How to switch to Google Ads Expert

If you would like to begin the switch over I would recommend that you start by pausing all active Smart Campaigns if you have any active campaign before switching to Google Ads by following the below mention steps:

1. Click All campaigns.
2. In the "Campaigns" overview, find your campaign's card.
3. Click the button on the bottom left of the card to pause your campaign.

Note: You can click this button again to re-enable your campaign. Once your campaign is paused, you switch to Expert Mode by following the below-mentioned steps so that afterwards, you can create a regular Ad campaign, which you can control manually :

1. Sign in to your account at https://ads.google.com
2. Click the tools icon and select Switch to Expert mode.

Once you've switched over you will have access to more granular campaign creation tools.

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If you require a more detailed guide on how to create your profile or your listing, then we highly recommend you check out the following articles. 

• How to create a nichemarketer profile 
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Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts on paid search.

• Google Launches Optimize and AdWords integration
• 10 Reasons Why Your Business Needs AdWords
• AdWords Doubles The Number of Available Sitelinks
• Google Ads Now Subject To VAT In South Africa
• Improve Your Adwords Performance With GA Goals
• Google launches Adwords Ad Bot Pilot Program
• The new Account Health Score Beta on Google Adwords?
• AdWords Expanded Text Ads Could Get Even Longer

Tags: Paid Search , PPC