We live in the middle of the most competitive business environment that’s ever existed throughout human history.

Today anyone – ANYONE – with a next to nothing budget and online access can build a global business in an afternoon, collecting sales from customers around the world before dinner, and start competing with major corporations with multi-million-dollar budgets almost straightaway.

Paid advertising is a big piece of the competitive puzzle these days, particularly online. Obviously, anytime you’re talking about online advertising you’re going to be looking into Google and their AdWords program.

The gold standard of paid advertising today (even though Facebook is making major inroads on a daily basis), Google AdWords, help level the playing field significantly for small businesses – but only if you know how to make the most of all it has to offer.

Creating campaigns on AdWords as a newbie marketer can be a real uphill battle, but that’s why Google rolled out AdWords Express.

Branding itself as a game changer, particularly for new marketers, AdWords Express described as a “set it and forget it” kind of marketing platform. It’s basically AdWords on autopilot, “hand-holding” new marketers every step of the way while at the same time promising to offer the same rich and robust marketing opportunities that traditional AdWords brings to the table.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Steer clear of Google AdWords Express

While this platform was definitely built with only the best intentions in mind, the finished product is one of the most watered down paid advertising platforms you could spend money on – and the odds are pretty good that new marketers are going to waste a lot more money on this platform than they ever would have on Google AdWords alone.

There are a multitude of different reasons you’ll want to avoid this platform, but the biggest reasons have to include:

• You aren’t going to have granular control over the keywords you focus on
• Your ads are going to be anything but laser targeted
• You get little data and feedback on your advertising campaigns

… And, maybe worst of all, you aren’t going to be able to track conversions – which means you’re going to be flying blind 99.99% of the time on this platform.

Sure, traditional Google AdWords can be a little daunting with a steep learning curve for marketers that haven’t ever advertised online. But its much better to jump right into the deep end of that pool with both feet and learn how to sink or swim immediately than tinker around in the shallow end of the AdWords Express and discover that your marketing budget was squandered through almost no fault of your own.

Zero Granular Control Over Keywords

The marketing keywords that you target as a paid advertiser online are the bread and butter of your campaign, the foundation that everything else is built on top of.

By figuring out exactly what your ideal prospects are searching for exactly and then targeting those specific keywords you’re able to get your advertisements – and eventually your products and your services – directly in front of these interested eyeballs that stand a good chance of converting into paying customers.

Traditional AdWords gives you infinite control over your keywords even at the most granular levels. Google AdWords Express does not.

There’s very little flexibility here. You provide Google with a URL that they automatically scan for relevant keywords and then they run campaigns based on what they find. That’s anything but useful as you’re at the mercy of their scanning robots with this approach.

Shotgun Style Approach at Displaying Your Ads

In online marketing landscape as competitive as this one the last thing you can afford to do is waste your marketing budget, but that’s exactly what the Google AdWords Express approach forces on you with its shotgun style “targeting”.

Your ads are going to be blasted across the entire Google network with this kind of approach, showing up in Google search results, on Google maps, across the Google Display platform, and with different Google Search Partners – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Because you have no way to funnel your marketing efforts to profitable parts of the Google paid advertising network, and a way to shut down wasteful spending in areas that aren’t ever going to convert, a big chunk of your budget is just kind of wasted in the wind when you run Google AdWords Express campaigns.

You Get Left in the Dark

Unbelievably (especially since Google is built to take advantage of every single drop of digital information and data they collect around-the-clock, every second of every day) you aren’t going to be provided with nearly as much information or data as you need to make smart decisions about your campaigns when you go with Google AdWords Express.

You won’t be able to track where your campaigns are being run, you won’t be able to pay attention to the broad distribution of your advertising, you won’t be able to track the broad matching of the keywords they have selected for you – but worst of all you won’t even be able to track conversions, an absolute crime when it comes to online marketing.

Without being able to track conversion rates you’ll never know whether or not you are running a profitable campaign, a campaign that is tanking your business, or a campaign that just sort of limping along on life support.

At the end of the day, as a savvy business owner your money can be much better invested on other platforms – including the traditional Google AdWords experience.