Good for Google. They're rebranding Google Adwords to "Google Ads," but it doesn't seem to just be an aesthetic rebrand.

It appears that it will actually mean something to marketers and digital strategy practitioners and everyone from CMOs to Small Business Owners.

The announcement on the rebrand is here, and the announcement on what it means for small business marketing is here.

We've seen a lot of positive results from Google Adwords Express over the last three years for our clients, as opposed to traditional Google Adwords, which has become way overpriced and hard to justify cost per conversion on.

Meanwhile the ad platform itself has gotten more and more antiquated and confusing to use, slopping together Adwords (contextual and display ads) with Adwords Express with YouTube ads.

Not to mention, anyone who has ever tried to access Adwords Express from Adwords has wasted hours of time trying to figure it out. They've also stumbled over the fact that you can run Adwords Express ads right from Google My Business, but there's no clear messaging and it's very easy to end up disorganized and frustrated.

However, Adwords Express works, and it's clear in this article that Google has taken notice and is refocusing the platform to help Small Business Owners. It seems they're updating Google Adwords Express and calling it Google Ads "Smart Campaigns."

This is what a Google Ads rep said when asked "Are Smart Campaigns Basically Going To Be The New Version of Google Adwords?" 

Hi there, thanks for reaching out. Smart campaigns is built on the best of AdWords Express technology. Integration of Smart campaigns in Google Ads enables us to serve advertisers of all sizes with one simple product. This is just the beginning as we’ll add new features that help drive results with ease and simplicity. Hope this helps! Do let us know if you have any follow-up questions.

So I'm excited, of course, to see if Google Ads is easier to use, easier to understand and more integrated with the other Google Products like Analytics and Search Console, while still doing the most important thing - helping businesses generated leads, customers and sales.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Paul Hickey, Founder / CEO / Lead Strategist at Data Driven Design, LLC has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 10 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing and Email Marketing. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.