The Work Media Internet Marketing Blog

Earlier this week I was trying to import a Google campaign into Yahoo!. Yahoo! has this tool that is supposed to convert a spreadsheet with Google campaign data into the correct format to work with Yahoo!. Well, that thing seems to be a piece of crap. We ended up having to manually move lots of columns around, change column names, and add lots of data that Yahoo! needed. It was a pain in the butt. And then it still didn't work...at first. If you are trying to do this same thing, here is what we had to do to make it work.

1. We had to first create a campaign in Yahoo! to hold the new campaign data. Unless I'm wrong, you can't actually create a new campaign by importing the data - you can only add data to an existing campaign.

2. We had to specify our newly created campaign ID in the import spreadsheet.

We had also originally specified IDs for our new ad groups (which we made up), but Yahoo! did not like this. So...you DO specify a campaign ID in the import file, but you DO NOT specify ad group IDs.

There was a lot of work that had to be done on the import file (which was created by doing an export from Google AdWords Editor, which we have blogged extensively about), but the frustrating thing was when we got to the point of importing the file and it still didn't work. That is until we took the above steps.

If you need help managing your Google or Yahoo! campaigns (or any other search engine), feel free to contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, web site marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing

I had a good day yesterday working on our Google AdWords management application. I started implementing keyword research functionality. I created a .NET user control and class that lets the user perform keyword research, using Google's keyword data, which is returned in the form of a datatable with checkboxes that allow the user to specify the particular keywords he wants to use. Then we added a couple of functions which we think gives the user a lot more flexibility than when using Google's AdWords interface. After selecting his keywords, the user can either add them to any existing ad group in the campaign or use them to create a new ad group. Essentially, we have broken keyword research/addition out of the ad group creation process and made it a standalone process. We feel that this will greatly speed up the process of creating new ad groups or adding keywords to existing ad groups.

Speed is going to be a critical aspect of our application. The online Google AdWords interface seems like it is tailored toward users who need a step-by-step, "take me by the hand" approach. Google is probably right in designing its interface for the inexperienced user. But for the experienced user, the interface is slow and clumsy, and often not very practical.

Google does provide a much quicker, leaner AdWords management tool, the Google AdWords Editor, which we have blogged about extensively. The AdWords Editor is an offline, client-side application that can be used to create ad groups and other account elements, and move things around quickly. However, since it is completely disconnected from the Internet, it has no research functionality. We feel that our application, which will run on-line, bridges the gap between the off-line tool and the default online AdWords interface. It won't be as quick to use as AdWords Editor, since it will still have to move data back and fourth from Google's servers, but it will be a more complete management environment.

I would be fibbing if I said that we had this application completely laid out and designed before we started coding. We needed to get a feel for what we could with the AdWords API in order to know what we could do. And the best way to do that was just to start coding. So the application is very organic - growing as we program it, right before our eyes.

If you have some particular features you would like to see in such an application, feel free to email your ideas to us at Info@WorkMedia.net. And as we always say, please contact us if you need some help managing your Google AdWords or other paid search campaign. You can email or call us at 888-299-4837.

Labels: AdWords Editor, api, application development, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, web site marketing

In Google AdWords Editor, when you are on the Ad Groups screen/tab, there are two options for making bulk bid changes: Advanced Bid Changes and Advanced Content Bid Changes. They accomplish exactly the same thing for search and content bids, respectively.

Clicking one of the buttons brings up the Advanced Bid Changes popup screen. The tool allows you to increase or decrease bids for the selected ad groups by a particular percentage or dollar amount. You can also set a ceiling or floor for bids.

For instance, if you want to raise all of your bids by 10% but bid no more than $2 in any particular ad group, you would select the "Increase bids by:" radio button, type "10" in the text box, and set the dropdown list to "percent". Then you would click the checkbox labeled "Set bids no higher than:" and type "2" in the text box. Then click the "Change Bids" button.

Alternately, if you want to decrease all bids by $.50 but want to maintain a minimum bid of $1, you would click the "Decrease bids by:" radio button, type ".50" in the text box, and set the dropdown list to "USD". Then you would click the "Set bids no lower than:" radio button and type "1" in the text box.

If you are on the Keywords screen, you have a similar option (also labeled "Advanced Bid Changes") that does the same thing for keyword bids, but it also has a couple of extra options. One option is to raise the minimum cost per click for selected keywords that are inactive to the minimum for activation. The other option is to remove keyword-level maximum CPCs and use the default ad group bid. There is also an additional constraint option to disallow setting keyword maximum CPCs to values lower than their minimum CPC bids.

If you could use some help actively managing your Google AdWords account, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

When working with text ads (in the Text Ads tab) in Google AdWords Editor, at the very bottom of the screen are two very handy functions - Replace Text and Advanced URL Changes.

Replace Text does just what it says - it replaces text. It works just like find/replace functionality in word processing software. First you select an ad or a group of ads, then click the "Replace Text" link. In the box that appears, type the text you want to replace in the "Find text" text box and the text you would like to replace it with in the "Replace with" text box. You can specify whether to replace text in all of the ad fields, or in a particular one such as the headline, display URL, or one of the description lines. When you are ready to run the replace function, just click the "Find Matches" button. A popup box will appear that will require you to confirm the replace if any matches are found.

The Advanced URL Changes function allows you to do the following for a single ad or a group of selected ads:

Change the URL. To do this, type the desired URL in the "Set each URL to:" box.

Append a text string to each URL. To do this, type the string in the text box labeled "Append this text to each URL:". This is a very handy function if you want to append a parameter to a set of ads for tracking purposes. For instance, if you want to append a parameter to each URL so that you can identify the source ad group that generated traffic to your site, you could set the string to something like "?Source=Google-Ad_Group_Name". Then when you look at the analytics for your site, you can identify the traffic that originated from the ad group because it will have the ad group name appended to the end of the URL.

Remove a parameter from each URL. To do this, type the parameter name in the text box labeled "Remove URL parameter with this name". Continuing with the example above, if each URL already has the Source parameter but you want to remove it, you could type "Source" into the text box to remove it from a set of ads at once. To remove it from all ads, you would need to make sure that all ads were selected.

These functions let you make changes to your destination URL in bulk, which can save you a lot of time. Play around with them and see what uses you can come up with.

For help making the most of your Google AdWords campaign, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

The Google AdWords Editor has a Tools link on the main menu that has four options: Find Duplicate Keywords, Keyword Grouper, Show Ads with Selected Images, and Settings.

Find Duplicate Keywords is a very useful function for making sure you are not duplicating keywords across ad groups. To use it, select Tools/Find Duplicate Keywords, then select strict or loose word order (whether or not the separate words in the keyword have to be in the same order), whether to search for duplicates account-wide or within a specific campaign or ad group, and whether or not the keywords have to have the same match type to qualify as duplicates. Then click the "Find Duplicate Keywords" button.

The keywords found to be duplicate are listed in the Keywords screen/tab, grouped together by ad group. To eliminate any duplicates, you can select the keyword, then delete it, or right-click/cut, or set its status to Paused. We recommend pausing them, just in case you decide to use it again later.

The Keyword Grouper tool will automatically divide a set of keywords in an ad group into many smaller, more specific groups. One of the keys to successful pay-per-click campaign management is having ad groups devoted to a specific, finite set of keywords so there is tight congruency between the keywords and ads. The Keyword Grouper tool makes this easy because it does the work for you. It is often the case that an AdWords account begins with just a few ad groups which each contain lots of keywords. This helps keep things manageable and makes it easier to launch the campaign. But over time, as more time is devoted to the campaign, it becomes clear that there are sets of keywords that would probably perform better if they were broken out into their own ad groups.

To use the Keyword Grouper tool, select Tools/Keyword Grouper from the main menu. Then select the campaign and ad group within the campaign you would like to break up. Then click the "Generate common terms" button. This will extract the keywords from the specified ad group. To focus the generated keyword list, you can type words that should not appear in any of the returned keywords by typing them into the "Ignore these words" text box. Then click "Next".

AdWords Editor will then show you a preview of new ad groups it would create from the list, based on common terms shared among groups of the keywords. If you plan on creating new ads from scratch for all of the new ad groups, check the radio button that says "No, don't create any text ads...". However, it will probably save you some time to check the radio button that says "Yes, copy text ads..." This will automatically populate the ad groups with the same ads used in the original source ad group (or another ad group that you specify). Then you can go back through each new ad group and modify the ads as necessary. Finally, click the "Finish" button.

The Settings option on the Tools menu lets you specify various options, such as whether to hide deleted campaigns, ad groups, or ads. You can also specify if you want to download deleted and ended campaigns and ad groups. You also have the option to connect to an HTTP proxy and the account language.

The Tools menu contains some powerful features that can save you a lot of time. Get to know it - it could become your best friend.

If you could use some time-saving help for managing your AdWords account, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Google AdWords Editor lets you export AdWords account data in several different formats - as a CSV file, as an AdWords Editor archive file, as an AdWords Editor sharing file, and as an HTML file. File exporting options are available via the File link on the main menu at the top of the interface, or by right-clicking on an account, campaign, or ad group name.

The "Export for Archiving" and "Export for Sharing" options do essentially the same thing. They both export AdWords Editor data in a format that can be re-opened in AdWords Editor. For example, if you wanted to move your account and data settings from one instance of AdWords Editor to another, you could export the account data with the Export for Archiving option, save the file (a .aea file) to your computer, then move the file to another computer. On the new computer, you would use the File/Import Account Snapshot links to import the data into AdWords Editor. Imported data can be in either the .aea or .aes file format. The .aes files are created by using the "Export for Sharing" option to export your data, rather than "Export for Archiving".

The other two export options, "Export to CSV" and "Export to HTML" are for exporting the data to look at in other programs. The CSV option creates tab-delimited text files which can be opened up in spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel. This is useful for analytical types that like having all the data displayed for them in one big file.

The HTML option creates a nicely-formatted HTML option that can be viewed in a web browser. This option is useful for creating a file that can be easily viewed by anyone. If you have clients or other interested parties who want to see the keywords and ads that comprise an ad group or campaign, you can create an HTML file and give them exactly the information they need. Work Media has used this option on numerous occasions to get client approval for the keywords and ads we are using before launching a campaign.

What exactly you can export depends on what is selected in the left-hand side of the screen. For instance, if the account name is selected, from the File menu you have options to export the entire account or export the current view (if exporting to CSV). If a campaign is selected, you have options to export the entire account or the currently selected campaign. If an ad group is selected, you have options to export the account, current campaign, or the current ad group.

Using AdWords Editor's file exporting options, you have a lot of freedom to export all or part of your AdWords account in several different formats - either for data movement purposes or account viewing purposes.

If you would like help managing your Google AdWords account, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, web marketing, web site marketing

We thought we would step back a moment in this blog post and discuss each of the tabbed sections on the right-hand side of the Google AdWords interface.

The right-hand side of the Google AdWords Editor is divided into eight different screens, with tabs at the top to move from one screen to the next. The screens/tabs are: Keywords, Sites, Negatives, Text Ads, Image Ads, Mobile Ads, Ad Groups, and Campaigns. Following is a description of each screen.

Keywords. The Keywords screen displays all the keywords for the campaign or for a specific ad group, if an ad group is selected on the left-hand screen. By default, the information displayed for each keyword is the type, status, minimum CPC, and destination URL. If stats are turned on, then it also displays average CPC, total cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion.

Sites. The Sites screen is only enabled for site-targeted campaigns. By default, it displays the site URL, status, maximum CPC, and destination URL for each site in the campaign. If stats are enabled, it also shows the clicks, impressions, click-through rate, average CPM (cost per thousand impressions), cost, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion for each site.

Negatives. The Negatives screen shows negative keywords or sites for a campaign. It also displays the type.

Text Ads. The Text Ads screen shows the headline, first line description, second line description, display URL, destination URL, and status for each text ad in an account, campaign or ad group. If stats are enabled, then it also shows the clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, Average CPM, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion for each text ad.

Image Ads. The Image Ads screen shows the image, name, dimensions, display URL, destination URL, and status for each image ad in the account, campaign, or ad group. If stats are enabled, it also displays the clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion.

Mobile Ads. The Mobile Ads screen displays the headline, description, business name, business phone, country, display URL, destination URL, markup language, status, and mobile ad type for each mobile ad in the account, campaign, or ad group. If stats are enabled, it also displays the clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate and cost per conversion.

Ad Groups. The Ad Groups screen displays the ad group name, status, maximum CPC, maximum content CPC, and maximum CPM for each ad group. If stats are enabled, it also displays the clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate and cost per conversion.

Campaigns. The Campaigns screen shows the campaign name, status, daily budget, start date, end date, whether or not search or content is used, whether or not specific content bids are set, and if budget optimizer is turned on for each campaign. If stats are enabled, it also displays clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC, cost, average position, conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion.

For each screen described above, clicking on an item in the data section displays details/options about that item in the box below. For example, clicking on a campaign name on the Campaigns screen results in the display of a series of text boxes that contain the campaign name, daily budget, status, search or content networks, and the start and end dates for the campaign. You also have options to edit the language and geographic targeting of the campaign.

Now that we have described each screen in detail, we advise you to just click around the AdWords Editor interface to get comfortable with it.

And, as always, please call Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net if there is anything we can do to help your paid search campaigns be successful.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, web marketing, web site marketing

Google AdWords Editor lets you create draft accounts, which are accounts that do not get uploaded when you click the button to post selected changes. The reasons you would want to set up a draft account are numerous, including:

You want to build out a new campaign and set everything up before actually adding the campaign to your account.

You want to build out new ad groups while maintaining existing ad groups through AdWords Editor.

You have a planned schedule of campaigns or ad groups and want to work ahead and to build out the campaigns without adding them to the account.

Or maybe you just want to practice building campaigns without risking negative effects on the account.

Whatever your reasons, AdWords Editor makes it easy. Here's how. Right-click on the account name on the left-hand side of the screen and click either "Add Draft Keyword-targeted Campaign" or "Add Draft Site-targeted Campaign". Or you can click the Data button on the top menu, then Campaigns, then the link to create a keyword or site-targeted campaign.

Once you create the campaign, you do the same thing you do with any campaign - specify the campaign name, daily budget, status, start/end dates, and whether the campaign is for search, content, or both. You can also specify the language and geographic targeting. The first time you set the campaign details, you will also have a form below that to add your first ad group. Type in a name and maximum cost per click, then click the Create Ad Group and Go to Keywords button.

When the time comes that the campaign is ready to be launched, all you have to do is change its status to active or paused.

Work Media is here to help you maximize the effectiveness of your paid search campaigns. Call us today at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

Continuing with our Google Power Users series focusing on the Google AdWords Editor...

Google AdWords Editor can be used to quickly set up site-targeted campaigns. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the account name in the left-hand menu.
2. Click "Add Site-targeted Campaign".

The new campaign will appear in the campaigns list. Click the Campaigns tab to set the attributes of the campaign, such as campaign name, daily budget, status, and start and end dates.

To set the sites where your ads will run, do the following:

1. Click the Sites tab.
2. If you have a single site to add, click the Add Site button.
3. If you have multiple sites to add (which is more likely), click the Make Multiple Changes button, then "Add/Update Multiple Sites".

If you opt to select multiple sites, a popup box will appear in which you type in or paste multiple URLs. With regard to adding sites, the AdWords Editor is lacking because you do not have any way to research sites. So for this, you will probably want to begin the process of setting up a site-targeted campaign in Google to generate a list of strong sites to run your ads. Or you can add sites discovered from other sources and let Google tell you if they are members of the Google content network.

If you could use some help with your Google AdWords management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, web marketing

Here is a quick tip on using AdWords Editor for setting up separate search and content campaigns.

Google's AdWords Editor application is not without its bugs. One thing we would really like to be able to quickly do is create a copy of a campaign and then change it from a search campaign to a content campaign. We talked in a previous post about the advantage of splitting your content campaigns from your search campaigns in order to give each its own budget. Ideally, we should be able to make a copy of a campaign in AdWords Editor, make one a search campaign and the other a content campaign, and be done with it.

But it just doesn't work. At least not as of the time of this writing. The AdWords Editor throws errors when this is done.

But there is a sort-of work around that cuts at least some time out of the process.

What you have to do is create the shell of the content campaign in the AdWords online interface. It can have a single ad group, a single ad and a single keyword. Just enough to get it started. Then open up AdWords Editor and use the Get Recent Changes button to pull down the new campaign.

Once you have the shell of the campaign downloaded into AdWords Editor, you can use the editor's copy/paste functionality to add the ad groups from the corresponding search campaign. Since you can copy an entire ad group, you will automatically add all of the ads and keywords for each ad group. You will also need to check the settings for the campaign you copied to create the content campaign to make sure it is set for search only; otherwise, you will have duplicate settings.

If you need some help implementing an effective Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

The AdWords Editor makes it very easy to set up new ad groups, ads or keywords based on ones that already exist. This is particularly helpful in two situations: when you require ad groups that are very similar except for some kind of central concept, and when you want to create similar yet slightly different ads for split-testing purposes. It makes it easy by giving you the ability to copy and paste items.

For example, an automobile dealer might require ad groups for different models of cars. The ad groups would likely be very similar, but would contain ads and keywords that used the name of a particular model. So there might be a Ford F-150 ad group and a Ford Ranger ad group. If you already have a Ford F-150 ad group set up, then you can make a copy of it and then change the name, ads, and keywords of the copied ad group to use the word "Ranger" instead of "F-150".

From an ad perspective, it is often desirable to split-test the same ad with different headlines. In AdWords Editor, you can simply make a copy of the ad and then change the headline in the copied ad.

You can even create a copy of an entire campaign, if you have need to do so. Another interesting option on the right-hand menu is "Copy Campaign Targeting", which lets you quickly apply the targeting criteria of one campaign to another.

Just like any standard program, AdWords Editor has a right-click menu that gives you access to a copy option. It is often necessary to use the File link on the top menu to paste items. Cutting and pasting items in AdWords Editor is MUCH quicker than manually building all your ads or ad groups from scratch.

If you need some help implementing an effective Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, web site marketing

Performance statistics for your Google campaign can be obtained directly from the AdWords Editor interface. To turn on statistics, click the Data button on the main menu, then Stats, then one of the pre-selected date ranges or the Create Custom Date Range button to create a custom view. You can also click the button with the graph labeled "Showing stats for:" at the top of the page and select a date range. Statistics can be viewed at the account level, the campaign level, the ad group level, or for individual ad group elements such as keywords and ads. To view statistics for each level, click the appropriate link on the left-hand menu.

For instance, to get a quick overview of keyword performance (to see what keywords are costing the most money, and which ones are making the most money), click an ad group name on the left-hand menu. You will then be shown the average cost per click, total cost, conversion rate, and cost per conversion (if conversion calculation has been enabled in the account), among other values, for each keyword. You can then scroll down the list to see which keywords are converting the most or at the lowest cost per conversion. And you can see which ones are costing the most money yet generating few conversions.

You can also quickly see which keywords (or ads, or whatever) are performing the best by sorting them. To sort, just click the header of the column you want to sort by. To see which ones are costing the most per conversion, for example, click the Cost/Conversion column header. It is likely that many of the keywords or ads have no conversions, so this will group the ones that do have conversions together.

The advantage of using the AdWords Editor to view statistics is that it is a much quicker process than using the AdWords online interface, or generating reports through AdWords. As you scan through the list, you can make adjustments on the fly - increasing bids where necessary, turning keywords off, etc. - and then upload your changes.

If you could use some help maximizing the effectiveness of your Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, paid search, pay per click, ppc, reporting, search engine marketing, sponsored search, web site marketing

AdWords Editor is a client-side program released by Google to allow for off-line AdWords account management. "Client-side" means that the program is installed and runs on your hard drive, rather than from a web site. The advantage of the program is that it is much quicker to use than Google's AdWords web site. The disadvantage is that it is much less user-friendly. It doesn't walk you through anything like the AdWords web site. If you can get comfortable using it, however, it can save you a ton of time.

To get the AdWords Editor program, log into your account, then click the Tools link. Near the bottom of the page is a link that says "Download AdWords Editor".

The AdWords Editor user interface is fairly sparse, with a spreadsheet-like appearance. The interface is divided into two vertical sections - the left side is a list of folders and objects that represent the campaigns and ad groups in the account. The right side is the information associated with each object. It is tab-divided into eight sections: Keywords, Sites, Negatives, Text Ads, Image Ads, Mobile Ads, Ad Groups, and Campaigns. Beneath the tabs is a spreadsheet-looking window that displays data. Clicking on an object on the left side changes the information on the right.

For instance, clicking on an ad group on the left, and then clicking the Keywords tab on the right, changes the information display to show the keyword data for that ad group. By default, the information displayed for each keyword is the type, status, minimum CPC, maximum CPC, and destination URL. You can also change the data display to show statistical information (this will be discussed in a subsequent post). Clicking on an item in the data screen displays details about it (in editable text boxes) in a section of the screen below.

Above the tabs is a dropdown list labeled "View:" which changes the data shown. By default, View is set to "All". One interesting option on the View menu is "Duplicate keywords", which will show you keywords that are repeated across or among ad groups. You can also use it to view unposted local changes.

When you first start using AdWords Editor, you use the File/Open Account menu option to access a particular AdWords account. The first time, you will pull down the entire account. After that, you will use the Get Recent Changes option each time you start up AdWords Editor. The exception is if you are definitely the only person ever working on the account, and you always use AdWords Editor to make all account changes. Otherwise, ALWAYS use the Get Recent Changes option before you start working or you might end up overwriting work that has already been done.

There is no "save" functionality in the program. Once you have made your account changes and are ready to post them to the account, you click the Post Changes button. Easy.

The reason that using AdWords Editor is so much faster than the online AdWords interface is that all of the information is right in front of you, and you don't have to wait for various screens to load in your browser to make changes. Similar to working with a spreadsheet, you just type your changes in the appropriate places in the data screen - no loading or waiting required - then upload all of your changes at once in bulk.

There is much more to know about AdWords Editor, and we will expand on this discussion greatly in the coming days and weeks.

If you could use some help maximizing the effectiveness of your Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, web site marketing

We at Work Media have started using the AdWords Editor tool quite a bit. The AdWords Editor is a free tool that Google recently released to allow for OFF-LINE editing of your AdWords account. It is a bare bones application with a couple of neat features. One feature that is very useful for a large account is the ability to report on duplicate keywords across ad groups.

We are currently managing an AdWords account for a software company with many very similar products. Our keyword research for each ad group has returned many duplicate keywords, some of which get added to the ad groups in an attempt to flesh out the keywords. The AdWords Editor will show us when we have duplicate keywords, so we can make sure we only use each keyword for a single ad group.

The main reason we've begun using the AdWords Editor is speed. Using the Google AdWords online interface is a fairly slow process. You can only work on a single ad group or ad at a time, and there is a lot of "traveling" involved in moving from one thing to the next. With the AdWords Editor, we can quickly move from one ad group to the next. We can quickly add a group of keywords, and even copy ads from one ad group to the next, or within an ad group.

The ability to copy ads is a feature we are making heavy use of. If you have read much of our writing, you know we encourage ad testing in which a single element is changed in each ad, such as the title. By copying and pasting ads, we can quickly create lots of ads by just changing the title (or body copy) on each one.

If there is more than one person working on your AdWords account at any one time, you should be careful about stepping on each other's toes with the AdWords Editor. It works by pulling down the data for your account, and when you are done you upload the account data. In the interim, there is the possibility that someone else could have made changes that are not reflected in the data you have.

The Google AdWords Editor is a power tool that can save you a lot of time. However, we suggest not using it until you understand how your AdWords account works. After a few weeks of actively managing your account, then switch to the AdWords Editor.

If you could use some help managing your Google AdWords account, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing