I definitely have issues with Google’s quality score and the constant battle to keep campaigns running on their network, but one thing I can’t fault them for is their interface. It is simply the best out there, hands down. When you are handling large scale campaigns, their offline adwords editor is a huge time saver. Here are a some tips you may or may not know about in the editor.
Tip #1 Using the editor to build campaigns for other networks
With the Adwords editor, it is very quick and easy to build campaigns with multiple adgroups, ad copy, and keywords. I have found that it’s the fastest way to build up a campaign and get it into CSV form so you can work with it on other PPC networks.
Just build the campaign in “draft mode” then go to File > Export to CSV > Export Current Campaign. Now you have a campaign in spreadsheet format that with a little massaging, you can upload into other engines like MSN or Yahoo.
Tip #2 Copying text ads to other adgroups
If you do a lot of ad copy testing (which you should!), you often want to move ads from one group to another. Or rather than writing a whole new ad, copy an ad from on place to another, then tweak it. In the Adwords Editor this is a piece of cake.
Just click on the adgroup that contains the ad on the left panel, then click the text ads tab on the top. Now highlight the ad in this view and do a control –c. Now navigate to the new adgroup and do a control –v. The ad will now be ready under the text ads tab to run or edit with your changes for A/B testing.
Tip #3 Whole campaign inactive keyword bid edits
This is probably my favorite feature. With Adwords, keywords are constantly going “inactive for search” and you may need to up edit your bid amounts to activate them again. If you have a campaign with 200 adgroups, it would be a tough task to check each one and then go in and edit each keyword with a new bid. With this technique, it’s a 30 second task no matter how many adgroups you have.
In the Adwords Editor click on the main top level campaign on the left panel (not an adgroup). Now click on the keywords tab. Then click the status bar (usually twice) to sort by inactive words. Now you will see all the inactive keywords in all of your adgroups. To change the bid amount you scroll down to find the last inactive word, do control-shift-home to select only the inactives, change the bid, and bam, you are done. When you look at your adgroup list now, you will see the change icon in all the adgroups where keywords were changed. That would have taken hours on a large campaign with the web interface.
Just a note to any PPC networks like Yahoo, MSN, Miva, Looksmart etc. who might be reading this. If you really want to increase your network usage and spends by your advertisers, build an offline editor! The easier it is for people to run their campaigns, the more money they will spend with you.
hi
iam not setisfied to u because every key words have different costs to activate.
Right, but it will also show you which ones reached the activation level by placing the “changed” icon next to it. You can then re-sort by that and keep narrowing down your field in small increments…
Some good tips for those doing bulk editing in adwords. As far as the other advertising networks, untill they decide they want to take the lead they will always be one step behind trying to copy G.
When I tried to get used to offline editor it seemed too difficult for me, so I got back to online editing 8)..
I’d better take a second look into it now
it looks i have underrated the possibilities of the offline editor.
[...] on my blog that YSM is my favorite PPC engine. No, it doesn’t have the stellar interface and offline editor that Adwords has, but considering all factors like price, traffic quality, ease of keeping ads [...]
[...] 3 Huge Adwords Editor Timesaving Tips How to Lower Your AdWords Minimum Bid Optimization of Ads & Landing Pages by Keyword Match Type AdWords Quality Score Survey Results Are In [...]
Agreed with offline editors for Yahoo/MSN et al. I always bring up the subject whenever I’ve met reps at PubCon etc.
[...] I’m not quit sure that you are familiar with Google Adwords Editor or not. With the Google Adwords Editor, it is easier to manage your adwords campaigns. You can do it offline and then upload your campaigns later. Also, you can export to Excel spreadsheet and you can upload to YSM and MSNAdCenter. However, today I am going to share 3 great tips to save your time with the Google Adwords Editor. Those tips are written by Chad. [...]
THANKS A LOT FOR THE TIME SAVING TIPS
Tip #3 Whole campaign inactive keyword bid edits
also – look at the bottom of the editor for the hyperlink “advanced bid changes”
they have an option there:
“Raise maximum CPC bids for inactive keywords to their minimum CPC bids”
Agreed. Adwords editor is the best available offline option out there. This is in sharp contrast to YSM – where you have to be advertiser for 3 months (and have to spend $200 / month) to be able to just get “import” button on the account! Not an offline tool, nothing fancy – but just to get ‘import’ function turned on.
How ridiculous – why would someone wait for 3 months where they already have Adwords and Adcenter bending for their business with superior mass campaign management offline tools.
Anyway, google still leads the way.
It would be nice if there was a program like Google Adwords editor that could manage all engines. I guess it will be possible as all engines figure out their APIs.
Mark
Some good tips for those doing bulk editing in adwords. As far as the other advertising networks, untill they decide they want to take the lead they will always be one step behind trying to copy G.
How ridiculous – why would someone wait for 3 months where they already have Adwords and Adcenter bending for their business with superior mass campaign management offline tools.
Nice explanation of a system of shortcuts to recover precious time during editing and testing and setting up of campaigns, thanks.