New column makes keyword management easier

We recently launched a new keyword column in the search term report to let you see exactly which keywords matched particular search terms. With this information at your fingertips, you can quickly and easily make better keyword and bid management decisions. But don’t take our word for it. We’ll let Top Contributors Calin Sandici and Moshe Avichai from the AdWords Community explain why the column is an important part of a healthy AdWords diet.


What’s so special about this new column?

Calin: You can now see in one simple table which keyword matches which search terms, for all the keywords in an ad group, campaign, or even the whole account, and you can act accordingly. It's cool, it saves time, it’s zero calories and it’s good for your health.

Moshe: Finally, there’s no need to guess which keyword triggers an ad.


What were your first thoughts when you heard the column was available?

Calin: For the first time, I can stay within AdWords and decide whether I should delete or pause a keyword altogether, or keep it and use some negative keywords to block unwanted impressions for irrelevant search queries. In the past I had to resort to the Analytics API to achieve the same effect. That’s no longer the case, because we now have access to a lot more information right in the AdWords interface.

How does it change the search terms report?

Moshe: Now the report is much more transparent. A campaign manager can see, at one glance, the complete funnel that triggered an ad: the original search term a user was searching for, through the keyword that matched the search term, and finally the ad group of the ad shown, all on the same page.

Calin: You no longer have to guess which keyword matched which search terms if you’re looking at more than one keyword. Previously, you could select one keyword at a time, and see the search terms that it matched. Now you can look at a whole ad group, campaign or account, see all the search terms that have caused your ads to show during a certain period of time, and right next to them, which keyword is "responsible" for a particular search term.

And finally, what do you hope to see from AdWords reporting in the future?

Calin: It could be great if we could import the Google Analytics metrics in the Keywords tab into the search terms report. Even if a search term doesn’t convert directly, if it leads to visits where one can see a large number of pages per visit or a low bounce rate, it may prove useful. In the absence of those metrics, we can only judge the search queries in terms of conversions.

Moshe: I am a great fan of the 80/20 Pareto principle: “You can draw roughly 80% of the conclusions from 20% of the data.” I have as much data as I need to run effective campaigns. As Calin suggested,  a better integration of presenting data from both Analytics and Adwords in a “unified report” could be helpful.

Discuss the new column in the AdWords Community, or check out the search terms report article in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Cindy Meyers and Virginia Roman, Editors, Online Help

Customer Support in the Digital Age: A Recap of AdWords Communities Summit Hangouts

The AdWords Communities Global Summit 2012 took place on October 16-17th at Google’s Headquarters in Mountain View, California.  This event brought together over 50 of the most prolific contributors to the AdWords Communities from 20 countries. These experts deserve a heartfelt thanks for selflessly investing their time in providing guidance to other advertisers on the AdWords Communities forums. The Summit brought together Google’s Small and Medium Business (SMB) and support teams, product managers, as well as external speakers for two action-packed days covering the evolution of AdWords customer support in the digital age and the future of online Communities at Google.



Two of the sessions were also broadcast via Hangouts On Air.  In the first session, Deepak Khandelwal, Vice President of Global Customer Services and Sophie Bromberg, Director of Online Help, discussed the progress that AdWords customer support has made in the past year in helping to make Google a better company for Small-Medium Businesses (SMBs) to do business with. 



In the day's second session, a panel of members of Google's SMB team answered questions on the future of AdWords support and advertising. They discussed opportunities to use technology to make customer support more streamlined and customized, as well as emerging advertising opportunities in mobile, video, and social.



On the second day we honed in on the topic of online Communities. The program included workshops on content writing as well as breakout sessions for individual markets where Community members had the opportunity to help shape the future direction of the market-specific Communities.

Visit the official Google AdWords Community to meet our experts and join the Community! 

Posted by Ezra Brettler, Google Ads Team

Welcome new AdWords Top Contributors!

This week, the English AdWords Community team is pleased to welcome three new members to the AdWords Top Contributor program: Moshe Avichai, Pankaj Sabharwal, and Scott Dunroe. The Top Contributor program recognizes advanced AdWords experts who have dedicated their time and passion for AdWords to helping other users in the Community. Read their stories below about how they first got involved in the AdWords Community.



With a start of my engineering consulting business and use of AdWords, I wanted to gain a better understanding of the advertising system. AdWords forum was my starting point to get answers to my questions. 




I realized how much my AdWords knowledge improved since I discovered the forum. Ever since then, it has become my hobby to help other users in the AdWords Community. I love interacting with the Community because it has users ranging from beginners to Adwords Experts.


 
Scott Dunroe (aka “ScottyD”)

The ability to interact with some of the most knowledgeable individuals in the AdWords industry is a real privilege. But the best feeling of all is helping novice members with their AdWords related questions and then seeing them gradually become active members themselves.

Our three new Top Contributors will be active in the Community along with the other Top Contributors and our thousands of users to help you with all your AdWords questions. Join the conversation!

Posted by the AdWords Community Team