A Preview of AdWords’ New Look

Over the years, we’ve listened to your feedback and added lots of innovations across search, display, mobile, video, social, local, and measurement to help you get great results with AdWords. We also want your experience setting up and managing campaigns to be easier and more enjoyable. So, over the last several months, as part of our aim to deliver a simpler, more beautiful experience across all Google products, we’ve been working on a redesign for the AdWords interface. We are looking for feedback as we put the final touches on this visual refresh. Have a look at the preview and let us know what you think. You’ll find a feedback button on each page.

A more beautiful AdWords
This refresh aims to get the interface out of the way, so that the important things – such as your data – stand out. We integrated the latest client side technologies to make the AdWords interface more visually appealing and scalable.

Click the image above for a preview of AdWords’ new look

A simpler AdWords
The design changes are also aimed at making campaign creation simpler. One example is the introduction of campaign types, which will determine the campaign settings that you see.

For example, if you're creating a Search Network campaign to place ads on Google search and search partners, you'll have the option of selecting a campaign type: either Standard, All features, or Product Listing Ads. If you select the Standard campaign type, you'd see only the most relevant settings to Search Network only campaigns, making you experience simpler and more efficient.

New Campaign Types

Whether you spend an hour a month or a few hours a day in AdWords, we hope you’ll find these changes intuitive and pleasant. Stay tuned for more details as we launch this new design soon.  We welcome your feedback.

Posted by Greg Rosenberg and the AdWords User Experience Team

Measure how customers interact with your ads

New AdWords features such as Product ads, Sitelinks and Click-to-call allow you to create more interactive ads. Product ads and Sitelinks help customers find the most relevant pages on your website and Click-to-call allows customers to call your business directly from the search results.

As ads become more interactive, you might want to know how they'll impact your business's key metrics like clicks, click-through-rates and, most importantly, conversions.

To help answer this question, we’ve added a new report to your AdWords account that allows you to measure the performance of each click type you’re using. You can think of a click type as how your customers interact with your ads. Did they click on the headline, a sitelink, or some other aspect of your ad?

You can access the new click type report in the Campaign, Ad groups or Keywords tabs. Select “Segment” then “Click type.”

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With this added data, you’ll now have the ability to compare performance of each click type side by side. If certain click types perform well for your business, you may want to consider expanding them to other campaigns. Comparing click types by campaign, ad group or keyword will also highlight areas that need work.

Given the success we’ve seen searchers and businesses have with more interactive features in ads, you can expect to see more of these types of features in the future. With the new click type report in AdWords you can measure the impact of these new features and continue to get the most out of your ads.

Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords for mobile: check in quickly, anywhere

Did your smartphone suddenly start blinking and buzzing like crazy? No need to worry– it’s probably just getting excited about AdWords for mobile, our new mobile interface for Android, iPhone, and Palm Pre devices.

We’ve heard that your smartphone and AdWords account have been pining for each other. Over the past few months, many of you have let us know how much you’d like to have fast and easy mobile access to AdWords, which is why we’re now testing a streamlined mobile experience. AdWords for mobile gives you easy access to your key alerts and statistics, enabling you to make quick changes even when you’re out and about.

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AdWords for mobile works best when you customize your experience. Before using the mobile website, you should log in from your desktop computer and choose the parts of your account that you want to monitor closely. Set up custom alerts for key account events (like when your campaign reaches 90% of your daily budget, or when your traffic drops substantially compared to the previous week), and saved filters to flag your most important keywords and campaigns. You’ll then see these filters and alerts on your AdWords for mobile home screen.

We built AdWords for mobile to help you quickly access the essentials in your account, so we’ve focused on letting you view and make basic edits to campaigns and keywords through the mobile application. If you need access to the other parts of your account, like ads or campaign settings, you can switch to the desktop version of AdWords through a link at the bottom of the screen.

Today, AdWords for mobile will be used as the default mobile interface for a small percentage of English language advertisers, and we look forward to enabling the feature for additional advertisers and languages in the coming weeks. However, if you’d like to try AdWords for mobile immediately, simply direct your Android, iPhone, or Palm Pre to http://adwords.google.com/dashboard/Dashboard

Hope you (and your lovestruck smartphone) enjoy having easy access to AdWords wherever you go!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords Conversion Tracking is now even easier

If you use AdWords Conversion Tracking, you may have noticed that the interface for this tool has been redesigned so that it's easier to implement, monitor, and troubleshoot.

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There are now 3 easy-to-use tabs - Conversions, Webpages, and Code - that help you manage your conversion data. Let's take a closer look at each of them:

Conversions: This is where you see information about the conversion actions you're tracking.

• The "Tracking Status" column lets you know whether a conversion action is tracking properly. It shows you if a conversion has ever been recorded, if it has recently stopped recording, or if it's working just fine.
• The "Value" column shows the accumulated value of the conversions you've received based on the value you've assigned to each action.
• The "New Conversion" button allows you to easily create new conversion actions or import them from a linked Google Analytics account. (Note: In order to import Google Analytics goals, you'll first need to follow a few steps.)

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Webpages: Here, you'll see which pages on your site are getting conversions. You can also see a breakdown of the number of conversions per page on your site. This is useful for troubleshooting, as you can make sure conversions are coming from the pages you expect and identify pages that are not reporting conversion activity.

Code: This is where you get the tracking code for each conversion action. You can also change the value of an action, which helps you calculate ROI.

If you're not currently using AdWords Conversion Tracking, now is a great time to start. Conversion Tracking gives you an accurate way to measure the success of your AdWords campaigns. You can learn more about the benefits and how to implement it here.

We hope you enjoy the new interface and happy optimizing!

Posted by Emily Williams, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: A look back and a farewell

For nearly five months we've been running New Interface Thursdays here on the Inside AdWords blog. As the new AdWords interface moves to simply being AdWords, we're bringing this series to a close.

You can find all of the posts in the series under the New Interface label, but here are some of our favorites:

• Keep tabs on your account with Custom Alerts
• All about filters
• Introducing spreadsheet editing

We look forward to writing more about AdWords every day of the week. Thanks for a great series.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Tips for keyword management

Now that most advertisers are using the new interface exclusively, we want to share some efficiency tips to really unlock the potential of the new interface.

Focusing on what's important

In the Keywords tab you have several tools that help you focus on what matters to you.

First, you can customize columns to show only the metrics you care about and in the order you want. You can then use filters to focus on keywords that match a certain criteria. For example, you might only want to look at keywords that aren't converting well. Filters let you hone on what's important. You can find examples of good filters to try in this Help Center article.

And once you know what you're looking for, you can put AdWords on the look out. Using custom alerts you can tell AdWords what changes are important to you and be alerted when they happen both in your account and via email. For example, using filters you identify your best converting high volume keywords. You could create an alert to be notified if the conversion rate on those keywords drops compared to last week.

If you're working through a My Client Center account, note that you'll need to log in directly to an individual AdWords account to set custom alerts for now.

Changing many things at once

Once you've found what's important, the new interface makes it easier to make bulk changes to your keywords. First off you can select many keywords at once and click Edit to open up all fields for editing. To save time, you can do this all with your keyboard: select keywords with X, move up and down rows using J and K, and press E to get into edit mode. If you want to select a consecutive list of keywords, select the first keyword then hold the Shift key, and then click the last keyword you want selected.

While in edit mode, you can pause keywords, adjust your Max CPC, change the destination URL, and switch the match type. You can also copy bids and destination URLs to all rows. We've also recently added the ability to raise all applicable keyword bids to their first page CPC. From edit mode, just click Prefill all CPCs to first page bid.

You can also use spreadsheet editing to make bulk changes. Spreadsheet editing lets you work with your keywords as if you were using a spreadsheet. You can use formulas, copy and paste, and even find and replace. You'll find spreadsheet editing by clicking More actions then Spreadsheet edit. Remember that spreadsheet editing can only be done within an ad group.

Moving things around

Maintaining a good account structure is one of the keys to successful AdWords campaigns. So, from time to time, you may want to move things around a bit to create more refined, relevant sets of keywords and ads. This is where the copy feature comes in handy. Like spreadsheet editing, you'll also find copy under More actions.You can copy keywords to another ad group or campaign. When copying keywords, you have the option to also copy the bid and destination URL.

We hope these tips help you manage your keywords more effectively and improve your AdWords campaigns.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Your top questions from the webinar series

Today we held the last in the series of new interface webinars. Each week we get lots of great questions from attendees about the new interface. Today on New Interface Thursdays we're going to highlight some of the top questions and answer them.

How do I delete keywords?
To delete a keyword, select the checkbox next to it and then click on the Change status menu at the top of the table. There, you'll find the option to delete.

My ad is pending review. What does that mean?
An ad with a pending review status can run on Google search pages, but it won't run on our search partners or on content network placements until we review and approve it. Every time you submit new ads or make changes to existing ads, they are automatically submitted for review. (We review ads in the order they're submitted).

In the previous interface, ads were reviewed and approved in the same way, but this information wasn't visible. With the new interface, we chose to start showing more detailed approval status information to give you a better of idea of where your ads are eligible to show.

Where do I find spreadsheet editing?
Spreadsheet editing is only available at the ad group level. To enter spreadsheet mode, navigate to the Keywords tab of any ad group, then select Spreadsheet edit under the More actions menu.

What is the difference between 1 per click and many per click conversions?
The metric formerly called conversions in the previous AdWords interface is now relabeled 1-per-click conversions in the new interface. This metric measures the number of unique clicks on your ads that lead to conversion events. For example, if you're measuring sales and one ad click leads to three different transactions, only one 1-per-click conversion is counted.

In contrast, many-per-click conversions count each conversion that occurs after a click on your ad. So in the example above, since three different transactions occurred after the initial click on your ad, three many-per-click conversions are counted.

You can learn more about the difference between 1-per-click and many-per-click conversions here.

How do I view Destination URLs for keywords?
You can easily view the destination URLs for your keywords by customizing your columns. From the Keywords tab, click Filters and views and select Customize columns. From there you can turn on the column for Destination URL as well as other metrics for your keywords.

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Where are settings for ad scheduling, frequency capping, ad rotations, etc?
On the Campaign Settings tab, there are a few sections labeled Advanced. For example, below your selected bid type and budget, you'll find an advanced section for position preferences and delivery method. At the very bottom of the page, you'll find some additional advanced settings like ad scheduling, ad rotation settings, and frequency capping. We organized the settings page in this way to make sure it was easy for you to scan through the fundamentals of your campaign while still giving you the option to explore more advanced configurations.

Thanks for all the great questions.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Best practices for location extensions

A few weeks ago, we introduced location extensions - the new way to run local ads in AdWords. Today, we wanted to tell you a bit more about location extensions and give you some best practices for setting them up in your account.

First, it's important to know that there are two ways to set up extensions. You can set up extensions at the campaign level or at the ad level.

Setting up campaign level extensions means that Google will dynamically match a campaign's text ads with the most relevant address in your account based on information like a user's location or a user's search terms. Keep in mind that the address will only be shown when it's relevant to the user's location or search terms. We'll use a fictional chain of coffee shops, Bob's Coffee, to illustrate when you'd want to add campaign level extensions:

Add campaign level extensions when you want to...

• Use the same ad text across a number of business locations. For example, Bob has a "buy one cup, get the second free" discount at all his coffee shops. Bob can create one ad and run campaign level extensions because his ad text for this discount is applicable to all his locations.
  
  
• Direct ads for all of your locations to the same landing page. For example, all of Bob's stores feature the same drinks and prices, so he has a single webpage to greet online users regardless of their location.
  
  
• Create and edit a lot of ads quickly. For example, Bob's Coffee is introducing a "$1 latte Tuesdays" promotion at all its stores. If Bob creates a new campaign for this promotion and sets up campaign extensions, he only has to create one ad, and that ad will be able to show with any of the addresses associated with that campaign.

If you think these settings are right for your campaigns, you can learn more about how to set up campaign level extensions.

Ad level extensions allow you to override a campaign's location extension settings. When you use ad level extensions, you are selecting one address to show with a specific ad.

Create ad level extensions when you want to...

• Associate a single address with a specific marketing message. For example, Bob wants to test out a promotion at just one location before implementing it for all stores. He is going to offer a "Case of the Mondays" special, a free upgrade to a large coffee when you a buy medium coffee on Monday. Bob has created an ad to go with this promotion and only wants this ad to show for the one location where he's running the promotion. He doesn't want AdWords to match the ad to any of his other addresses, so he overrides the campaign setting with an ad level extension.
  
  
• Direct each ad to a specific landing page. Bob has also created a separate landing page within his website to promote the "Case of the Mondays" promotion. He wants to direct most of his users to the main webpage via his regular campaigns, but wants to direct viewers of the "Case of the Mondays" ad to a page specifically for the promotion.

If ad level extensions better meet your needs, read more about how to start using them. Remember, you can use a mix of campaign and ad level extensions in your account.

Adding addresses to AdWords

When you're setting up your extensions, you should also know that there are two ways to give your addresses to Google: use the Local Business Center or enter addresses manually into AdWords.

If you're a primary business owner, you should use Local Business Center to give your addresses to Google. The Local Business Center is a free tool that allows you to manage your business listings. Addresses you enter manually or through bulk upload here will affect how your free business listings and ads appear on Google.com and Google Maps. If you plan to use Local Business Center, you can learn more about how it works with extensions.

If you're not the primary business owner of the locations in your ads, you can manually enter addresses into AdWords. An example of a non-business owner might be a wireless hotspot company that provides Internet access at Bob's Coffee. The company doesn't own any of the Bob's Coffee locations, but might want to advertise that their Wi-Fi services are available at a Bob's Coffee location.

Whichever method you choose, you can add addresses from the same place in AdWords, in the Audience section of the Settings tab.

To learn more about location extensions, check out the location extensions overview section in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Keep tabs on your account with custom alerts

The new interface helps you focus on the data you care about with tools like filters and customizable columns. But wouldn't it be great if, instead of having to search for important changes in your metrics, you could be notified when a change you care about occurs?

That's why we've released a new feature called custom alerts. Custom alerts help you stay on top of your account's performance by notifying you whenever important changes occur in your account.

For example, what if you wanted to know when there was a spike in impressions for any of your branded keywords? Simply navigate to your branded keywords ad group, and in the Keywords tab, click More actions, then Create a custom alert.

Here, we've defined an alert to notify us when impressions for the brand terms ad group have increased more than 20% over the previous day:

As another example, you might want to be notified when a campaign is coming close to hitting its budget. To set up this alert, you'll first navigate to All online campaigns. Under More actions, select Create a custom alert. You can set up a ">90% of daily budget spent" alert for a selected campaign, or for every campaign in your account.

Getting alerts

Once you've set up an alert, AdWords will be on the lookout for changes. After an alert is triggered, you'll see it in the Messages section at the top of your account.

If you set up email notification, you don't even need to log in, you'll be emailed when the important change occurs.

Clicking the plus-box shows the full alert:

You can then dismiss the alert from your messages, or click View to see the parts of your account that triggered the notification.

Managing your custom alerts

To look at the alerts you've already set up, select Manage custom alerts under the More actions menu. You can see all the alerts you've set up for your account by first navigating to the Campaigns tab in All online campaigns.

When managing your alerts you can make a number of changes, like pausing or deleting an alert. You can also modify an alert's settings using in-line editing. Lastly, you can turn email notification on or off for a particular alert.

Custom alerts are one of our favorite features in the new AdWords interface, and we're excited about all the different ways you can use them. So the next time you want to keep a close eye on your account, remember that AdWords can stay alert for you.

Meet the new AdWords interface team

There are two upcoming chances to meet the new interface team. Next week, we'll be at the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference. Join us for our session Google AdWords, Analytics & Website Optimizer: Secrets Revealed! on August 12th at 2:30 PM. After the session, we'll be holding a "science fair" where you can meet many of the AdWords engineers.

We also have one more webinar on August 20th at 9:30 AM PDT. You can register for the free webinar on the new interface webinars site.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Two more chances to attend a new AdWords interface webinar

For the last two months, we've been hosting weekly webinars about the new AdWords interface. In each webinar, members of the AdWords team walk through the changes in the new interface, show how you can use the new features to manage your advertising campaigns, and answer your questions.

Over the weeks, many advertisers have joined us to learn more about the new interface. Here's what a couple of them had to say about the webinars:

I'd like to thank you for today's webinar. It was very useful and I've learned more about the new features of AdWords interface.

This was truly a great session and I learned a few new tricks. Great shortcuts and tools for power users.

There are just two more webinars left in the series. The next webinar is tomorrow, Wednesday, August 5 at 9:30 AM PDT. Our final webinar will be on Thursday, August 20 at 9:30 AM PDT. You can register for either webinar on the new interface webinars site.

And if you can't attend one of the live webinars, the next best thing is a recorded one:

Hope to see you on the 5th or the 20th.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew