What are your Top 5 AdWords feature or tool requests?

[AdWordsRep]

Hmmmm. I haven't had too many questions to answer so far today, so I thought maybe I'd ask one of my own.

One of my favorite things to do is pass feedback from advertisers along to the right folks at Google, with an eye towards making sure that 'decision makers' are aware of what features you all need to make your advertising more effective, simpler to manage, and so forth.

So here is my question:

What are the top five features and/or tools that you'd like to see included in future refinements of the AdWords program?

Post away, and I'll pass your feedback along later in the week. I usually forward feedback late on Fridays. but I'll be out of the office this coming Friday. So I'll pass on whatever comes in on Thursday evening - say about 7:30 pm California time.

Thanks in advance!

AWR

[NFFC]

>What are the top five features

Number one I'd really like the keyword tool to work much better, it seems way off when compared to the real world. I'm a bid on exact kinda guy, if you could could point me better to the exactness I'd be much happier.

[doppelganger]

Seamless integrations with 3rd party bidding tools such as Atlas GoToast...

Better integration with 3rd party tracking tools - Maybe some type of relationship with DoubleClick or Atlas... Generate tracking tags through the AdWords interface?

I'm really big on the 3rd party tools, because once Microsoft creates their own PPC product (which they will, eventually)... I don't want to have to manage my campaigns in three different locations. I want one place to do it all.

[andrewgoodman]

AWR,

1. Here's one juicy piece of data we need to have as marketers.

We need the clickthrough referral string to contain a parameter (FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL CLICK) that tells us "what ad position that click came from" (or "came outta" as I like to say).

Secondarily, of course, some kind of encoded information on what that discrete click cost would be much better for future, more sophisticated data analysis. I suppose that might be a longer-term thing.

Currently we can attempt to cross-reference average ad positions with conversions and play around with our numbers and bids to try to get a feel for how well different positions convert, but hard-coding the ad position into every click would make this effort more precise.

Sorry to get all advanced on you.

2. I also reiterate the breakdown of spend/clicks/impressions by country would be peachy. Some marketers just want to eyeball things so they can say "whoa, there sure are a lot of clicks I didn't bargain for from Montserrat."

3. Ability to opt out of non-performing content partners using a much more sophisticated console than currently. Ability to bid differentially on content.

4. Simple rules-based bid management for FREE. Not fancy stuff, but "lower all bids in campaign by 20%" or "raise all bids in campaign by 20%." That would be a time-saver. For those who have a lot of very different bids, it would keep the relative values of the bids the same while allowing one to be more and less aggressive with an account depending on circumstances. This would reduce the need for third party bid management services without completely obliterating the need for good third party data analysis.

5. Googleplex-cam.

[AdWordsRep]

Thanks for the suggestions so far - much appreciated.

I'll be passing these on later tonight, so if anyone else has anything to add, please do!

(And it would be great to keep this thread active beyond tonight, of course. I'll pass feedback along as it comes in, over time.)

AWR

[strategicrankings]

It would be nice to know from the Billing Summary when the last time Adwords tried to charge my CC.

I had two cases for two clients where their campaign were suspended for lack of funds and it was impossible for us to track at what point in time adwords tried to bill the CC.

What we only see actually are succesful billings.


Thanks
Riley

[bradbyrd]

i second two of andrewgoodman's requests:

1. pass-through data on position & cost would be extremely helpful, and makes a lot of sense for a variety of reasons. (

i undestand the fear that this could create more questions than it resolves, and i understand it can be confusing because we wont have insight into which of those click you folks are actually filtering out as spam.... but let us figure out how to set up our own click filters to remove dupes, etc. if you give us the data, we'll figure out how to use it try it out with some selected advertisers and see how valuable they think it is...

2. transparency into where ads are being distributed, and an opt-out option for specific distribution partners.

this obviously reintroduces the ongoing debate about "transparency" into the network. but my feeling is that if google honestly believes that they have the best technology in the market then they shouldnt be afraid to offer this transparency. advertisers and publishers will both stick with the network that delivers the best value, period.

the more interesting issue here is re: how an opt-out approach would affect bid rates... ie. could someone opt out of all but one partner, and then crank up bids for that one partner? what would this do to the market? how would the rest of the bidders compete/adapt? this would obviously force the network to calculate rankings uniquely for each distribution partner, which might create an incredible resource challenge... i could see how it could cause havoc at overture, but it might just work at google where there's already a lack of transparency into the actual market price of a keyword...

i'd guess google can devise an elegant, egalitarian way to handle the problem, and come out with higher average CPCs, an audience-driven feedback model for reviewing and policing their distribution partners, and a "user friendly" competitive edge vs. other ad networks...

[aviener]

I have been using Adwords for a long time, and welcome the opprtunity to pass suggestions to their product group. Here are 4 suggestions.

1. Separate URL for Content Links so we can track ROI in Search & Content
2. More than 25 Campaigns
3. Ability to set time and date parameters for campaigns and adgroups. Examples: only run between 8pm and 8am. Only run on Monday & Tuesday. Only run Nov-Dec.
4. Negative Geotargeting. Run campaign in the US except for a specific location / MSA.

Thanks,

Adam Viener

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by aviener

I have been using Adwords for a long time, and welcome the opprtunity to pass suggestions to their product group. Here are 4 suggestions.

1. Separate URL for Content Links so we can track ROI in Search & Content
2. More than 25 Campaigns
3. Ability to set time and date parameters for campaigns and adgroups. Examples: only run between 8pm and 8am. Only run on Monday & Tuesday. Only run Nov-Dec.
4. Negative Geotargeting. Run campaign in the US except for a specific location / MSA.

Thanks,

Adam Viener

You can add a differentiating code where Google sends if it came from content or search. Don't have the code handy but it can be done.

[aviener]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

You can add a differentiating code where Google sends if it came from content or search. Don't have the code handy but it can be done.

Anybody know how this is accomplished?

[shorebreak]

I think what everyone's asking for boils down to "More transparency" in AdWords. If we all believe in the power of free markets, then publishers, advertisers, third party agencies/tools and Google will all profit by increased transparency into AdWords.

Historically, markets that are either regulated or less than 100% transparent are less liquid and therefore get less investment, and paid search is no different.

[andrewgoodman]

Originally Posted by bradbyrd

i second two of andrewgoodman's requests:

the more interesting issue here is re: how an opt-out approach would affect bid rates... ie. could someone opt out of all but one partner, and then crank up bids for that one partner? what would this do to the market? how would the rest of the bidders compete/adapt?

IMHO this would be awesome for the advertiser (more choice, control), and doubly awesome for the publisher. No one's going to crank up bids like this unless they really want to be somewhere. Quality sites would therefore get the ad revenues they deserve thus helping to fund great content.

Google could refer to this as "(Even) Smart(er) Pricing (TM)".

[andrewgoodman]

Originally Posted by aviener

4. Negative Geotargeting. Run campaign in the US except for a specific location / MSA.

This reminds me of the client who wanted to put

-trailer park

in his campaign. That always made me laugh, but unfortunately I don't think this had the desired effect.

Hello,
This is my first post in this forum

Here my Top Three List

1) An Adwords API that let me manage every setting of a campaing as a Web Service from my custom application.
2) A Clickthrough referral string to contain a parameter (FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL CLICK) that tells us: Ad Position and Click Cost
3) Ability to opt out of non-performing content partners using a much more sophisticated console than currently.


Ciao from Italy,
Cristiano

[eragon]

I like everything that has been suggested here especially the one about allowing more than 25 campaigns. Surely, there's some way of getting around that.

I'd also like to add:

1. the ability to switch match type with the click of a button. If I have a list of a hundred keywords that I need to convert to exact, I have to go through a few hoops to add the brackets and paste them back into my adgroup
2. it would be nice to go to another campaign from within an adgroup rather than having to click "Campaign Summary" to start from the top again
3. related to the one above: while viewing an adgroup I know I can click "next" or "previous" to get to the other adgroups within the campaign I'm currently in. But it would be great if I could select *which* adgroup I'd like to go to within that campaign. Perhaps a pull-down list could be offered for this and for selecting a campaign?

[AdWordsRep]

Thanks for the excellent ideas posted here, which I'll continue to pass on as they're received. I hope all y'all will keep this thread alive.

...the ability to switch match type with the click of a button. If I have a list of a hundred keywords that I need to convert to exact, I have to go through a few hoops to add the brackets and paste them back into my adgroup

Although this is not precisely what you were asking about, eragon, are you aware that you can change all keywords within a campaign from one match type to another with just a few clicks? You start by clicking on the 'Tools' link under the tabs, then click 'Change Keyword Matching Options'.

I hope that this'll prove to be of some use to you.

AWR

[eragon]

You start by clicking on the 'Tools' link under the tabs, then click 'Change Keyword Matching Options'.

Well that's just too cool! Looks like I've been keeping my nose too close to the screen to notice that nifty feature. Thanks!

[AdWordsRep]

Well that's just too cool!

Awesome! Glad this tool will help speed things up for you eragon.

AWR

[KellySEM]

I'll throw my top 5 in:

1. Separate bidding for Content & Search. I have ROI tracking and I know they don't convert the same, so I shouldn't be bidding them the same.

2. Much better reporting on what expanded matches my keywords are matching to. Are any of my keywords infringing on trademarks? Am I ok with all the expanded matches? With just broad match one could reasonably assume all the matches that would occur, but that's not true with expanded. What I am matching to needs to be easily pulled in a report at any time - its not practical to look up each keyword in the sandbox.

3. Opting/in out of distribution partners. From my internal reports I know that some distribution partners are great for my ROI and others aren't, and if I could only have the good distribution I'd be bidding much higher and happier, the bad ones hold me back.

4. Faster reports. Right now any large account has trouble getting a report about the whole account run - reporting needs to be fast enough to not time out for any reports that an advertiser would routinely request.

Instead of a fifth request, I'll say something nice - the rotating ads are terrific. I do lots of creative testing and I can always feel confident that the ad I am running performs the best from an ROI and CTR perspective, unlike on other search engines.

[AdWordsRep]

Hi all,

Thanks for posting your feature requests - much appreciated.

I'll be passing your suggestions on later this afternoon, so now is the time to post your 'wish list' - for this week anyway!

Cheers,

AWR