Written with Andrew Popowycz, PPC Specialist.
On April 22nd, Google announced some innovative features that they will be rolling out within the next few days: Innovative Ad Formats, Insightful Reporting and Intelligent Tools. Of the announcements, weve identified the 4 Intelligent Tools that will have the most significant impact on day-to-day AdWords optimization.
1. Bulk Actions
This feature will allow you to update Budget, End Dates, Ad Rotation & Location settings for 1000s of campaigns simultaneously within the AdWords Interface. Currently, you can bulk edit all of these settings using AdWords Editor, but that requires having to open Editor & download recent changes. For large accounts, this could save some valuable time.
2. Automated Bidding
2 new features are rolling out to Automated Bidding - the ability to set bids to maximize conversion volume & the ability to set bids to maximize revenue. If your objective is strictly to increase your conversion volume, Automated Bidding takes away the manual work of testing bids and analyzing performance.
One word of caution " be sure to keep a close eye on performance as with our experience, Automated Bidding is putting the control in Googles hands and hasnt always delivered the desired results.
3. Enhanced Reporting
This is the new feature were most excited about, as we feel this will save the most amount of time. AdWords is introducing advanced reporting within the interface. This is essentially the ability to create multi-dimensional pivot tables that allow you to work with live data, easily re-format reports (with a simple drag & drop feature) and create downloadable tables, charts & graphs. By having this capability right within the interface, you will not need to export and manipulate data each time you want to report on or analyze performance.
Google has noted that the ability to create dashboards & save views are also in the works for Enhanced Reporting.
4. Drafts & Experiments
This new feature will allow you to duplicate your current account, make any changes or edits, then save this as a draft. You can then take your completed draft and implement the changes to your account. The most exciting part is that instead of implementing the changes to your current account, you can take your draft and create an experiment from it. This feature will be great for testing new ideas, restructuring accounts or testing bids, and gradually facilitating the changes into your existing account, after carefully monitoring the performance. Now youll have a clear comparison of your test, without compromising your current campaigns.
Other Features
Some other features that were announced were Innovative Ad Formats & Insightful Reporting.
Innovative Ad Formats: Includes better App discovery (with keyword suggestions), easier re-engagement, and enhanced measurement.
Insightful Reporting: Google is currently testing a segment of Estimated Total Conversions that has the potential to track in-store conversions that originated from AdWords advertising.
The 4 Intelligent Tools will really help save time with daily AdWords optimizations. Were excited for these new features to be rolled out and the potential impact they will have on the future of Paid Advertising.
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About the Author: Ron Hutchison
