Adwords Support feature REQUEST

what would we as advertisers like?

[Shak]

Been thinking about this for a few weeks, and thought it may be a good idea to list what we as "advertisers" would like in terms of support from Google Adwords!

I'll start the ball rolling with a few thoughts:

1, Online account support control panel, this would allow me to communicate with the support team on a per account basis, keeping track of previous issues, keyword disabling, payment problems etc etc, rather than firing random emails to planet support with NO response.

basically very similar to what most hosting companies offer all their clients, surely NOT that big a request to ask of, but would make life a lot easier.

Shak

[vibgyor79]

Not asking for any features here - but I hope they reduce their dependence of "canned responses" (copy/paste answers). Most of the time, it requires 2 emails to get your point across.

[hannamyluv]

I wish Google had a tiered Customer Support system like OV, so that at least if I reach a certain spend, I could get a garunteed personal rep. Right now, I have no name I can call. Sure, I have the CS phone # but when I call the CS line, I have to explain all over again my situation. The one time I talked to the sales office closest to me, I was treated like I was taking their time up and I was trying to find out how to spend more money with Google. It would be nice to have one person or even just a few people who deal with my account so that I felt like I had someone who knew what is going on to call.

[Shak]

Obviously looks like not much improvement in Google adwords support department is required :)

Shak

[alpine]

If they're going to turn off ads based on Google-only clickthrough of .5%, then their system should report
Google-only clickthrough in addition to aggregate click-through.

Should show 2nd digit on click through e.g. 0.47%.(to help when trying to refine to get over .5%).

Should show stats (# of impressions suppressed) for negative words (just like the keywords in the table above them), so you can see the impact. This will help fine tune a campaign's clickthrough, and you'll see the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of your ideas. Right now we have no data of the effect of negatives.

Changing URL should not delete the ad.

Allow groups of negatives that one can reference, so adgroups don't have to scroll for page after page when there are long negative lists (stole this idea from a post a few months ago).

Allow syndication opt out.

Stop erratic behavior of ad shutdown that can't be explained, and for which statistics show it should not have been shut down. (Though you can never be CERTAIN, due to point #1)

More accurate search volume estimates.

A more Overture-like Search Term Suggestion Tool / Keyword Sandbox, in descending order by search volume.

[anallawalla]

Hannamyluv:

I wish Google had a tiered Customer Support system like OV, so that at least if I reach a certain spend, I could get a garunteed personal rep. Right now, I have no name I can call.

But they do (not sure if you mean sales, customer service or technical support). One of my clients has a live human who is the account (sales) rep. Spend is just under $1800 per day but I believe they had the rep when the spend was half that figure.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I would sure love to see this thread remain active. Very active.

I'd be pleased to forward the ideas presented here to the appropriate team within AdWords, and with your permission I'll do so.

Advertiser feedback is highly valued and taken quite seriously. One excellent example is that the PowerPosting feature is a *direct* result of advertiser requests for such a feature.

In any case, please keep this thread alive - and let me know if it is OK to forward your idea/suggestion/feature request to the appropriate team.

Of course I can't guarantee that your idea will be implemented. Or when. But, I *can* guarantee that it'll be seen!

Thanks in advance!

[dougb]

How about notifying customers prior to making us pay for keywords we did not buy [webmasterworld.com], as in the spell-correction change? Sorry to keep harping on this, but it troubles me that Google would do something like this. My issue is not with the change itself (which I separately think is bad for the user) as it is with Google's integrity, because they essentially expanded everyone's campaign without authorization -- or even notification before the fact. What gives? Why'd they do it?

[Clark]

I can tell you're new here AWA.

I would sure love to see this thread remain active. Very active.

When you will be saying "I would sure love to see this thread die" then we'll know you've been around. Just kidding ;), really nice to have you around even though I don't do adwords anymore. That .5% clickthrough thing when you know your ad is as relevant as can be is soooo frustrating. I got work to do. If the "penalty" for lower CTR was severely reducing ad display until campaign was tweaked instead of making us jump through such hoops, it would be WWAAAYY better. These are paying customers after all.

[jkwilson78]

Allow us to UPLOAD reports in addition to being able to download them.

With this feature we could download reports into excel make mass changes and the reupload the new file.

Presto! fresh updated campaigns without having to click on each ad, keyword etc one at a time.

Super Power Posting!

Jeremy

[werty]

I think it would be a nice feature that if per ad group you numbered the ads. Then through power posting you could have a "field" where [1,2,5,6] would mean to use only those ads for that phrase and maybe [-5] would use all the ads but that one.

At least for me it would ne nice to be able to have that.

Some other features:
Make it so that you can move/merge campaigns/ad groups.
An easy way to copy and paste ad text to a new ad.
Maybe a history of the last 10 ads created, so when you go and make a new one you could choose which previous one to base it off of.

[Robino]

I would like to see a column on the main page for Content CTR, Search Ads CTR and THEN overall.

And I would to be able to transfer Ad Groups to different campaigns without losing the history.

[colinirwin]

> And I would to be able to transfer Ad Groups to different campaigns without losing the history.

Me too.

Col

[Furmanov]

If they only could use less "canned answers", or at least could read the inquiries to the end before responding with a canned answer (that sometimes had very little to do with the original questions).

The "support control panel" Shak mentioned would be a perfect solution. Adwords Support is kind of not perfect at the moment, think I contacted them four times, twice I received detailed responses that answered all my questions, twice the answers were kind of strange and further emails have never been answered, so it's been 50% success ratio so far, really hope things will change

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Thanks for your many responses, and I hope you'll keep them coming.

I am planning on compiling your ideas/suggestions/gripes, and passing them on in an informal 'report' next Friday. I'll essentially cut and paste your responses, so they will go verbatim.

I can do this on a regular basis, if that seems like a good idea.

I hope it's clear from the new interface that we do pay attention to advertiser feedback. Much of what you see there comes right out of what we've heard from our advertisers about what they need and want.

By the way, please let me know if you do *not* want me to include your comments in the 'report'.

And thanks again!

[anallawalla]

I'd like to have a new creative automagically increment the last number (if it is a number) in the tracking ID (if there is a tracking ID).

e.g.
Tracking URL base: www.example.com/?200307_
Initial value: 001
Increment by: 1

Sample tracking URL = www.example.com/?200307_001

The next creative in that campaign would display a default tracking URL of www.example.com/?200307_002 (which could be edited if needed)

- Ash

[Robino]

I would also like to see a longer time before AdWords 'times out' and requires me to login again. I know it takes you back to where you were and it's not too hard to re-login. but if I get up to get something to drink or answer a phone call, by the time I get back my session is over.

It's just slightly annoying.

[David_M]

Mentioned this in a related topic- but it definetly belongs here. (hope theres no duplicate content penalty!;) )

I think it would be very useful if you could upload final purchase data, this way you could track ROI. Or even better, by placing an adwords fed graphic on your "Thank you for purchasing Widgets" page, you could track ROI on the fly. eg <img src="http://adwords.google.com/img.pl?account=widgetsurl&adword=widget">

[ams_david]

It'd be very interesting if advertisers could target specific domains or URLs. This would allow us to place ads on specific content partner sites, or to deny our ads for a specific partner site.

Also, being able to run campaigns against ONLY content partners would be great. Right now there is no option for this -- you must always run on the main google search as well as the content partner sites.

[ThatAdamGuy]

Or even better, by placing an adwords fed graphic on your "Thank you for purchasing Widgets" page, you could track ROI on the fly. eg <img src="http://adwords.google.com/img.pl?account=widgetsurl&adword=widget">

Interestingly enough, the FindWhat PPC already does this!

In fact, in comparing Overture and Findwhat and Google, it seems that this one feature is about the only shortcoming of AdWords IMHO.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Thanks to all for the many excellent comments made here. I'll be passing these on soon, and hope you will keep them coming! I would be very happy to see this thread kept alive.

[Ally_Cat]

I'd like to be able to turn content matching on and off for certain adgroups within a campaign. Since AdSense launched, one particular category of mine has seen clicks and impressions go through the roof, but no ROI. I'd like to be able to turn off content matching just for that adgroup, without having to move it out of the campaign.

[Ananda]

adwords should complete scanning creatives in 24 to 48 hours. After that leave them alone. I hate to get my creatives shut down after weeks they run OK by another editor who has his own personal flavour. I've implemented "suggestions" of one editor, and 6 weeks later 20 creatives were shut down because of the same suggestions. The second editor has a different taste, and I cannot argue but redo all 20 creatives.
Google did say later there was a loophole enabling me to keep it, and gave me a small credit, but 20 creatives were down for many hours, and I have already had to modify.

[Slud]

(I hope I'm not too late with this suggestion)

I'd love to see the AdWords interface recommend negative matches to advertisers.

A ton of flatbed scanner advertisers pay a lot for the word "scanner" and end up showing for "police scanner" and "barcode scanner" and "flim scanner". By adding a few negative matches "-film", "-police", "-barcode" these "scanner" ads wouldn't end up crowding out other advertisers.

I would think this wouldn't be too much of challenge for the engineers given what they've been able to do with AdSense's related feature.

[Ally_Cat]

Just thought of something, and I think it would be relatively easy to implement.

I'd like to have a comments/notes section in each of my adgroups - just somewhere within the campaign where I can jot down notes to myself - reminders about changes I want to make in the future, or current changes I'm making that I want to pay attention to. I know I can do the same thing on paper, but that means that I have to drag my AdWords files around with me everywhere I go.

It would also help when I have someone else working on a campaign with me, or when I hand off a campaign to someone else or pick one up from someone else.

Any chance this might happen AWA?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Ally_Cat, as with all the excellent suggestions made in this thread, I can't guarantee when (or if) the idea will be implemented.

However, I *can* guarantee that I will happily pass on these suggestions on a regular basis, and that they will be seen by AdWords management, and the AdWords product development team.

Personally, I think this is an great idea. And if you ladies and gents continue to post to this thread, I'll continue to forward the suggestions at the end of each week.

[Robino]

I just thought of another suggestion.

Currently under Campaign Management-
Show statistics for:
today, yesterday, this month, last month, alltime

I'd like to see "YTD" and "last year" added as options.

I'm very lazy- sorry!

[brycen]

I'd like it if keyword suggestion would atomatically stem or expand words, to let me know what I'm missing:

tennis shoe -> tennis shoes
automatic -> automatically
baby -> babies

[Just Guessing]

I would like some search statistics in the Keyword Suggestion Tool - at the moment you have to add keywords and go all the way through to the traffic estimator before you can compare different keywords.

[sebans]

this is a suggestion that could be implemented right now.

Add the editor name or username at the end of a comment or suggestion.

sebans