Google Analytics Features I'd Like To See #1

[netmeg]

- In some cases it only seems to be reporting around 60% of the actual traffic. Not sure how or why that is happening, but we host 250 sites here, and have all the actual logfiles and several analyzers running, and we remove all the bots and our own traffic, and it STILL shows as way low in some cases. Examples available upon request.

- How about a general repository for us to share filters? I'm thinking of something along the lines of the way Google offers widgets and gadgets and whatnot for iGoogle and Desktop. I've created some and gone out and found some out there that did things I didn't even realize were possible; why re-invent the wheel?

- I find the breadcrumb navigation somewhat lacking. There's a lot of times where I'm digging down deep to the keyword level, and I want to go back just one step, and I end up back about four levels, or worse yet, where I started.

- Much more help on setting up to track other types of campaigns (MSN and Yahoo PPC, online campaigns, offline campaigns)

- For those of us who are working with clients (as opposed to just our own accounts) it would be really great to be able to set up some kind of a demo account with some demo stats (or have one available) to show to clients. To be honest, they'd rather have me show them the benefits step by step with an account that looks like their traffic and their sample products than sit through your presentation. I can't show one client another's data, and they just don't seem to get how useful and important this information is unless they can see it and click on it and I can explain it in terms of their business.

Ok, that's for starters. I have more.

[Brett_Tabke]

Lets go ahead and move on from these threads.

Any further feedback can be left to AdWordsAdvisor in private message.

Thanks

[smallcompany]

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System: The following 198 messages were spliced on to this thread from: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adwords/3865550.htm [webmasterworld.com] by brett_tabke - 10:09 am on Sep. 17, 2009 (cst -5)

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Continuing from:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Couldn't resist that 199 in #11. :)

Two things:

- In AdWords interface, on Campaign, Ad group, and Keyword level - let us "hide" selected items (campaigns, ad groups, keywords), so we can see the numbers (including totals) for items that we want at the moment. Right now, we have to go to reports, select what we want and run the report. With "hide" feature, we could get instant answer for multiple date ranges and do comparisons in less then a minute. The catch about "hide" would be that items don't really get hidden on the screen, but just grayed out, and not calculated into the totals. Once we leave the specific screen, things go back to normal by default.

- In reports, let us sort the list under "Manually select from a list". Swirling between paused campaigns and ad groups makes things harder. If we could only sort the active/paused column...

[smallcompany]

Reporting:

If one uses ad scheduling to increase/decrease bids by percentage, the max bid in reporting is still shown as fixed. So, if I put my bid to be $1, and set it to 50% from 10-11am, and 120% from 3-5pm, maximum bids supposed to be $0.50 and $1.20 respectively are not showing in reports at all.

[esllou]

This has probably been mentioned before but I'd like to see a "notes" column added (optionally...and not on by default) especially for the ad variations tab.

that would allow users to note down things such as "landing page bluewidgets.html, changed verb second line" and things like that. I lose count of the changes I've made and WHY, especially when I have 3 main ads running plus 2 test variations.

thanks :)

[netmeg]

How come I can't see placements without starting a new campaign first, or am I just missing something? Would like to be able to do that.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Many thanks for starting this #12 thread smallcompany. Much appreciated!

It's so funny to me, though, how you liked leaving #11 at 199 posts, while I have had to practically force myself to not add a post #200! I guess people tend towards being a little quirky, eh? I know I am, for a fact. ;)

Thanks also to esllou and netmeg for your additions.

esllou - yep that one has come up a number of times, and every time I see it I (continue to) think it is a good idea and happily pass it along as another vote to do it. ;)

In any case, the Advertiser Feedback Report goes out in about 28 hours. Still plenty of time for additions, which I will quote in the report, verbatim.

Best,

AWA

[AdWordsAdvisor]

OK, I'll admit it. I am posting again solely to bring this thread back to the to of the page, hoping it'll garner another post or two before the report goes out.

That'll be in about 5 to 7 hours depending on whether or not my keyboarding skills improve by the end of the day.

Hey, it could happen. ;)

AWA

[AdWordsAdvisor]

OK, I'll admit it. I am posting again solely to bring this thread back to the to of the page, hoping it'll garner another post or two before the report goes out.

Which is exactly what I'm doing, again, right now.

That'll be in about 5 to 7 hours depending on whether or not my keyboarding skills improve by the end of the day.

This time, though, it's more like three to four hours.

I'll check back before I send the report to see if there is anything new here. If so, It'll get included.

Thanks in advance. ;)

AWA

[smallcompany]

How about bit of repeating?

- Negative keywords on account level.
- Average cost per click for ads

[AdWordsAdvisor]

A bit of repeating works for me. ;)

So, got 'em smallcompany - thanks!

I will, of course, check back just before sending the report, to see if others have been added.

AWA

[RhinoFish]

banner review status feedback.

system tells us "pending review", "approved", etc.

knowing what's causing new banners to get no imps confuses newbies... and you know they are always telling you guys it's too hard to operate adwords... well yeah, sure, when you're a beginning pilot and the plane's manufacturer asks you to wear a blindfold while in the cockpit, it does feel a little difficult. :-)

[Seb7]

Ability to undelete ads. (web interface)

..and still could do with more conversion columns. Sales or Total conversation value would be good.

'% serverd' should be hidden by default. Cant see the point of showing this figure since we have no control over it. mmm. actually, theres another idea..

'% serve rate' as an input figure. which accepts figures up to 200% !

[natim]

We represent multiple clients in same vertical so it would be a huge time saver for us if we could copy targeting between campaigns when we have combined types of targeting. Would be great if we could copy the entire targeting and make minor adjustments as needed as the client needs changes.
Example most of them target same general areas but they also require specific cities and zip codes with radius specified in a single campaign. Currently can't be copied in editor.

[RhinoFish]

i wish G made it easy to prove you own a domain (they do it with analytics) and mark your domain with exclusive adwords account numbers that you will accept paid adwords traffic from.

policing abusive affiliates, and other weird circumstances that do occur, makes me wonder why G would allow any party anywhere to run ads for and deliver paid traffic to a site they don't own. a permissioning system is sorely needed.

[RhinoFish]

G, regarding my above input about permissioning... why does Analytics have permissioning? because sensitive data is available? by allowing anyone to create ads pointing anywhere, aren't you allowing my competitors to see my quality scores and it details like speed, relevance and more (they pick a keyword, copy my ad and point to the same page as I do, my page)...

you've asked everyone who uses adsense to update their privacy policies for things like doubleclick, yet you allow open access to drive adwords ads to any site regardless of ownership? this is inconsistent with your goals and mission and policies, imho.

don't wait for some weird press story about industrial sabotage or advertiser abuse to think through this situation - imo, now is the time to consider it thoroughly.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Thanks very much for the many posts for this week's Advertser Feedback Report.

Still tons of time (days!) for further addtions.

Interesting observations and questions, RhinoFish, which I will certainly pass along. I've also quoted you from the other thread where you posted along the same lines.

AWA

[RhinoFish]

i had a click from one of those "secret" services that claims to sell adwords information to their members. the g cash detective page is in a secure area where their members login and obtain the data.

since i'd imagine these tarts are breaking your terms and certainly pissing off your paying advertisers (me!) when clicks occur from within their portal, you should bend your creed and do a little evil now and then.

there can be many ways my links could be in there backend that you can't stop, i get that, but do make sure your list of terms violators that deserve a digital lashing includes any punks who make claims like theirs.

[netmeg]

I'd kind of like to know AdWords' stand on all these fake celebrity endorsements I keep seeing in ads - I mean, c'mon, is Rachel Ray really endorsing tooth whitener, or Oprah endorsing roofing, or whatever it is? Can anyone just say anything at all these days? I can't use superlatives unless I provide independent confirmation on the landing page, but someone can say that Jennifer Aniston uses their diet berries or that Obama is going to stimulate their personal economy?

The other thing I will mention for this week is from Hubie's item here: [webmasterworld.com...] It might be a nice add on if, when you change a destination url for a creative in the AWE, and you also have existing keyword destination urls in that same ad group, a little reminder (or yellow flag thingy) appeared to remind you that you do have keyword destination urls and you might want to get rid of them for the new creative url.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I love this thread.

This week it has evolved from mostly 'nuts and bolts' posts to more 'depthy'* issues - all of which I will pass along.

This week's report goes out in about, oh, 35 hours or so. If I did the mental math correctly. So lots o' time for more.

Thanks!

*As my Southern friend with all the Masters Degrees is fond of saying

AWA

[RhinoFish]

Been thinking about what responsibilities I have for my clients regarding backing up work I have done for them...

Besides using the AdWords Editor, are there any other recommended ways AdWords advertisers (or MCC consultants) should backup what they've constructed within their AdWords accounts?

Is there a "download backup" feature or button planned?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I've now got all the latest posts copy/pasted into the report, which will go out in about 4 to 5 hours from the time I write this.

I'll check back at least one more time before the report gets sent.

Thanks!

AWA

[Israel]

I trust I'm in time before AWA's final check!

In the Search Partner Network:

1) The perennial - Why can't we "pick our partners" to some extent?

2) I want to move some Adgroups out of Campaigns where the Search Network is on to a Campaign where it is turned off.

But I don't want to lose the history by moving them and having to start from scratch. That happens when I cut and paste through the Adwords Editor.

I swear, I recall before the Adwords Editor when there were more "Tools" in the online interface that I could move an Adgroup to another Campaign and lose nothing but the Adgroup level negative keywords. That was a small price to pay and easy to fix since I retained the history.

Isn't that how "moving" should work? Otherwise, I'm simply setting up a new Adgroup for all practical purposes.

***************

I know I'm kind of, sort of, repeating something from a recent post of mine....

Israel

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I trust I'm in time before AWA's final check!

You are indeed!

Many thanks - now included. ;)

AWA

[Rehan]

The "All keywords in Campaign ______" feature in the Ads Diagnostic Tool is great; thanks for adding it. How about in addition to the "All ad groups in this campaign" option, adding another one for "All Active ad groups in this campaign"? That would omit the paused ad groups and perhaps make the operation less server-intensive for campaigns that have many paused ad groups.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Excellent. Got it, Rehan!

Many thanks.

About five minutes to go. I'll check back one more time. :)

AWA

[AdWordsAdvisor]

K - done and sent.

Many thanks to all. :)

AWA

[RhinoFish]

when creating a new campaign, and you choose to start building it by copying from an existing one, the dayparting settings don't copy over. the campaign negs don't either. some other things also don't cross over to the new campaign.

please make sure all of the campaign settings copy over... dayparting, excluded sites and topics, campaign negative keywords, etc.

[RhinoFish]

placements automatically behave in two ways, please clarify the user interface so advertisers understand it (and can control it).

in a campaign with just placements, with no keywords, naturally, the placements alone determine which pages get entered into the auction for your ads. just as it should be.

however...

in a campaign where you have placements, and you also have keywords, they BOTH affect the targeted pages in the placements part of things. so if we want broader placement exposure, we have to create a separate placement campaign with no keywords. a separate campaign isn't always the optimum strategy because of the way campaign budgets work, among other things.

please consider adding a selector, to the placements area, so that when we also have keywords in that same campaign, we can choose:
1) allow my keywords in this campaign to more narrowly focus my selected placements, I'm looking for max ROI.
2) don't allow my keywords in this campaign to affect the targeting of my placements, I'm looking for the broadest coverage on my chosen placements.

[netmeg]

What's up with chat support? Had an issue I needed someone to look at, and there's no chat anymore? Didn't even see a mention of it.

[irish_john]

Alot less of
"Cannot Make that change because another user is currently doing ...."