Best API Outsourcing Options?

[herd4598]

For a mid sized company with a huge number of ad groups and keywords,
what is the best way to get started with Adwords API? We do not have
people in-house with the necessary programming skills.

[hugger38]

Hi, are you using API for bid management or just for ad changes and keyword updates, as you optiond vary?

[herd4598]

Hello Hugger, thanks for responding. We would definitely like to use it for bid management. We are not really sure what other functionality we would like for it to have.

[beesticles]

Why do you want to build your own technology, rather than use some of the existing commercial applications/services out there?

[herd4598]

Thanks for responding beesticles. I am interested in using a commercial application. Im just not sure which ones would be best for my needs. I would like something that is flexible and that can be easily used by people who don’t have programming skills. Any suggestions/recommendations?

[beesticles]

Well, there's a lot of choice out there, so you probably want to take some time to consider why you want to get technology to help you. Most people get in a technology to do bid management because they're knee deep in Excel spreadsheets and would rather be doing something else that is just as valuable, e.g. keywords, ad copy, landing page testing etc.

If I were you, I'd think about these things:
- will the technology actually improve the performance of your campaign, or will you be forced to set endless rules on a keyword basis which isn't much better than managing it yourself by hand?
- will the technology give you insight into the opaque markets of G/Y/M by using your historical data to model performance?
- can the technology handle multiple metrics, e.g if you make a margin of 10% on one product and 20% on another?
- can the technology help you make reliable predictions and forward visibility, e.g. what will happen if I increase my CPA by 25%?

Technology providers to consider:
- Atlas Onepoint
- Bidbuddy (if you're in Europe)
- Doubleclick/DART Search
- Efficient Frontier
- Omniture SearchCenter

There are plenty of others. Let me add the disclaimer that I work for one of the above.

[hugger38]

Most commercial applications start at a minimum cost of a grand and you end up paying percentage of spend on top. I even ended up paying contributions to their API tokens in the end. I soon found that a commercial app didnt pay (in my circumstance). However i did experience good CPA success with the technologies i tried. Have you considered manual full time manual bid management on your accounts, its api free and scalable and you can change linking, creatives and structure as much as you want.