Google AdWords Features I'd Like to See, #11

Continued. Share ideas for making your life easier

[netmeg]

(PS. Do we need a new thread soon? This one is getting rather large)

I tend to agree, but have always highly valued the grass-roots nature of these threads - i.e. that they have been started by members other than myself. I really like what that says.

(Cough) So if there are any volunteers out there... ;)

AWA

Ok, I'll jump in.

Maybe it's me, but it seems like I'm getting more and more of these boxes popping up warning about secure and non-secure items, particularly in the Campaign Settings area. I can't edit a lot of those things in the Editor, so it's *really* annoying to have to keep clicking out of that box. Google, UR DOIN IT WRONG.

Also, while I was going through yet again unchecking boxes for Automatic Match (hint hint) I seem to get tons and tons of pink boxes saying my changes had not taken effect. Seemed to happen more the faster I got in doing these edits.

More of these campaign level options NEED to be available in the next version of the AdWords Editor. *please*.

[netmeg]

I sure wish Google could get smarter about singulars and plurals. Yahoo has figured this out, why can't Google? It's absolutely nuts that I can maintain a "great" QS and a .05 minimum bid for a couple years for a term such as "soccer balls" but get a "poor" QS and a dollar minimum bid for "soccer ball". Do I *really* have to separate all my plurals and singulars into different ad groups and write separate ads for them? Geezopete.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Glad to see a few posts here, since last week. Many thanks. ;)

Those posts are now included in the Advertiser Feedback Report - and there are at least 2 hours (and probably more) for any late-breaking additions.

Thanks!

AWA

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I thought I'd bring this thread back up to the top of the page to see if anyone had anything to add?

The Advertiser Feedback report goes out in about five hours, and I'd love to have the section devoted to this thread not go entirely empty.

On the other hand, the similar thread for Analytics was especially active this week - and that is excellent. ;)

AWA

[briggidere]

Hi AWA,

It would be nice if we were able to set geo targeting for specific AdGroups or be able to set an ACCOUNT daily budget rather than just campaign.

We have clients who are running multiple campaigns due to geo targeting.

They have an overall daily budget they want to spend.

All the campaigns do not always reach the set daily budget and when this happens we would like the remaining unspent budget to be assigned to the other campaigns. This currently cannot be done unless you are watching it 24/7 and manually changing budgets.

By having an account daily budget or having geo targeting on AdGroups we could solve this issue.

Thanks

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Got it briggidere - many thanks!

I think you are the champion 'there's still time for more feedback before the report goes out' poster of all time. Don't think I haven't noticed. ;)

I really appreciate it.

AWA

[300m]

The ability to block tld's instead of full URLs in the content network.

Example
all .cn, .cz. ru.ro, and .in domains are blocked instead of having to sift over the thousands of URL's in the placement report and then adding them to the blocked site list.

I am also suprised that if I do not target to china (example) it will still allow .cn domains. Obviously anyone can get a domain from anywhere, but if you are not targeting a country and you have domains that are in that language and domain, then it seems like a waste of time to use targeted countries in the first place.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

300m, I have just now copy/pasted your feedback into the Advertiser Feedback Report. Many thanks.

Since this is one of those rare weeks in which the Google Analytics 'Wish List' thread had more posts than this one, I'll mention that there are about two hours before the report goes out - so plenty of time for a few more.

I'll check back before hitting 'send'. ;)

AWA

[cline]

I've mentioned before my interest in targeting ads to IP addresses. I'd like to tell a story of why this is so valuable for b2b marketers of high-priced offers. Yesterday a coincidence happened for one such client: A., They interviewed a candidate for a sales position. His earnings in his last job with a competitor were $250USD last year. B., On the very same day they got 7 clicks on placement targeted ad coming from a company they got an inquiry from last month. Cost: about $20. I'd be hard pressed to say what they'd be willing to pay for clicks coming from that company, but it's about an order of magnitude higher, and they'd love lots more clicks.

Let me spell it out for you all at Google:

R E V E N U E

O P P O R T U N I T Y

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Thanks Cline - your post is now included in the Advertiser Feedback Report, including your notable and excellent formatting on that last part. ;)

Still plenty of time for late-breaking additions. The report will go out in about 4 to 5 hours, depending on how well the coffee is working. (So far, so good.)

AWA

[IM_Mike]

Bring back the avg. position of ads displayed in the content network inside the Adwords interface. It's been n/a since the introduction of targeted placements in that section. It's nice to know where your ads are showing within the ad blocks so you can adjust bids accordingly.

-Mike

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Got it, IM_Mike. Many thanks. ;)

AWA

[Khensu]

Hi

Adwords Editor

Please put <Add All Adgroups> at the top of the scrolling menus!

I have over 1,000 adgroups in every campaign and I go "pinch a loaf" with the time it takes to scroll to the bottom.

[smallcompany]

Include history into Google AdWords Preview Tool. Let us query previous time during the day, yesterday, etc.

[natim]

Apologize if redundant but geo targeting to allow for combination of dma, states and cities.

Still begging for bulk upload of actual zipcodes.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

The three latest posts are now copy/pasted into the Advertiser Feedback Report - many thanks. :)

Since the report will be sent roughly three hours from now, there is still plenty of time (and space) for more.

Thanks for keeping this thread alive!

AWA

[Rehan]

How about a "Bill Me Now" feature like MSN adCenter added recently (Aug 2008) to allow credit card charges on demand? It would help me a lot in managing the flow of the charges. Right now, my account says "You will be billed every $N" but the Current Balance is almost 10 times $N!

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Now included Rehan - many thanks!

AWA

[cyberandroid]

i have to wonder when i read some of these posts
some of you should be using the api and custom software
especially natim (pm me and ill point you in the right direction)

but im extremely appreciative that AWA a representative of google
is diligently reporting these requests
(i hope he's spell checking them and copyediting some for readablity)

i belive that because of AWA google is more responsive to this forum then the official google group (eughhhh...) which ironically enough his alter ego adwordsPro is also extremely active on

Thank You AWA

[cline]

I love the new data presentation allowing one to look at content network performance separately from search network performance! Thank you! (I believe that was suggested here ages ago).

I'd like the ability to have 1 or 2 additional levels of categorization between the Campaign and Adgroup levels. In really large accounts having many hundreds of adgroups, it would be useful to be able to do some grouping of adgroups within campaigns. I do a workaround by adding some coding to the beginning of adgroup names, so they can at least appear together when sorted, but that trick only goes so far.

[300m]

I know this was probably mentioned before, but I would like to have alerts emails when specific adgroups reach certain thresholds.

Ex. I receive an alert when we fall below 3.1 for an avg position on an adgroup for more than 24 hours i want to watch .

Ex. I receive an alert when a specific campaign has met 80% of its daily budget.

Ex. I receive an alert when there has been a significant increase in impressions from the norm.

All of that information would be of great benefit to advertisers because

we can then raise bids more frequently on keyword we find very important(Google makes more money)

increase our daily budgets on campiagns (google could make more money)

increased impressions could be due to many things, but one could be exposure to press, I would love to know when we get a significant increase in impressions so I could use placement ads more appropriately...Again, Google could make more money.

I did manage to get some reports like this when we decided to combine Google analytics to our account, but the fact is that we took the code down because the load time with that code was too long, so we reverted back to hitslink and raw log files.

I know that Google loves to hear feedback about things, but I have been a proponent of email alerts for a couple years now and I did notice that you recently added the watch list(very nice), but i have a feeling that there are many here who have more than adwords to contend with and do not get to review as closely as they should. I also suspect that many are at a senior level in their jobs and would much rather get an email on specific things so they can delagate tasks.

Thanks for the open thread AWA, much appreciated.

[edited by: 300m at 8:34 pm (utc) on Sep. 11, 2008]

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I love the new data presentation allowing one to look at content network performance separately from search network performance! Thank you! (I believe that was suggested here ages ago).

Glad you like it, Cline. :) Yep, suggesting things in this thread is a good way to have your ideas heard.

At the very least it adds additional 'votes' to ideas/features/tools that are already under consideration - and can certainly go well beyond that.

In any case, I have copy/pasted your latest idea - and am now shopping for more.

The report will hopefully go out a bit earlier than usual today - perhaps as early as 7:30 (Pacific Time).

I'll certainly check back a time or two before then, and see if anyone has had any late-breaking feature requests.

Many thanks, as always.

<added> Got yours too, 300m. Thanks! </added>

AWA

<edit> Hit wrong button. Had to actually finish the post. Came back again to add message to 300m. Done now. I think. </edit>

[edited by: AdWordsAdvisor at 8:41 pm (utc) on Sep. 11, 2008]

[natim]

AWA - when will editor have same city targets available as the api? Currently there's a substantial diff between them
Thanks

[cline]

Add (or increase) the negative factor in the QS associated with redirects. I have a couple of clients who wrote loose affiliate agreements and they've got affiliates sponging off their brand names. Not that Google should care a whit about that, but both the affiliate's link takes longer to load because of the redirect, and that's not good for Google users.

[Sujan]

cline, then they are to stupid to do a proper redirect. Redirect done right add about 10 ms to a request.

[peer_esv]

I would like to see destination URLs and ad copies being separated. If i want to test 2 ad copies with 5 different landing pages then i should not have to create 2x5 ads.

[bears5122]

- The ability to bid at a different rate for search partners.
- The ability to block search partner domains.

[netmeg]

Hopefully we'll be seeing the new QS reporting in the AdWords editor sometime *real* soon...

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Many thanks for all the additions since last week.

They are all now copy/pasted in to the Advertiser Feedback Report - though there is still plenty of room for more.

The report goes out roughly 4 to 5 hours from the time I write this - and I'll check back a time or two for additions.

As always, I appreciate the feedback that comes out of this thread - and I love to see it near the top of the page week by week.

Thanks!

AWA

[Dlocks]

It would like to see the 'minimum bid' for keywords back (the one that has been removed) next to the new 'first page bid' overview.
At this moment I'm unable to see if a keyword is active or inactive.

[poster_boy]

When dropping keyword data into the Traffic Estimator, the following error serves when a single keyword in the list contains more than 10 words:

Some of your keywords are not accepted for the following reason:

* More than 10 words will not match any query

But, then - the burden is on the user to find these keywords, remove them, then re-run... it would be far more convenient to either ignore or identify the offending keywords.