New Google AdWords Interface - comments?

[smallcompany]

I see three threads that are being posted into by anyone who wanted to say something about new Google AdWords interface.

I thought it would be good to integrate them into one, and make life easier for AWA, for the good of all of us.

From now on, I would call on everyone to post here, so we get the consolidation in place.

An Open Plea to Google to Keep the Old Interface Alive
[webmasterworld.com...]

Google rolling out new UI today
[webmasterworld.com...]

Forced onto New Adwords Interface
[webmasterworld.com...]

[Channel01]

All of my top level 'total campaign' roll-up statistics are showing the incorrect metric for the header (e.g. CPC under Impressions, Conversions under Cost). This happens in both FF and IE and just started tonight.

[Soze]

Why the heck do my columns keep changing?! It keeps reorganizing them for some reason and the order isn't making any sense.

What the hell is going on?

[leb0wski]

What is all this craziness over the past few days with the columns in the new AdWords UI? It seems like almost every time I log in my columns are completely reorganized. Some are even hidden (I'm talking to you Max CPC column!). This is absolutely ridiculous. The development team for the new UI is doing noting but totally confusing everyone who uses the UI and it's very alienating to log into a system that you are just starting to become familiar with (since they are now denying us access to the old - and perfectly efficient/usable - UI) and see that all of your columns/controls have been apparently rearranged while you were gone. It's like walking into your office and becoming confused and frustrated because someone has hidden your keyboard under your desk and you can't get any work done until you rearrange everything all over again. This is very frustrating and, I have to say, this approach to UI upgrades completely lacks the professionalism and attention to detail that I expect from Google.

[Soze]

This problem aside, the new interface is way better than the old one. Really fast and efficient. I was against it at first, but it really is a lot better.

[KimClink]

I love the new interface. It took a little getting used to but it really does work better than the old one. I really love the inline reporting features such as the search query reports. I think Google did a great job with the new UI!

[Rehan]

Yesterday I had a chance to try the new AdWords UI on an iPhone 3GS, and it did seem to at least load fully and seemed usable if you patience. That's much better than on my iPhone 3G, which got very bogged down while loading the pages and often restarted the browser when I tried loading the AdWords pages.

So I guess I'll be upgrading my phone; that's easier than trying to fit a netbook in my pocket.

[smallcompany]

1. When I'm logged through MCC, Tools tab does not exist. If I log into account directly, Tools tab is there. Is this just me or...
2. Load time problem - I click onto a wrong button (or whatever) many times a day. I.e., I point the cursor onto a check box to select all keywords, make a click, and figure I clicked onto a button above. The reason: Everything "jumps" around until it loads.
3. Action buttons on the top (new campaign, change status) - want them on the bottom as well - I can spend a day on scrolling up & down.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I'll be passing this feedback along to the new UI team later tonight - and will check back at least once to see if anything else has been added.

Why the heck do my columns keep changing?! It keeps reorganizing them for some reason and the order isn't making any sense. [...]

What is all this craziness over the past few days with the columns in the new AdWords UI? It seems like almost every time I log in my columns are completely reorganized. [...]

This was a tech issue, now resolved - in part thanks to leb0wski who posted about it both here and in another forum. Thanks for that, leb0wski. ;)

My apology for the confusion and hair pulling.

An aside to KimClink: the name sounds rather oddly familiar. ;) Welcome to WebmasterWorld! And thanks for the positive comments about the new UI: I know you were not always a fan. You'll have put a smile on a lot of faces when the new UI team reads this week's feedback report. Since we most often hear from folks who are not pleased (which makes perfect sense to me, BTW) the occasional postive comment goes a long way.

Thanks to you too, Soze. ;)

AWA

[KimClink]

Hi There AWA,

Nice to see you here! :) and thanks for the welcome. I thought I might see what was going on in some other forums and really like the WebmasterWorld forum so far.

I know we all need some positive feedback now and then :)

See you around.

[arizonadude]

I can't stand the new adwords interface.

Logging is a simple exercise in frustration. I see the loading sign more than I see my account and I have to refresh numerous times to see that.

Whoever worked on the new interface should be fired and Google should of never forced it on those that didn't want it.

But then Google doesn't really give a toot about the people who spend money with them because they think they have so much money we don't matter.

It's only a matter of time Google, your days of being the king of the hill are numbered...........

[leb0wski]

AdWordsAdvisor - I'm glad to hear that your team appreciated my (and many others') feedback on the recent column bug in the new UI. It's really nice to know that the Google team is listening to it's users and can take rapid action when needed. Now if I could only figure out how to get your team to take action on the lack of "<<Prev - Next>>" links which are still missing at the top right of the page when viewing lists of sorted ad groups! :)

Overall, I think the new UI is an improvement in many ways, but I also think there is still a long way to go to work all the annoyances/bugs/time-wasting processes out of the system. Good job so far and we all look forward to seeing continuing improvements.

One thing that would be very nice to have is a change-log for the new UI. It would be really nice to have a list of all the updates that have been made to the new AdWords UI in chronological order so we all know what has changed, what has been added, etc. and don't have to go looking for new stuff every day.

[KimClink]

I agree with Leb0wski about a formal change log. There is a list of known issues - 'recently fixed & now available' which is somewhat helpful [adwords.google.com...]

One thing I would love to see as a default in the UI (AWA will love me for this :) is the quality score column. Considering QS is so important why would it not be shown by default?

[leb0wski]

When I'm logged in through my MCC account (which is 99% of the time) it seems like about 50% of the time that I try to use the Keyword Tool the system tells me that my session has expired and I get kicked back to my MCC home dashboard. This happens when I want to view reports and in many other situations as well. Google, please stop kicking me back to my MCC home dashboard and making me navigate all the way back down to the ad group/keywords I was working with when you kicked me out. It happens 5-7x/day and it's really annoying. Please fix it!

[smallcompany]

Why was destination URL taken out from "table" editing? I don't use spreadsheet because it requires extra steps. I want an arrow that copies it up and down.

[DiscoStu]

Another thing: when checking stats for longer periods of time (say 3 months or more) the graph starts showing the wrong numbers (like more than double the conversions that actually happened on that day). If it's under 2 months it seems fine

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Thanks for the latest feedback in this thread. Very useful. ;)

And still plenty of time for more before I send it to the team late Thursday.

AdWordsAdvisor - I'm glad to hear that your team appreciated my (and many others') feedback on the recent column bug in the new UI. It's really nice to know that the Google team is listening to it's users and can take rapid action when needed. Now if I could only figure out how to get your team to take action on the lack of "<<Prev - Next>>" links which are still missing at the top right of the page when viewing lists of sorted ad groups! :)

I predict that you will be seeing this return, leb0wski - though, unfortunately, my prediction does not run so far as to when, exactly, that will be. ;) Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

AWA

[leb0wski]

AdWordsAdvisor - That's great to hear! I will try to be patient...but I can't wait to see it! Thanks again.

[smallcompany]

Totals!

If a recall correctly, with the old interface we had two totals when we select to see "active" only which is "All enabled" in the new interface:

- You see the total for active as of today
- You also see the total for active as of today plus all other that was active in the period you've selected.

I miss that!

Example: If I have three ad groups and I pick 10 days period and figure that one of them had produced no sales, and I pause it, I would like to see the total with it and without it.
This is what we could all "an analysis on the go" - something that Google has supported with its interface from day one.
We always had a choice to see the data in a few ways right in the interface without running and (please no) downloading reports for further analytical research.

Thanks

[KimClink]

I hope no one has already posted this...sorry if that is the case...

many advertisers ask me how they can set individual destination urls per keyword. I know that it can be done in the adgroup level under the More Actions - Spreadsheet edit but I think most advertisers will have a very hard time finding that. It used to be much easier in the old UI.

[Rehan]

many advertisers ask me how they can set individual destination urls per keyword. I know that it can be done in the adgroup level under the More Actions - Spreadsheet edit but I think most advertisers will have a very hard time finding that.

Or you can "Customize columns" for the Keywords tab to show the Dest URL column and then just edit it in the table view.

[KimClink]

Thanks Rehan,

I had not noticed that!

[leb0wski]

When viewing keywords within an ad group and you select the "See search terms..." drop down and select "All" the list of keywords that get generated tells you which match type is suggested for each keyword. But when you select the keywords and click the "add as keywords" link, all keywords get added as broad match and not the suggested match type from the original list. And since it's a pop up that you're adding the keywords in, it covers up the list behind it which shows the match type suggestions. Please include the suggested match type in the "add as keywords" functionality here.

[pdivi]

The new interface rivals Microsoft Vista in its clumsiness. Some of us prefer fast, simple functionality to purty, purty pictures. At the very least, please bring back the editor box where we can bulk paste keywords, bids and URLs.

[Brecon]

I'm pretty happy with the new interface; particularly the search query report within ad groups....but when adding keywords from that report it doesn't make it easy to add them as phrase or exact match in bulk.

Having to either manually add ""'s and []'s or enter as broad then change in adwords editor is a waste of time. Allowing keywords to be added all as phrase or exact would considerably speed things up for me there.

[Brecon]

And just to reiterate a couple of earlier points

1. Stop hiding the tools.
2. Drilling in is good, trying to go back a step to go to the next ad group is not.

Minor gripes in an otherwise very functional interface.

[Harvey44]

I've been pretty critical of the new interface. Mostly the speed. It's so slow. And hiding keyword tool just emphasizes the speed issues. Arg.

But I found something I really like. If you have a keyword in broad match, and you add the same keyword in in phrase and exact - the interface gives those "new" matchtypes the data and conversions they already garnered. Awesome feature.

Speed the freakin thing up, and I'll be much happier.

Also why do I have to add the match type (quotes or brackets) in manually from the search query - what a pain.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I'll be passing the latest feedback regarding the (well, not so new any more) interface from this thread along tomorrow evening, so please feel free to add your additional thoughts/requests.

Just to have mentioned it, I'll be sending the report much earlier than usual, by 5:00 PM Pacific time or so - as I'll be away to honor a favorite mentor. ;)

AWA

[ceetee]

After many months with the new interface I still don't understand what user need it's meant to address. For the Loading... interface which never does in my mobile phone what huge benefit do I get?

I think it's time For Google to roll back to the original or at least offer it as an alternative. I especially want an interface I can access with a mobile phone.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Thanks ceetee - sent to the team just a couple of minutes ago. ;)

AWA

[DiscoStu]

Here's a feature request: add "compare to past" functionality (like in analytics) and have green & red numbers pop up next to all the metrics to show the changes. This would be a huge help, now it takes some time to figure out exactly what has caused an overall change to a campaign.