Adwords Editor

[Kevs]

Adwords Editor is the ugliest, most bloated, disorganized, most poorly desinged software I have ever seen.

Does anyone use this succesfully?

I've actually deleted full campaigs/ Ads/Keywords groups by mistake by using it.

I can't read what what's going on in there.

[briggidere]

I couldn't do my job without it.

Be careful with the "revert" function, it is not "undo" which many people have mistaken it for.

There are so many positives to it I couldn't name them all, but here are a few.

copy and pasting across accounts/campaigns
editing multiple ads/urls/
creating a backup of an account in case things go wrong
adding comments are essential

[netmeg]

I love AdWords Editor, I also couldn't do my job without it. The biggest thing that kept me out of Yahoo and adCenter was the lack of an equivalent (adCenter finally came up with a desktop tool, but it's buggier than a mosquito pond and requires IE and crashes a lot)

I myself find it much faster, easier and more intuitive to use than the new AdWords UI, which in my experience has significant bugs in EVERY SINGLE BROWSER CURRENTLY AVAILABLE.

(Just wanted to make sure I was clear on that)

[Kevs]

Guys, I want to use it for all those things, but I cannot fathom at all --

where are all the unified keywords.
Why am I seeing campagns I've deleted?
How do I create multiple Ads
How copy ads to another campaign.

The design is so clunky (it looks like it was designed by a 9th grader)
I cannot figure out how to do these things.
I would need somone in my house showing me how to do it with this clunky - 5th rate design)

[Kevs]

Nutmeg,
I was going to send you a PM, but one cannot do that on this site? and your email is nowhere to be found on your website?

[netmeg]

Well for one thing, I'm netmeg, not nutmeg. And PM here is called sticky mail.

I don't know why you're seeing campaigns you've deleted, I'm not. Did you click on "get recent changes" to make sure you're in sync with the actual account?

Copy ads is very easy - control C to copy, and then control V to paste. Works on keywords, campaigns, adgroups, everything.

If you want to create multiple ads, try exporting an ad group to a spreadsheet, create your ads in Excel,and then import them back up.

As far as my email on my website - I've had my email address since 1993. I refuse to change it. Wanna guess how many thousands of spam lists I'm on?

I'm not hard to find. I can be Googled, but you have to spell it correctly.

[Eurydice]

Nutmeg sounds better :-)

Yes, Adwords Editor is a bit of a hack, but it's the best tool that Google has ever produced. Extremely powerful. It's practically on my screen all the time.

[netmeg]

It's a PUN. I even made a Google video about it.

[DiscoStu]

I love AE, I feel the interface is very simple and logical. You can even easily copy and paste any info in to excel and back which can be useful sometimes. As for your questions, it just sounds like you need to give it a more serious try as everything you asked about are pretty easily done by using the menu items - viewing/not viewing deleted campaigns is under options, create multiple ads is under "add/update multiple ads", copy ads to another campaign is ctrl c and ctrl v etc... pretty self explanatory if you spend any amount of time with it.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

It's a PUN. I even made a Google video about it.

Who knew? It's brilliant!

AWA

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Who knew? It's brilliant!

Clarification: When I said "who knew?" I was referring to the video.

I've always enjoyed the pun. ;)

AWA

[netmeg]

heh, thanks. I felt it needed to be said.

[Kevs]

thanks all.
YEs I see campaings with lines through them and red dots next to them. Don't see a way to not see them.
Intruiged by idea of backup up the campain. God forbid, Google suspends your ac#*$!.
What does this entail, how would you seamlessless re-install a full campaign?

[briggidere]

Hi Kevs,

If you want to get rid of the deleted campaigns you can change the settings to hide them. Go to Tools > Settings and then tick whichever boxes you want. You can hide deleted and ended campaigns, adgroups & ads.

If you want to create a backup, you can go to File > Export Backup (AEA).

I think it'd be a good idea for you to go through and read up on the features and tips here, [google.com...]

[Kevs]

Brig,
thanks:
I don't see setting under tools:
[tinypic.com...]

Again, backup, what does it do? How would you re-install a very complex account if you had to.
thanks for the help link. I wish there was a nice pdf to read on the software instead.

[briggidere]

The backup takes an copy of the account in it's current state. You can then import this back into the account if you need to using File > Import Account Snapshot. This overrides what is in the account, so be careful.

What version of editor are you using, you should have settings under tools?

[Kevs]

What I forsee more dire is your account got nuked by Google for whatever reason. Would the backup import perfectly into a new account?

[Kevs]

PS,
did you see the screenshot, under Tools... don't see anything about hiding.

[briggidere]

yeah, you can import the snapshot into any account no worries.

I saw the screenshot and I have settings under what you have there. What editor version are you using and is it a mac or pc?

[netmeg]

Looks like the Mac version.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Adwords Editor is the ugliest, most bloated, disorganized, most poorly desinged software I have ever seen.

I love AdWords Editor, I also couldn't do my job without it. [...]

I love AE, I feel the interface is very simple and logical. [...]

And so forth...

I just sent the link to this thread to the person whom I think of as the 'Father' of AE. I'm sure he'll get a kick out of it.

He sits near me, so I hope to hear his reaction when he opens it.

As a personal aside, I think I have seen more folks here on WebmasterWorld say they love AE, more than any other AdWords tool or feature. ;)

AWA

[Kevs]

I appreciate AE, I'm getting better at it, so thank that guy,
but I will say;
The design and interface or it, and Adwords is just pathetic.
Google is a billion dollar company and cannot hire A level designers?

Look at Apple.com

[netmeg]

I *like* the design of it; anything Apple-like would just get in the way. The only argument I have with AE is that more of the features from the UI aren't available in it.

[DiscoStu]

AE just like Adwords takes a minimalist approach and they have been very successful with it. I have yet to see a better ppc interface or offline editor and that's saying a lot seeing the billions that are in the industry. AE is basically just a spreadsheet template, because most businesses are used to working with spreadsheets. As for Apple, Itunes is a perfect example of why Google is doing it better. IF you can handle excel you should be able to figure out AE, but try to add one picture to your iphone through itunes or remove duplicates and you'll see what I mean

[arieng]

Though I like AE and think it is a great couterpart to the online interface, I find it most useful to use AE to create advanced criteria-based selections and then copy that into Excel and/or Access.

[netmeg]

I'm having a weird situation in AdWords Editor; not sure if it's just this account because I haven't tried it yet.

I want to back up three campaigns in one account, and then import them into another account. No matter what I do, AWE backs up not only the three campaigns, but also all the deleted campaigns. And then when I try to import the backup file, it imports the deleted campaigns as "Paused" What's up with that?

[after_hours]

Love AdWords Editor. Far better than any other tool out there.