As one can imagine creating, managing and maintaining a successful set of Google AdWords campaigns can be a daunting task on some occasions. The Google AdWords Team historically has provided its users with a plethora of very valuable tools to help with the day to day needs of an AdWords manager.

The tools that really are of high value are the ones that can save the “guess work” being done. There are two benefits to access of these types of resources with the first being saving time to perform a task or develop a strategy. Secondly, these time saving tools can have a positive impact to a budget’s bottom line. If one can find a balance between a given keyword’s maximum bid and the volume of impressions it may accrue over time without using a best guess approach this may help eliminate unnecessary clicks and cost. Typically it can take a few days of monitoring and manipulating bids (and yes, ad copy and landing targets as well) before one understands the users click behavior resulting in a more firm bid setting. This can, in some cases slowly chip away at your budget without any initial results.

In comes Google’s latest addition to the new AdWords interface the Bid Simulator. Released on August 3rd 2009 the Bid Simulator helps alleviate some of the guess work behind where to start with a given bid and to which keyword groups to allocate your over budget to. The Bid Simulator provides a range of keyword data from the previous seven days and compares it to your actual current bid during this time. Basically it answers the questions “What if I had a lower bid back then… would I have had significantly lower impressions?” or “Should I have doubled the bid as I am not having a high impression rate on my ads?”. Although the Bid Simulator in Google’s words “cannot predict the future” it has the ability to point you in the right direction.

This feature in no way can replace the historical knowledge and decision making a Qualified Google AdWords Professional has gained over time but it is another small interface addition that can make my day a lot easier. I highly recommend reading “Bid like a pro with the bid simulator” from the Google Adwords Team.