OK where did my Tools Tab Go?

The new “Opportunities” function replaces perhaps one of the most clicked Tabs within a My Client Center’s interface – Tools.  Well, rest assured the good folks at AdWords have not replaced the precious Tools section but have incorporated all of them under the new Opportunities section within the Adwords interface. You can find the familiar list of tools within this section along the bottom of the left column.

In an effort to continue with the amalgamation of tools and functions within the latest Adwords interface Google has released the Beta version of their popular Keyword Tool.  The Adwords Development team has not only given the Keyword Tool a face lift but has integrated some additional functionality.  The inclusion of a wide gambit of filters allows Campaign Managers to get the data they need faster and with more granularity. Here are some of the new features:

•    Compressive Advanced Options and Filters (Illustrated below)
•    All Match Types at a glance
•    Estimated CTR
•    Estimated Ad Position
•    Estimated Impressions
•    Estimated Cost
•    Category specific filtering
•    Search Share
•    Extraction web page identification
•    Sort by grouping results

Keyword Tool Filters

A trend that the Google AdWords Team has been on as of late is to allow users to have all of their information in front of them during a query. For example one can compare all of the match options for a phrase list in one glance; Broad, Exact and Phrase matches. This is a huge time saver as you do not have to flip between screens to compare the search volumes and other data that tend to differ greatly between match types. The excel export will also carry over all of your match types as well making campaign set up or refinement that much more enjoyable.

I have to admit Google has taken the world of keyword research to the next level with this Beta release and the only thing left for me to do is to see if over time if the new data being shared is indeed accurate in the real world of campaign management. Experience and historical knowledge is still by far the best ammunition for an AdWords Campaign Manager to be successful – good tools sure help though.

A bit more under the hood with Google AdWords…

Placement Tool

The Placement Tool gives you the ability to seek placements with any combination of keyword, category or website URL within the same interface. One can utilize the advance options as well which include filters to segment by Country and / or Language, Ad Sizes, Demographic, and Impressions per day. One other very handy feature is the ability to search for placements via youtube.com.