As an Account Director I am responsible for hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad spend through Google every month. Furthermore, that number is growing by approximately 15% a month. Why is it then when client’s have questions that should have good answers, or when I want to do simple things in AdWords that makes perfect sense to do, Google seems to want to make it really hard for me to do my job well?
1. Change history for CPA bid automation
This mysterious tool just runs in the background, supposedly pulling levers and making bid adjustment based on the likeliness that a search query will convert at our desired CPA. Why not through this bid adjustments in change history so we can view, and thus trust, what is being done? If I knew what was being changed, I’d use this tool more!
2. Keyword data for “other search terms” when running an SQR
We all win when I can add negative keywords for search queries that result in impressions on my ads but no clicks. Why can’t I see that data so I can clean up when my ads show?
3. Be able to export QS diagnosis information
The new expanded reasoning for quality score was a big help. Now let me download it so I can analyze big trends across my ad groups and campaigns. This will only lead to smarter, and broader optimizations to increase QS. With this information, I’d also be able to make the case for on page optimizations to my clients if low quality score due to landing page relevancy is a consistent theme.
4. Better click fraud reporting
When a publisher sends me back clicks, or when searchers are participating in click fraud, give me that information! These people are often unintentionally costing me money, but often it is malicious and I’d like to protect my clients from it by blocking IP addresses and even geo targeting around areas that have high fraud. The lack of clarity also makes it hard to explain this concept to clients.
5. Pausing sitelink extensions
Sometimes I like to test things. It’s easiest if I can keep the baseline for my test in a place that makes comparing the results from these tests easy. When you test different verbiage on your sitelinks you have to delete your old sitelink and create a new one. Why can’t you simply pause the old one so you can compare overall performance?
6. Downloadable graphs
The graph tool is a critical part of my optimization and strategy creation processes. It’s also a great way to give a client an idea of how a particular metric that you’ve been focusing on is trending. Let me download, or better yet directly email my client out of the interface other than taking a screen shot or reconstructing the graph in excel.
7. Use my campaign level negatives as Opportunity Tab level negatives too
If I say I don’t want to bid on a term, or theme of terms, use that information to help find better relevant keyword recommendations.
8. Let me view all enabled ads
Why is it that I can view only enabled campaigns, ad groups and keywords, but when it comes to ads I have to view all the paused and enabled ones at the same time. I understand I can create a filter quickly and get this data view, but why make me take this extra step?
What about you? Are there things that Google does that impedes your ability to be an effective PPC manager?
