Google AdWords Editor a Great Tool for Content -- and for Yahoo/Microsoft!

By David Szetela , May 12, 2008

Most of my regular readers were thrilled last week when I detailed a strategy for splitting content ad groups into one ad group per media type. The method works well because each media type – text ads, banner ads, video ads – exhibit different performance characteristics, and splitting into separate ad groups lets you manage bids to optimize ROI individually. This strategy had increased the number of conversions for our clients by 100 percent.

Joy turned to despair, however, when some readers realized that splitting ad groups – especially ones containing multiple non-text ads – could be a manual, time-consuming chore.

Time to turn despair back to joy: AdWords Editor to the rescue. This free Google tool makes editing ad groups of any kind a snap. Furthermore, as explained shortly, AdWords Editor might be your best friend if you conduct PPC ad campaigns on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

First, an AdWords Editor overview: it's a standalone software application that downloads the structure and content of your AdWords account and lets you perform fast, easy changes – think Microsoft Excel for AdWords. Use it to perform almost all of the functions you might do through the AdWords Web interface – in a fraction of the time.

I won't go into all the features, but here are two key ones:

  1. You can cut, copy and paste almost any entity – from a single keyword or ad (text or image) to an entire campaign.

  2. You can perform global search and replace operations to change any text – in keywords and ad copy, for example – and even bid prices.

Check out these two AdWords Editor screen caps, and imagine how you would use them to make fast changes to your campaigns:

 

Here's the procedure for splitting ad groups:

  1. Highlight the name of the original ad group in AdWords Editor.

  2. Copy and paste the ad group – use the menus, or do a quick CTRL-C CTRL-V sequence of keystrokes.

  3. Immediately rename the ad group – we've found it useful to include the ad type in the ad group name – e.g. "Exercise Bikes 720x90."

  4. Click on the AdWords Editor "Ads" tab, and delete all but the one ad you want to retain.

  5. Repeat until all ads are split into ad groups with one ad each. Pause the original ad group and set the new ones to Active.

Time with AdWords Editor: five minutes. Time through the Web interface: at least 30 minutes.

Using AdWords Editor for Non-Google Campaigns

So why is AdWords Editor a godsend to Yahoo and Microsoft advertisers? Because AdWords Editor lets you export data – entire ad groups or campaigns, for example – into a standard CSV file that can be used as a bulk upload file to create new ad groups and campaigns in Yahoo Search Marketing (Panama) and Microsoft adCenter.

Here are the steps for exporting a campaign to Yahoo:

  1. In AdWords Editor, go to File, then Export to CSV.

  2. Save the CSV file.

  3. Log into Yahoo Search Marketing.

  4. Click on the Campaign Tab.

  5. Click on Import (directly under and to the right of the campaign tab).

  6. Click on the Convert Third Party Campaigns Tab (in the middle of the page).

  7. Upload the CSV file that you exported and saved from AdWords Editor.

And here are the steps for exporting a campaign to Microsoft:

  1. In AdWords Editor, go to File, then Export to CSV.

  2. Save the CSV file.

  3. Log into Microsoft adCenter.

  4. Click on Campaigns.

  5. Click on Import campaigns.

  6. Click on Excel (in blue) to download a template.

  7. Copy and paste the data from your AdWords Editor file to the template.

  8. Save the template.

  9. On MSN, click "Import File."

  10. Upload the CSV file that you exported and saved from AdWords Editor.

In both cases you may need to make adjustments once the campaigns are uploaded – to meet ad line length requirements, for example.

How much time did I save you this week? E-mail me comments and questions, or post them in the Search Engine Watch Forum Content Advertising thread.

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