AdWords Conversion Tracking is now even easier

If you use AdWords Conversion Tracking, you may have noticed that the interface for this tool has been redesigned so that it's easier to implement, monitor, and troubleshoot.

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There are now 3 easy-to-use tabs - Conversions, Webpages, and Code - that help you manage your conversion data. Let's take a closer look at each of them:

Conversions: This is where you see information about the conversion actions you're tracking.

• The "Tracking Status" column lets you know whether a conversion action is tracking properly. It shows you if a conversion has ever been recorded, if it has recently stopped recording, or if it's working just fine.
• The "Value" column shows the accumulated value of the conversions you've received based on the value you've assigned to each action.
• The "New Conversion" button allows you to easily create new conversion actions or import them from a linked Google Analytics account. (Note: In order to import Google Analytics goals, you'll first need to follow a few steps.)

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Webpages: Here, you'll see which pages on your site are getting conversions. You can also see a breakdown of the number of conversions per page on your site. This is useful for troubleshooting, as you can make sure conversions are coming from the pages you expect and identify pages that are not reporting conversion activity.

Code: This is where you get the tracking code for each conversion action. You can also change the value of an action, which helps you calculate ROI.

If you're not currently using AdWords Conversion Tracking, now is a great time to start. Conversion Tracking gives you an accurate way to measure the success of your AdWords campaigns. You can learn more about the benefits and how to implement it here.

We hope you enjoy the new interface and happy optimizing!

Posted by Emily Williams, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: A look back and a farewell

For nearly five months we've been running New Interface Thursdays here on the Inside AdWords blog. As the new AdWords interface moves to simply being AdWords, we're bringing this series to a close.

You can find all of the posts in the series under the New Interface label, but here are some of our favorites:

• Keep tabs on your account with Custom Alerts
• All about filters
• Introducing spreadsheet editing

We look forward to writing more about AdWords every day of the week. Thanks for a great series.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Tips for keyword management

Now that most advertisers are using the new interface exclusively, we want to share some efficiency tips to really unlock the potential of the new interface.

Focusing on what's important

In the Keywords tab you have several tools that help you focus on what matters to you.

First, you can customize columns to show only the metrics you care about and in the order you want. You can then use filters to focus on keywords that match a certain criteria. For example, you might only want to look at keywords that aren't converting well. Filters let you hone on what's important. You can find examples of good filters to try in this Help Center article.

And once you know what you're looking for, you can put AdWords on the look out. Using custom alerts you can tell AdWords what changes are important to you and be alerted when they happen both in your account and via email. For example, using filters you identify your best converting high volume keywords. You could create an alert to be notified if the conversion rate on those keywords drops compared to last week.

If you're working through a My Client Center account, note that you'll need to log in directly to an individual AdWords account to set custom alerts for now.

Changing many things at once

Once you've found what's important, the new interface makes it easier to make bulk changes to your keywords. First off you can select many keywords at once and click Edit to open up all fields for editing. To save time, you can do this all with your keyboard: select keywords with X, move up and down rows using J and K, and press E to get into edit mode. If you want to select a consecutive list of keywords, select the first keyword then hold the Shift key, and then click the last keyword you want selected.

While in edit mode, you can pause keywords, adjust your Max CPC, change the destination URL, and switch the match type. You can also copy bids and destination URLs to all rows. We've also recently added the ability to raise all applicable keyword bids to their first page CPC. From edit mode, just click Prefill all CPCs to first page bid.

You can also use spreadsheet editing to make bulk changes. Spreadsheet editing lets you work with your keywords as if you were using a spreadsheet. You can use formulas, copy and paste, and even find and replace. You'll find spreadsheet editing by clicking More actions then Spreadsheet edit. Remember that spreadsheet editing can only be done within an ad group.

Moving things around

Maintaining a good account structure is one of the keys to successful AdWords campaigns. So, from time to time, you may want to move things around a bit to create more refined, relevant sets of keywords and ads. This is where the copy feature comes in handy. Like spreadsheet editing, you'll also find copy under More actions.You can copy keywords to another ad group or campaign. When copying keywords, you have the option to also copy the bid and destination URL.

We hope these tips help you manage your keywords more effectively and improve your AdWords campaigns.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Your top questions from the webinar series

Today we held the last in the series of new interface webinars. Each week we get lots of great questions from attendees about the new interface. Today on New Interface Thursdays we're going to highlight some of the top questions and answer them.

How do I delete keywords?
To delete a keyword, select the checkbox next to it and then click on the Change status menu at the top of the table. There, you'll find the option to delete.

My ad is pending review. What does that mean?
An ad with a pending review status can run on Google search pages, but it won't run on our search partners or on content network placements until we review and approve it. Every time you submit new ads or make changes to existing ads, they are automatically submitted for review. (We review ads in the order they're submitted).

In the previous interface, ads were reviewed and approved in the same way, but this information wasn't visible. With the new interface, we chose to start showing more detailed approval status information to give you a better of idea of where your ads are eligible to show.

Where do I find spreadsheet editing?
Spreadsheet editing is only available at the ad group level. To enter spreadsheet mode, navigate to the Keywords tab of any ad group, then select Spreadsheet edit under the More actions menu.

What is the difference between 1 per click and many per click conversions?
The metric formerly called conversions in the previous AdWords interface is now relabeled 1-per-click conversions in the new interface. This metric measures the number of unique clicks on your ads that lead to conversion events. For example, if you're measuring sales and one ad click leads to three different transactions, only one 1-per-click conversion is counted.

In contrast, many-per-click conversions count each conversion that occurs after a click on your ad. So in the example above, since three different transactions occurred after the initial click on your ad, three many-per-click conversions are counted.

You can learn more about the difference between 1-per-click and many-per-click conversions here.

How do I view Destination URLs for keywords?
You can easily view the destination URLs for your keywords by customizing your columns. From the Keywords tab, click Filters and views and select Customize columns. From there you can turn on the column for Destination URL as well as other metrics for your keywords.

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Where are settings for ad scheduling, frequency capping, ad rotations, etc?
On the Campaign Settings tab, there are a few sections labeled Advanced. For example, below your selected bid type and budget, you'll find an advanced section for position preferences and delivery method. At the very bottom of the page, you'll find some additional advanced settings like ad scheduling, ad rotation settings, and frequency capping. We organized the settings page in this way to make sure it was easy for you to scan through the fundamentals of your campaign while still giving you the option to explore more advanced configurations.

Thanks for all the great questions.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Best practices for location extensions

A few weeks ago, we introduced location extensions - the new way to run local ads in AdWords. Today, we wanted to tell you a bit more about location extensions and give you some best practices for setting them up in your account.

First, it's important to know that there are two ways to set up extensions. You can set up extensions at the campaign level or at the ad level.

Setting up campaign level extensions means that Google will dynamically match a campaign's text ads with the most relevant address in your account based on information like a user's location or a user's search terms. Keep in mind that the address will only be shown when it's relevant to the user's location or search terms. We'll use a fictional chain of coffee shops, Bob's Coffee, to illustrate when you'd want to add campaign level extensions:

Add campaign level extensions when you want to...

• Use the same ad text across a number of business locations. For example, Bob has a "buy one cup, get the second free" discount at all his coffee shops. Bob can create one ad and run campaign level extensions because his ad text for this discount is applicable to all his locations.
  
  
• Direct ads for all of your locations to the same landing page. For example, all of Bob's stores feature the same drinks and prices, so he has a single webpage to greet online users regardless of their location.
  
  
• Create and edit a lot of ads quickly. For example, Bob's Coffee is introducing a "$1 latte Tuesdays" promotion at all its stores. If Bob creates a new campaign for this promotion and sets up campaign extensions, he only has to create one ad, and that ad will be able to show with any of the addresses associated with that campaign.

If you think these settings are right for your campaigns, you can learn more about how to set up campaign level extensions.

Ad level extensions allow you to override a campaign's location extension settings. When you use ad level extensions, you are selecting one address to show with a specific ad.

Create ad level extensions when you want to...

• Associate a single address with a specific marketing message. For example, Bob wants to test out a promotion at just one location before implementing it for all stores. He is going to offer a "Case of the Mondays" special, a free upgrade to a large coffee when you a buy medium coffee on Monday. Bob has created an ad to go with this promotion and only wants this ad to show for the one location where he's running the promotion. He doesn't want AdWords to match the ad to any of his other addresses, so he overrides the campaign setting with an ad level extension.
  
  
• Direct each ad to a specific landing page. Bob has also created a separate landing page within his website to promote the "Case of the Mondays" promotion. He wants to direct most of his users to the main webpage via his regular campaigns, but wants to direct viewers of the "Case of the Mondays" ad to a page specifically for the promotion.

If ad level extensions better meet your needs, read more about how to start using them. Remember, you can use a mix of campaign and ad level extensions in your account.

Adding addresses to AdWords

When you're setting up your extensions, you should also know that there are two ways to give your addresses to Google: use the Local Business Center or enter addresses manually into AdWords.

If you're a primary business owner, you should use Local Business Center to give your addresses to Google. The Local Business Center is a free tool that allows you to manage your business listings. Addresses you enter manually or through bulk upload here will affect how your free business listings and ads appear on Google.com and Google Maps. If you plan to use Local Business Center, you can learn more about how it works with extensions.

If you're not the primary business owner of the locations in your ads, you can manually enter addresses into AdWords. An example of a non-business owner might be a wireless hotspot company that provides Internet access at Bob's Coffee. The company doesn't own any of the Bob's Coffee locations, but might want to advertise that their Wi-Fi services are available at a Bob's coffee location.

Whichever method you choose, you can add addresses from the same place in AdWords, in the Audience section of the Settings tab.

To learn more about location extensions, check out the location extensions overview section in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Keep tabs on your account with custom alerts

The new interface helps you focus on the data you care about with tools like filters and customizable columns. But wouldn't it be great if, instead of having to search for important changes in your metrics, you could be notified when a change you care about occurs?

That's why we've released a new feature called custom alerts. Custom alerts help you stay on top of your account's performance by notifying you whenever important changes occur in your account.

For example, what if you wanted to know when there was a spike in impressions for any of your branded keywords? Simply navigate to your branded keywords ad group, and in the Keywords tab, click More actions, then Create a custom alert.

Here, we've defined an alert to notify us when impressions for the brand terms ad group have increased more than 20% over the previous day:

As another example, you might want to be notified when a campaign is coming close to hitting its budget. To set up this alert, you'll first navigate to All online campaigns. Under More actions, select Create a custom alert. You can set up a ">90% of daily budget spent" alert for a selected campaign, or for every campaign in your account.

Getting alerts

Once you've set up an alert, AdWords will be on the lookout for changes. After an alert is triggered, you'll see it in the Messages section at the top of your account.

If you set up email notification, you don't even need to log in, you'll be emailed when the important change occurs.

Clicking the plus-box shows the full alert:

You can then dismiss the alert from your messages, or click View to see the parts of your account that triggered the notification.

Managing your custom alerts

To look at the alerts you've already set up, select Manage custom alerts under the More actions menu. You can see all the alerts you've set up for your account by first navigating to the Campaigns tab in All online campaigns.

When managing your alerts you can make a number of changes, like pausing or deleting an alert. You can also modify an alert's settings using in-line editing. Lastly, you can turn email notification on or off for a particular alert.

Custom alerts are one of our favorite features in the new AdWords interface, and we're excited about all the different ways you can use them. So the next time you want to keep a close eye on your account, remember that AdWords can stay alert for you.

Meet the new AdWords interface team

There are two upcoming chances to meet the new interface team. Next week, we'll be at the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference. Join us for our session Google AdWords, Analytics & Website Optimizer: Secrets Revealed! on August 12th at 2:30 PM. After the session, we'll be holding a "science fair" where you can meet many of the AdWords engineers.

We also have one more webinar on August 20th at 9:30 AM PDT. You can register for the free webinar on the new interface webinars site.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Two more chances to attend a new AdWords interface webinar

For the last two months, we've been hosting weekly webinars about the new AdWords interface. In each webinar, members of the AdWords team walk through the changes in the new interface, show how you can use the new features to manage your advertising campaigns, and answer your questions.

Over the weeks, many advertisers have joined us to learn more about the new interface. Here's what a couple of them had to say about the webinars:

I'd like to thank you for today's webinar. It was very useful and I've learned more about the new features of AdWords interface.

This was truly a great session and I learned a few new tricks. Great shortcuts and tools for power users.

There are just two more webinars left in the series. The next webinar is tomorrow, Wednesday, August 5 at 9:30 AM PDT. Our final webinar will be on Thursday, August 20 at 9:30 AM PDT. You can register for either webinar on the new interface webinars site.

And if you can't attend one of the live webinars, the next best thing is a recorded one:

Hope to see you on the 5th or the 20th.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursday: Bye bye beta

When we started building the new AdWords interface we asked ourselves two questions. First, how can we help you get your work done faster? Second, how can we help you find the right tools at the right time to drive the best possible performance for your AdWords campaigns? We believe we've made great progress towards these goals, and today, the new interface is coming out of beta.

We've heard from many of you that the new interface has made a material difference for your business. Advertisers have saved time with quicker editing, reporting, and account navigation, and they've improved campaign performance by using better integrated tools to refine their targeting.

For example, search marketing agency ROI Revolution has used the new interface to reduce the average time they spend optimizing a given campaign for the Google Content Network from a few hours to just 20 minutes. Team lead Justin D'Angelo explains: “We’ve spotted things that used to take much longer, require running reports and require much more data analysis. With the new interface, we can spot it in a second and cut costs for our clients."

B2B software company ClickTime has also seen measurable business impact from using the new interface. They've used the search terms report to increase their CTR by 31% while reducing cost per lead and improving overall lead quality. On the whole, they estimate their AdWords productivity has increased by 100% with the new interface. You can read more about these success stories on our case studies page.

Let's look at the continuous improvements we've made and new features we've rolled out to the new AdWords interface in response to advertiser feedback. In the past month alone we've released spreadsheet editing to support bulk changes to keyword lists, and location extensions to simplify the local advertising process, among other additions. And we're not done yet -- the new AdWords interface is built on an infrastructure that lets us develop features more quickly than in the past, so you'll continue to see new features released regularly in the coming months.

Now that the new interface is out of beta, we're upgrading a larger number of advertiser accounts to the new interface exclusively. If you have questions about the interface, please consult the new interface microsite or attend an upcoming free webinar.

Finally, we'd like to say thank you to all of you who helped us test the new AdWords interface over the past nine months. Your feedback has been invaluable in making AdWords what it is today. And as always, if you have any comments or requests, please let us know.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Location extensions, a new way to run local ads

Today, we'd like to tell you about a new way to run your local ads – location extensions. Location extensions allow you to "extend" your AdWords campaigns by dynamically attaching your business address to your ads. This new feature will be fully available in the coming weeks, with some advertisers having access to the feature starting today.

If you're a business owner, you can set up extensions by linking an AdWords campaign to your Local Business Center (LBC) account. If you're not the primary business owner of the locations you're advertising, you can manually enter addresses directly into AdWords. For example, a clothing brand that distributes to a number of different stores might want to associate their ads with various store locations through extensions, even though their official business address doesn't correspond to those addresses.

Once extensions are set up, we'll dynamically match your business locations to a user's location or search terms and show the address with your text ads. If we're unable to determine a user's location or if there are no relevant addresses to show, we'll simply show your ad without an address. If you prefer not to dynamically match addresses to your ads and would rather show a specific address in one particular ad, you can do so by setting up specific location extensions for individual ads. Your ads can show with their relevant extensions on Google and Google Maps and as regular text ads without the extensions on partner sites in the Search and Content Networks.

With the introduction of location extensions, local business ads will no longer be a separate ad format. Instead, you can simply create new local ads with extensions from scratch or add extensions to your existing text ads. For those of you who have existing local business ads, your ads will continue running as long as you don't edit them. If you edit a local business ad, it will be converted to a text ad with the ad's address attached as a location extension. The new converted ad will look identical to the local business ad and will appear in the same places as your local business ads. AdWords Editor will continue to support the creation and management of local business ads, and we plan to launch Editor support for location extensions in a future release. For full details about editing local business ads in the new interface, please visit this Help Center entry.

To learn more about location extensions, please see the location extensions overview section of the Help Center.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursday: Beta Test the Opportunities Tab

How do I get better results from my campaigns? It's a simple question that can often be surprisingly difficult to answer. Where should I focus my efforts? On ad text? Budget? Keywords or bids? Which campaign has the greatest potential for improvement? And what are the expected results?

Today we're introducing the Opportunities tab, a beta feature in the new AdWords interface built to help you answer these questions. The Opportunities tab is a central hub you can use to browse and apply customized optimization ideas to your account. We're designing the new tab both to save you time when optimizing your campaigns and to give you more insight into ways you can capture additional cost-effective traffic.

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Initially, the Opportunities tab will focus on budget and keyword ideas for your campaigns and ad groups, but in the coming months we'll be expanding the set of available features. If you've used our Campaign Optimizer tool, you're already familiar with some of the types of customized ideas that will be listed on the new tab. But unlike Campaign Optimizer, the Opportunities tab lets you browse ideas across campaigns and ad groups, helping you find potential areas of improvement and easily prioritize the changes you make to your account.

The Opportunities tab will replace the Tools tab in the new AdWords interface. However, all existing AdWords tools will still be available, and you can find the current Tools page within the new tab.

Today we're releasing the Opportunities tab to a small number of U.S. English advertisers, and we look forward to expanding the feature to additional countries and languages in the coming weeks. If you're a U.S. English advertiser and would like to be considered for the beta, please submit your account information on our beta sign-up page.

Interested in learning more about other features in the new AdWords interface? Attend one of our upcoming free webinars for an in-depth walkthrough. We just added two new dates: July 29th and August 5th. You can sign up at the new interface webinars page.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursday: Introducing spreadsheet editing

Many advertisers use spreadsheets when managing their AdWords campaigns to streamline tasks such as changing bids, creating keyword lists, and adjusting destination URLs. As a result, we decided to work on a way for you to use spreadsheets directly in your account, and today this feature is available in the new AdWords interface.

You can access spreadsheet edit mode from the Keywords tab in any ad group. You'll find it under the More actions menu.

In the past, you might have used power posting to enter your keywords with bids and destination URLs. Now, with spreadsheet editing, you can accomplish the same tasks from a spreadsheet view. Even if you use another spreadsheet application, it's very easy to transfer your work into AdWords - simply copy and paste directly from your spreadsheet into your account.

Like in a spreadsheet, you can use formulas to edit your keywords and bids. For example, if you want your ad to show on the first page, but your bid is lower than the first page bid, you can set up a formula to address this.

Here, I've set my Max CPC to be 120% of the first page bid (Cell G2). To apply this to all of my keywords, I can just copy and paste. Keep in mind that only the values are saved back into AdWords, not the formulas.

Questions? Attend a new interface webinar tomorrow

We'll be holding another free webinar about the new AdWords interface tomorrow, July 10th at 11a.m. PDT. If you're looking to get up to speed quickly, it's a great way to spend an hour on Friday. If you can't make it tomorrow, we have one on Thursday, July 16th at 10a.m. PDT as well. You can register for either webinar on the New Interface Webinars site.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursday: You said it, we're fixing it!

We released the new AdWords interface early to get your feedback on it as soon as possible. And you haven't disappointed us! We receive thousands of comments every month covering likes, dislikes, and ideas for ways to further improve the AdWords interface. We read your comments carefully to prioritize the areas to work on next.

And we've made a lot of progress on the top issues our advertisers reported, so today we wanted to share these improvements with you.

Less horizontal scrolling

When working with certain browsers and monitor resolutions (especially 1024x768), you told us you needed to scroll back and forth in order view data tables and controls. We've now condensed the layout of AdWords pages and width of columns in order to eliminate the need to scroll horizontally. If you're still encountering this issue, please let us know.

If you'd like to further condense the view of your account, remember that you can customize your columns. Try hiding columns that aren't important to you and move other columns around to quickly compare important metrics side-by-side.

Support for Safari 4 and Firefox 3.5

Those of you working with the newest versions of Safari and Firefox will be happy to know that the new AdWords interface now works with these browsers. We'll continue to work to support the latest versions all major browsers in the future.

Faster load times

One of our most important goals with the new interface was to improve the efficiency of day-to-day campaign management tasks. We've heard from some advertisers that while integrated reports and roll-up tabs help them quickly access and act on important data, the data didn't always load as quickly as they'd hoped.

We've worked to improve the speed of the interface with the latest releases, and hope you can now see a noticeable improvement. However, our work isn't done, and we'll continue to focus on shortening load times with upcoming launches. For the fastest experience, we recommend using the following browsers: Chrome, Firefox 3+, Safari 4, or Internet Explorer 8.

Searching for keywords

We heard many of you are looking for quick ways to search for keywords, ad text, or campaign names within your account. In previous posts, we talked about how you can use filtering to focus on the data that matters to you.

While text filters allow you to search and act directly on the data you see, they also take a few clicks to set up for the first time. To help you work more quickly, we've added a new shortcut that lets you quickly search by text under the 'Filter and views' menu on any tab.

Try it on your Keywords tab to quickly find all keywords containing a specific term.

Educational materials

You told us you'd like more help with transitioning to the new interface. In addition to New Interface Thursdays and our new interface website, we recently started a series of free educational webinars, featuring the product team. Sign up now for the next webinar on July 10.

If you haven't been using the new AdWords interface to manage your campaigns due to a specific annoyance, now's a great time to to log in and see how the interface has improved. And please, keep your feedback coming. Just click on the Send Feedback link at the top right corner of your account to share your thoughts.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Finding features from the previous interface

The basics of AdWords, such as bids, budgets, and Quality Score, haven't changed with the new interface. Still, every once in a while, you might find yourself asking, "Where did that go?" Here's a set of pointers to help you pick up where you left off in the previous AdWords interface.

Search my campaigns

In the previous interface, you could search your campaigns using a search box in the top corner of your account. In the new interface, we've replaced this functionality with text filters. You can now search for ads or keywords across your account by setting up a text filter. For searches you run often, you can save the filter to quickly access it at any time. Filters allow for more than just searching though, and you can read our earlier post to learn more about how filters can help you zero in on the data you care about most.

Keyword destination URLs

If you'd like to edit the destination URLs for individual keywords, you can do so by clicking the checkbox next to the keywords you'd like to edit, and then clicking on the "Edit" button at the top of the table. This will open up all keyword fields for editing, including the destination URL. If you'd like to see your destination URLs in your Keywords tab all the time, you can do so by customizing columns. By customizing columns, you can also find additional metrics like Quality Score that you might want to view and add them to the table.

Negative keywords

In the previous interface, you created negative keywords by adding a - sign to them. For example, you would add -free if you didn't want your ads to appear for searches containing the term free. Negative keywords were also mixed in with your regular keywords in your overall keyword list. With the new interface, negative keywords now have a home of their own. You'll find a section for negative keywords under your regular keywords in the Keywords tab. You can also view your campaign and ad group level negative keywords side by side.

Google Analytics and Website Optimizer

Where did the Analytics tab go? If you're looking for Google Analytics or Website Optimizer, you'll now find them under the Reporting tab at the top of your account.

Other questions?

If you'd like a side-by-side comparison of how to complete common tasks in new interface, we have a What's Changed page on the New Interface website.

Finally, we're providing webinars as another resource to help orient yourself in the new interface. The first webinar is tomorrow, June 19th at 11 AM PDT, and there's still time to register. We've scheduled the second webinar for June 26th also at 11 AM PDT.

Register for the June 19th webinar

Register for the June 26th webinar

We hope to see you at a webinar, and please continue to send us feedback on the new interface.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Free Webinars for the New AdWords Interface

Last week we shared tips on how you can get ready for the new AdWords interface. We now have another resource to help you prepare for the change. Starting this week, we're holding weekly webinars about the new interface.

The first webinar is this Friday, June 19th at 11 AM PDT. The free 1-hour webinar will be led by Ariel Bardin, Product Management Director for the new AdWords interface. Ariel will walk you through the new interface, show you how to use the new features, and answer your questions.

You can register for the webinar here: New Interface Webinar Registration. Also, we have set up a Google Moderator page where you can send us your questions and vote for the questions you want answered. You can visit this page to submit your questions.

And, remember you can always visit the new interface microsite for additional help. We hope to see you on Friday.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

How to Get Ready for the New Interface

By now you probably know that we've been working on a new interface for AdWords to help you save time managing your account and get even better results from your campaigns.

We've built a number of new features that make managing your campaigns faster and easier: more graphs to track your performance over time, integrated reports that provide ready access to detailed search and content network data, and faster editing to help you make changes quickly.

You've probably received an email from us letting you know that your account will be converted to the new interface in the coming weeks. Today we have two release updates to share with you: we've recently made the new interface available to everyone who uses AdWords Standard Edition, and we've begun the migration process with a small number of accounts.

In our email, we stated that you would have at least 30 days before we update your account. This 30 day period is a minimum; in fact, most advertisers will have more than 30 days before their accounts are upgraded. We're taking a gradual and deliberate approach to ensure a smooth transition, and we won't upgrade your account until we're confident that the new interface meets your advertising needs.

So, how should you prepare for the transition to the new interface? First, the single most important resource to help you get up to speed is the new interface microsite. Here you can find short videos explaining the benefits of the new interface, a before and after guide, and even a short quiz you can take to make sure you're ready for the changes.

Next, if you haven't explored the new interface yet, now is a good time; try it by signing in to your AdWords account. If you notice any issues that make it difficult to manage your campaigns in the new interface, please let us know right away by submitting feedback.

If you've already sent us feedback on the new interface, thank you! We're listening closely to your comments and are working to fix the problems you've reported. Examples of top issues we're working on are wide pages that require too much scrolling, and slow load times for some types of browsers and Internet connections.

We've already made a number of changes in response to your feedback, and this week we've released updates to the new interface that address many of the top issues we've heard. And we're not done yet; we'll continue to make ongoing improvements to the new interface over time.

For those of you who joined the beta test early, we hope you like how the new AdWords interface has improved. And for those of you just getting started, we hope you're already noticing a few of the ways the new interface can help you get more out of your AdWords campaigns.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Seminars for Success updated for the new interface

Starting today, all AdWords Seminars for Success will be taught using the new AdWords interface. So, if you've been wanting some in-person instruction on how to best use the new AdWords interface or how to generally grow your campaigns, check out the seminars we're hosting in the next couple months:

AdWords 101: Beginner and AdWords 201: Intermediate

• June 15-16: San Diego, CA

AdWords 301: Advanced Account Optimization and AdWords 302: Advanced Conversion Optimization

• June 24-25: Boston, MA
• July 16-17: Minneapolis, MN
• August 4-5: Denver, CO
  

Analytics: Introduction and Analytics: Advanced

• June 17-18: Dallas, TX
• June 25-26: Washington D.C.
  
• July 7-8: Edmonton, Canada
• July 7-8: Sao Paulo, Brazil

Website Optimizer

• June 19: Dallas, TX
• February 11: San Jose, CA
• July 9: Sao Paulo, Brazil
  

If you sign up for seminars at least seven days in advance, you'll receive a $50 AdWords credit (view the terms and conditions).

For more information about Seminars for Success, including registration details, course outlines, and past attendees' comments, please visit http://www.google.com/awseminars.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Exploring the Ads tab

Today on New Interface Thursdays, we'll take a quick look at the Ads tab in AdWords. The Ads tab lets you view and edit all of your ads, as well as check their status and performance. In the new AdWords interface, you have access to the Ads tab within individual ad groups, whole campaigns, or for your entire account.

Like in the other tables in the new interface, you can make edits right in the table, customize columns, and filter your ads within the Ads tab. One feature we've added to the new interface is the ability to see which ads are pending approval. While in the previous interface you could only see when ads had been disapproved, the new interface allows you to see if they're pending review or have been approved. This will take the guesswork out of determining when your ad is eligible to start running on the Google Network.

You can use filtering to quickly identify all ads that are pending review. Click on Filter and views and select Filter Ads. From the drop-down, select Approval Status, and then check the box for Pending. Click Apply and the table will only show ads that are pending approval.

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You can do the same with disapproved ads. If you have a disapproved ad, you can click the bubble icon in the Status column to learn why it was disapproved

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We've also recently added the Display Ad Builder to the new interface. You can get to the tool by clicking New ad and then selecting Display ad builder. If you've wanted to expand your campaigns beyond text ads but haven't had the time to create a display ad from scratch, the Display Ad Builder is a great tool to try.

We hope you find the Ads tab helpful in managing your AdWords campaigns.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Looking back and a chance to meet the team

With more AdWords advertisers using the new interface each week, we'd like to take a moment to recap the topics we've covered on New Interface Thursdays these past two months.

We started the series with a list of learning resources including the new AdWords interface website. The next week we showed you how you could use keyboard shortcuts to manage your campaigns more efficiently. We then wrote about how you can use filters and customize columns to help you focus on the data that's most important to you. Most recently, we took close looks at both the Keywords tab and Networks tab.

If you want to take the next step in mastering the new interface, and if you plan to attend SMX Advanced in Seattle, Washington next week, you can learn about the new interface from the people who built it. The new AdWords interface team will be doing a deep dive into the new interface and demonstrating some of the latest tools we're adding to AdWords:

Deep Dive into the New AdWords Interface

When: Tuesday, June 2, 11 AM to 12:15 PM

Where: Sound Conference Room, Bell Harbor Convention Center, Seattle, WA

If you'd like to attend our session, you'll need to register for a free expo hall pass. We hope to see you at the session, and please visit us at booth #32 and tell us your thoughts about the new interface.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Managing keywords and the Search Query Report

In this week's post, we'll take a deeper look into the Keywords tab in the new AdWords interface.

The Keywords tab lists the keywords within your account. Just like in the previous AdWords interface, you can add, edit, and create new keywords on the Keywords tab in your account. However, the new interface takes keyword management a step further with a feature called roll-up tabs. A Keywords tab is available at every level of your account, allowing you to see the keywords for a whole campaign, or even across all campaigns in a single list. This is helpful for tasks like identifying your top-performing keywords across your account.

You can also make changes to your keywords directly from any Keywords tab. For example, you can change a keyword's match type by clicking on the keyword and then selecting the desired match type from the drop-down.

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Additionally, you can pause and resume keywords, change your bid, or change the keyword itself on any Keywords tab across your account. If you want to make changes to multiple keywords at once, you'll want to use bulk editing. Select the keywords you want to change and then click the Edit button at the top of the table.

A nice feature of bulk editing is the Copy down button, which allows you to change bids across a number of keywords. For example, if you want to change your bids across multiple keywords rather than entering the bid manually for each one, you can click on the Copy down button next to the bid you're editing. Your bid will then be copied to all of the selected keywords. You can also copy down changes to keyword status or destination URLs.

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You can also find many of the features that we posted about in the past few weeks in the Keywords tab. If you want to quickly edit your keywords, remember that you have keyboard shortcuts at your disposal. You can also use customizable columns to look at the date in which you're interested. And, of course, you can filter your keywords, which can be especially helpful if you're looking at all the keywords in your account.

Another feature you can try on the Keywords tab is segmentation. By clicking the Filter and views button and then selecting Segment by Query Match Type, you can see the performance for each of your keywords broken out into broad, phrase, and exact match.

Using the Search Query Report

Earlier this week, we posted about the enhancements to the Search Query Report, which you can access directly from the Keywords tab in the new interface.

As a reminder, this report shows you the search terms that triggered your ads. To see the report, select the keywords of your choice and click See search terms, then Selected. You'll be presented with a list of search terms that triggered your ads for those keywords as well as metrics like CTR and conversion rate.

You can then make changes to your account directly from the report. For example, if you a see a search term that looks like a good fit, you can add it to your campaign. Just select the term and click Add as keyword. You'll also have the opportunity to set a specific bid and set the match type for the keyword. Likewise, if you see a search term that isn't a fit for your campaigns, you can add it as a negative keyword. When adding negative keywords, it's best to wait for data. You don't want to exclude a keyword too soon as you might miss out on relevant traffic. Also, you might try using a lower bid or using more targeted ad text before you exclude it completely.

When using this report, it can be tempting to tweak keywords that only have one or two clicks. If you want to get the most out of the Search Query Report, we recommend you focus on keywords with the most impressions and clicks. That's where you'll get the most value out of the changes you make.

Your feedback on the new interface

You've already given us lots of helpful feedback on what you like about the new interface, such as easier Content Network management and faster account navigation, and feedback on what needs improvement.

You can learn more about some of the top issues we're working to address by reading this article. We continue to work on changes to the new AdWords interface based on your feedback. Please continue to send us your feedback on the new interface using the Send Feedback link in the top corner of your account. Your feedback is very valuable to us as we continue to improve the new AdWords interface.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Tailor your account with customizable columns

Today on New Interface Thursdays we'll be taking a look at customizable columns. Customizable columns are one of the ways that new AdWords interface helps you manage your campaigns more effectively. With customizable columns, you can select which metrics are most important to your business, and then quickly view those metrics in your campaigns.

To get started, click on the Filter and views button in your account and select Customize columns.

From there you'll see a variety of columns that you can add or remove from your account.

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On the left hand side you'll see that the metrics are broken into two groups: Performance and Conv., which is short for Conversions. Keep in mind that you'll only see conversion columns if you've enabled AdWords Conversion Tracking in your AdWords account. You can select all the columns in a category by checking the box next to the category name.

While on the topic of conversion columns, let's go over the new conversion metrics. Last month, we announced an update to how AdWords reports conversions. Now, you can choose to see columns for many-per-click, 1-per-click conversions, or both. To get a better understanding of the new metrics you can read this article.

Getting back to the Customized Columns panel, let's take a look at the right side of the box, the Preview section. You'll notice some columns are gray and others are green. The gray columns are fixed, so they're always shown. The green columns are metrics you've selected to be shown. You can rearrange the order of these metrics by clicking and dragging them. This is great for setting up a side-by-side comparison for metrics like average cost-per-click and average position, for example.

One last thing to keep in mind is that columns vary across the different tabs in AdWords, depending on the metrics presented within each tab. For instance, you'll find a Quality Score column in the Keywords tab, but not in the Campaigns tab.

That's it for customizable columns. We hope you'll give this feature a try so that you can tailor your account and see only the information you want.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew