Google Adwords Interface Lift due around Q2
Jan 28, 2008 Google Adwords
The rumor bin has been active lately with rumblings of an upcoming interface change for Google Adwords. In what many might consider as a topic that should fall into the “if it ain’t broke…” category, I’ll take a look at what improvements Google might make to the current Adwords interface.
Analytics and Reports
Many might consider these features to be more closely related than the Adwords group ever gave them credit for. Although the Reports section of Adwords recently got it’s own individual face-lift a few months ago, many considered it a downgrade quite possibly pointing developers to a bigger problem… integration.
What I’d like to see:
Shouldn’t some of the more interesting metrics in Adwords Reports be available in Google Analytics, and vise versa?
What I’d hate to see:
No change in the Reports interface within Adwords.
Campaign Manager
Adwords does a great job with the Campaign Manager. It’s fast, it’s effective, it doesn’t take long to get used to, but it’s missing one key element to make it truly great. Marketers want a taste of analytics within the Campaign manager itself, in much the same way Yahoo includes a trended graph of metrics on each screen. I know that if I had a quick reference to my campaign metrics right within the keyword bidding tool, it would make my bidding decisions much easier.
What I’d like to see:
I don’t think it would be hard to include a trended graph on each campaign or ad group screen. It could have a drop-down of campaign specific KPI’s at the advertisers fingertips.
What I’d hate to see:
Rasterized graphics. Anything that involves generating static images that are downloaded to my campaign or ad group screen is a step in the wrong direction.
Pet Peeves
Every advertiser has them, pet peeves within any web interface that you just love to hate. Some of my favorite pet peeves in Google Adwords include:
- When settings changes are not saved. I’m not sure whether this is an Adwords UI issue, but it’s quite annoying to see a dialog box that says, “your recent changes were not saved”.
- Absence of a “Watch” feature. If one of my key campaigns, ad groups, or keywords are not performing for whatever reason, I want to know about it. Flagging any one of these elements should be in a revised Adwords interface.
- Invoice and Billing screens. I find it much easier to sift through my hard copies than to wade through unorganized and overly complicated PDFs within the Adwords interface.
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