2008 Wishlist: Universal Adwords Editor for Yahoo Search and MSN AdCenter
Today, I was thinking. What if a genie suddenly popped out of a bottle of Pawtucket Ale (Family Guy Reference, ~ I love the that show) and he could offer me just one (1) wish with regard to paid search marketing, what would it be? And within 30 seconds, I would have to say a "Universal and Compatible Adwords Editor for Yahoo and MSN. However, all of this wishing is also making me feel like mentioning one of the most memorable quotes from one of my favorite movies Grumpy Old Men - "Well you can wish in one hand and crap in the other, and see which gets filled first!"
Can you imagine the raw efficiency of having that software program? In a post I wrote back in March of 2007, on Li Evan's blog Search Marketing Gurus, entitled Revenge of the Adwords Editor I discussed some annoying compatibility issues with exporting campaigns into excel and then importing them into the very Beta Panama. Since then, the Yahoo import tools have been a little more forgiving, but I ask the question: "Is anyone out there building a Universal Adwords Editor that will make all of our lives easier without having to spend hours looking at an excel file and/or guessing if the Yahoo 3rd party import tool will work? Since were on the subject, here's a good article from PPCHero.com about Tips on Importing Google campaigns into Yahoo. Anyways, if there is one in production, please reply to this post and I will help you get the word out.
Why Does the Industry Need This?
- Simplicity: Having the ability to structure simple to the most complex campaign structures in one place and copying them with a click of a button. This would make SEM life much more simpler.
- Efficiency: Many PPC marketers are required to make many changes to keywords and Ad/creatives daily, weekly and monthly. Imagine the possibilities????
- Improved Strategies: Personally this is the most important, especially in the sales and launch process. If your job performance revolves around ROAS%, Revenue, Leads or whatever, you will be able to increase the quantity and quality of all multivariate testing, creation of additional campaigns, and have that all important edge on the competition by launching very time sensitive offers and/or new products/services coming to the market.
In Conclusion: Again, unless I am totally off the mark, I am unaware of any such software, other than Web Analytics companies such as Omniture who have working PPC interfaces for all engines, but nothing close to the adwords editor. Plus, I have to believe that the AE is more heavily used than any of these analytics programs. Isn't it about time we simplified our daily lives. At least Google understands us, However, they just make the advertisers/clients pay through the nose for it with increased CPCs, changing algorithms, broad match and the content network.
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Yes! Yes! Yes!
I've been hammering on Yahoo and Microsoft - they both have the bucks to do this - and the impetus (since many advertisers/agencies would spend more on YSM and adCenter if they could migrate AdWords campaigns in those directions).
Posted by: David Szetela | Sunday, January 06, 2008 at 11:21 AM
I think many of us have spent needless time and energy trying to make sense out of Yahoo's platform.
MSN has done a reasonable job at mirroring Google's report structures and interface, but the time I have to take to import or manipulate accounts in YSM is very counterproductive.
A union of interfaces -somewhere- could only help the industry.
Posted by: Joe | Monday, January 07, 2008 at 03:23 PM
I know that Yahoo has a tool that automatically reconfigures "3rd Party" templates (aka Google) for upload. Not quite what you are talking about, but still useful.
Posted by: katie | Monday, January 07, 2008 at 04:21 PM
We've written a Yahoo/MSN version of Adwords Editor using a very similar streamlined interface. We use it every day for our agency.
And just for giggles sake, what would folks be willing to pay? One time, or on an ongoing subscription sort of basis.
I have to figure that nobody but an agency or software vendor will build this out, and software companies will want to charge % of spend so they can "manage" the account.
It will happen, but not by Yahoo or MSN. Will have to be a third-party driven application.
Just curious what the interest is.
Posted by: Ted Huffman | Monday, January 07, 2008 at 07:13 PM
Ted, myself and I would think thousands of other search marketers would love to hear more about this software tool (as you can see in previous replies to this post) Can you provide us a link to this software? In my personal opinion, I believe this is a huge opportunity. I would be happy to help you get the word out on another post.
Posted by: Greg Meyers | Monday, January 07, 2008 at 07:36 PM
sorry, myself and others. Yikes, long day!!
Posted by: Greg Meyers | Monday, January 07, 2008 at 07:37 PM
Yes, it would be *so* useful to have a Universal AdWords Editor!
Exporting into Excel and then importing into MSN / Yahoo is a pain in the butt!
Posted by: Traci S. | Tuesday, January 08, 2008 at 12:14 AM
I am new to sem but please let me know if this application meets the requirements.
http://www.kenshoo.com/
Posted by: sam | Tuesday, January 08, 2008 at 02:51 AM
Carefully read the terms of service for the AdWords API, particularly clause III.2.C,
"Co-Mingling of Campaign Management Data"
http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/terms.html
In essence, G forbids any API user from putting the other engines on equal footing with Google.
I liken that legal clause to the first two biblical commandments. :)
By the API agreement, G may strip API access from users who violate this clause.
So IMHO I don't think we'll see an industry-wide Adwords Editor any time soon -- such tools will remain internal to the firms which builds them.
Cheers --
Alan
Posted by: Alan Rimm-Kaufman | Wednesday, January 09, 2008 at 09:50 PM
Alan, thanks for the great insight.
Posted by: Greg Meyers | Friday, January 11, 2008 at 02:43 PM
I found what you need:
www.acquisio.com
Although there software is dedicated to agencies, it can definitely fulfill your needs.
Posted by: Alex Pelletier | Tuesday, April 01, 2008 at 10:59 AM
Alex, thanks for the response. I will look into that.
Posted by: Greg Meyers | Tuesday, April 01, 2008 at 11:27 AM
My name is Marc Poirier, I am the president of acquisio. Alex Pelletier is a client, he just notified me of this blog post. We released our editor on Monday this week, it covers Google and Yahoo for now, we're adding MSN over the next month or so. If anyone would like more info, or wants a demo of the tool, don't hesitate to ask. We welcome your feedback.
Posted by: Marc Poirier | Wednesday, April 02, 2008 at 11:17 PM
If you're managing 100K+ dollars\keywords per month - definitelly Kenshoo Search will be the one for you, with G\Y\M API support.
Probably the best one out there.
For small accounts - you have tens of different tools, feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you need a list.
Ace
Posted by: Ace | Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 11:07 AM
If you're an affiliate, you might want to take notice of www.tracking202.com for tracking sales conversions.
If you're not an affiliate then you still want to take notice and check out export202.com.
This tool allows you to: Convert Adwords to Yahoo and/or MSN and vice/versa.
You have to check it out to see what I mean.
Just thought I'd mention it.
Posted by: Matt | Thursday, May 01, 2008 at 05:00 PM
If you're an affiliate, you might want to take notice of www.tracking202.com for tracking sales conversions.
If you're not an affiliate then you still want to take notice and check out export202.com.
This tool allows you to: Convert Adwords to Yahoo and/or MSN and vice/versa.
You have to check it out to see what I mean.
Just thought I'd mention it.
Posted by: Matt | Thursday, May 01, 2008 at 05:00 PM
www.acquisio.com
Charges an obscene amount of money for what it does. They're pretty much bending you over.
Posted by: john | Friday, May 23, 2008 at 06:23 PM
Do not use Acqiusio. You have to reimport each INDIVIDUAL campaign anytime you want updates, and the data is oftentimes incorrect.
Posted by: Sarah | Friday, November 21, 2008 at 12:16 PM
Just used the new MSN adCenter Desktop to bulk change some targeting settings. What once took me hours now just takes 1 min!
Now all I need is Yahoo to come through. Maybe that is something the new CEO can push.
Posted by: Kevin | Monday, December 01, 2008 at 01:56 PM
Hi, just wanted to clarify 2 things:
1. We have pricing for the little guys as well, frankly price has not generally been a problem for our target clients, agencies who manage multiple client accounts. It typically comes up for advertisers who don't need half the agency features we offer (i.e. client-ready report automation. If you work for an SEM shop, you know how valuable it is to have your reports consistently generated for you each month)
2. If you make bid changes through a search engine interface instead of going through your ppc management application, there is no way for any platform to be aware of the change. At least, this is what we have been told again and again by the AdWords API team. It's not specific to us. The API allows us to detect new keywords, campaigns and adgroups, new text ads, etc. but not changing bids. So yeah, if you make bid changes through the Google AdWords interface, you will have to sync the campaign in question - which means API quota fees. And if you don't sync it, of course, your data will be off.
Our clients tend to use Acquisio for everything: campaign development and management, reporting, and campaign automation. You should rarely have to go into the Google AdWords interface, if ever.
Posted by: poiriem | Tuesday, July 07, 2009 at 09:23 PM