What is AdWords Editor?
AdWords Editor is a free app available from Google which allows you to manage your AdWords campaigns. Basically, it allows you to make changes to your accounts whilst offline then later upload these changes to AdWords. It is a useful tool for saving time and bulk uploads.

Who can use AdWords Editor?
Anyone can use AdWords Editor but it is most likely to be of the most benefit to those with multiple campaigns or with long lists of Ads or Keywords according to Google. It has some great PPC campaign management features especially when it comes to anything in bulk, however it is not an intelligent tool in the same sense as some other platforms and will not provide you with information on how to improve your account in the same way Google AdWords does.

What are the Main Advantages over AdWords?
• Use the bulk editing tools to make multiple changes quickly
• View statements for all or a subset of your campaigns
• View, manage and edit multiple campaigns
• Search and replace and copy or move text or items across Ad Groups or Campaigns
• Undo and redo multiple changes when editing Campaigns
• Make drafts and changes offline before upload to the account
• Work offline

Over to the team…

Having just joined the biddible. team I was keen to find out some tips and tricks from this UK PPC Agency, find out about how they operate and also use this opportunity to get to know my colleagues better so I asked them which do they prefer, AdWords or AdWords Editor? The results were both surprising and insightful…

John:
John has been using AdWords for over 10 years and has seen numerous changes to the popular advertising system over this time.When I spoke to John he was in 2 minds over which interface he preferred with both having strong merits for him. This what he had to say;

“It’s really hard to decide which I prefer to be honest and I suppose it depends on the task I’m carrying out. If I’m building, I wouldn’t dream of doing it in AdWords, you start in Excel and upload and tweak through Editor. If it’s a quick tweak or build, then maybe AdWords as the copy and paste functionality has changed AdWords in many ways. I’m a user of 10 years and the amount of times I could have used copy & paste is more than I care to admit!

When it comes to optimising, I would think about open Editor. Nothing beats AdWords or our internal systems for optimising. So it’s really hard to say which I prefer, I probably land ever so slightly on the side of the AdWords Interface as that has all the bells and whistles whereas Editor is always secondary to updates.”

Mark:
Mark was in a similar position to John feeling that both systems had their merits, however he felt that for him Editor was a winner.

“I’m the same as John, I’ll build out everything in Editor. I have templates I use for quick builds through Excel that will save a tonne of time. I also love Editor for the find and replace which is great for quick builds for new but similar Campaigns/Ad Groups/Keywords.

My preferred build campaign method is to use very few keywords for each Ad Group broken down by match type. I will name each Ad Group the same as the main keyword with BMM or Exact. Aside from making the account organised, it also allows me to quickly create unique Ads for each Ad Group using the Editor short cuts. I can quickly put the name of an Ad Group into an Ad by using find and replace with [Ad Group] and [Campaign] which changes the replaced text to the name of the Ad Group or Campaign. You will have to find replace BMM and Exact to get rid of those but it is much quicker than creating individual Ads for each Ad Group.

I’ll use editor for every build out apart from when using Shopping as I prefer the AdWords interface for breaking down product groups.

For all optimisations I will use AdWords interface as it is real time and Editor takes longer to load the stats for bigger accounts.”

Kasia:
Kasia however remains firmly in the AdWords User Interface camp, preferring AdWords for her optimisation and analysis.

“I guess I won’t say anything new by saying I’m not a huge fan of Editor. I prefer AdWords for any optimisation and analysis. It is live and easy to drill down to the tiniest detail.

I only use editor when doing bulk uploads and builds etc. Copy and paste as well as replacing URLs, building new ads etc. It really speeds things up at the creation level but once live I prefer to use AdWords.”

Although AdWords Editor can be a great tool (despite what some of the biddible. team say!), it is important that you make sure you know what you are doing and if you are unsure you contact a professional PPC Agency so as not to negatively impact all the hard work you have already put in your campaign. AdWords Editor is always being updated and changed for the benefit of its customers so make sure you stay up to date with all updates so as not to miss anything exciting!