Last week Google globally launched its latest version of AdWords Editor (AdWords Editor 12), with a fresh new look and design. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, it’s available to do so here: https://adwords.google.com/home/tools/adwords-editor/
To look at it is much the same as the last edition, except for some of the fonts have changed and they’ve capitalised the titles on the main dropdowns and buttons, for example:
Also, the old ‘Ads and extensions’ section from AdWords Editor 11 has been split into two separate segments in the manage section, to the bottom left of the screen:
The biggest change with this version though, is something we haven’t seen in much detail before, as advertisers can now see where their campaigns/ads etc are not complying with Google’s best practices.
There is now a ‘custom rules’ section within AdWords Editor that shows, in quite some detail, where campaigns, ad groups and audiences, for example, do not meet best practices. This section can be found in the panel on the left-hand side, right at the bottom of the screen, under the ‘shared library’:
When clicking on the arrow you can see the ‘Built in’ custom rules that show you which campaigns, ad groups or audiences etc are potentially losing out on traffic by missing some of Google’s features:
The built in rules are ones that Google has defined and highlight issues such as:
- campaigns that don’t have enough (4) sitelinks
- campaigns that are not utilising call extensions
- campaigns that do not have ECPC enabled
- ad groups that have fewer than 3 ads within them
You can also set up your own custom rules:
The violation criteria can be pretty much anything that you’d like to be automatically flagged about your campaigns, ad groups etc. if it occurs/has occurred without you noticing.
The new AdWords Editor also allows advertisers to download accounts faster, as once they’ve updated their version of AdWords Editor more of the old data is transferred from their previous version.
Finally, AdWords Editor 12 also supports the following AdWords features, a few things that the previous edition failed to do:
- maximise conversion bidding
- upload up to 20 images and videos for Universal App Campaigns
- customisation fields for responsive ads
