In recent years, Google has constantly been making improvements to the interface of its AdWords Editor to make it more streamlined and user-friendly for paid search advertisers.
Even then, optimizing and managing accounts can take up a lot of your time. This is especially true when advertisers have to manage large accounts with multiple ad groups and campaigns.
Some businesses have limited time and resources. This is where the Google AdWords Editor can help in driving the performance and efficiency of their campaigns.
There were some who predicted the death of the AdWords Editor. But Google has promoted and supported it continuously to get rid of its image of only being for professionals.
Before you start thinking about its benefits, you need to understand exactly what the Google AdWords editor really is.
Editor Note: Google is calling version 12 of their AdWords Editor “The New AdWords Experience” in their videos and tutorials.
Simply put, it is a free-to-use application that can help advertisers in managing multiple AdWords accounts. It works offline without needing an internet connection.
Numerous AdWords advertisers who don’t participate in the paid search industry are unfamiliar with its tool and its various useful features. However, Google AdWords Editor can also be helpful for them.
How? Some of the notable benefits of this tool are outlined below:
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Make changes to AdWords accounts when offline
You don’t need an internet connection for an AdWords account. This means that you can easily make changes to your AdWords campaign even when you don’t have internet access such as during long commutes or flights.
Changes can then be posted to the account when you do get internet access. The purpose of the editor is to make everything faster and more efficient.
Thus, because you don’t need to depend on the internet, you will not lag or slow down when you have to make major changes to your account.
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Importing and exporting
You can use a CSV file for importing changes to your Google AdWords account with the use of the editor. This can be immensely useful when you have to make large-scale changes to your campaigns such as keyword bids.
This approach works in the favor of those who have proficiency in using Excel but struggle when it comes to advanced AdWords techniques like writing scripts.
Sure, you can export keywords as well as their KPIs through AdWords.com. But the export function offered by the Editor is a lot more sophisticated.
The Google AdWords Editor gives you various options on the data that can be exported from your account.
For instance, keyword data can be exported from an ad group, a selected campaign, or even the entire account.
The data can even be exported from your current view. Apart from a CSV file, the Editor also has a feature that enables you to export campaigns as DLL files or HTML files.
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Apply changes in bulk
Previously, when you wanted to make large-scale changes to your account, adwords.com took up a lot of your time. This was especially true when you were trying to create a new campaign and yet wishing to adapt your existing keywords for targeting specific locations.
The AdWords Editor makes this easier. With the Copy and Paste function, you can now select several ads or keywords and simply paste them into a new campaign. As a matter of fact, changes can directly be pasted from an Excel file as well.
Advanced Changes is another useful feature that provides a search and replace function. This means you can search for what you want to change, whether it is displayed URLs or ad text.
Bulk changes can also be made to keyword bids. If you have a limited budget for your campaign, you may want to reduce your bids for prolonging the duration of your ads display.
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Identify duplicate keywords
The ability to find any duplicate keywords in your campaign is another benefit offered by the Google AdWords Editor.
Duplicate keywords can significantly affect the performance of your campaign.
In addition, the chances of this occurring increase when your account becomes more complex and larger. It can also influence your keyword Quality Scores.
This creates a problem when you are competing against yourself for specific keywords. Doing this increases your cost-per-click (CPC).
Obviously, this is counter-productive because you want to run cost-effective campaigns and not increase your own cost.
Under the Tools section, you can easily see the Find Duplicate Keywords option. Use it to scan the whole account to identify duplicate keywords, if any.
DLL File Error
Sometimes, you may encounter api-ms-win-crt-runtime-11-1-0.dll missing error while working with the AdWords editor. To fix a DLL-file error in the AdWords Editor, follow these steps:
- Go to Add or Remove programs.
- Uninstall the Google AdWords Editor.
- Remove the folders named “AdWords-Editor” in your C directory.
- Download AdWords Editor again from http://www.google.com/adwordseditor/