AdWords vs adCenter
2 clicks vs 4088 clicks
Settle down. I know this sounds like the fight of the century, but it’s not that exciting. It’s about the workload difference when using Google AdWords Editor and Microsoft adCenter Desktop, for the same exact task. Microsoft took *4086 more clicks to do the same exact thing! I’m still in shock…and my clicking finger is absolutely exhausted. This is one of the many reasons that I dread using Microsoft / Bing paid search. They are years behind the Google AdWords user interface.
The task: Changing Match Type for 1022 keywords
A client wanted a more targeted PPC campaign; a large portion of their keywords were broad match. The list of 1022 keywords that I picked was, in fact, best suited to be phrase matched. By having broad match keywords they were driving a lot of untargeted traffic, and wasting money. Using the AdWords Desktop Editor, I highlighted the keywords and in 2 clicks, updated the entire list with a new match type. Voilà!
By using the Microsoft desktop application it would have taken 4088 clicks! After manually updating a dozen words, I found that I could import an Excel spreadsheet to update the match type. The spreadsheet had to be specially formatted and was not part of the actual Microsoft adCenter interface. It took longer and it was a frustrating step that I shouldn’t have needed to take.
Comparing what should be apples to apples, Microsoft falls flat on its face with their desktop ad editing software. It’s actually quite the lemon. Everything takes longer and requires more steps than it should. It feels as if they don’t even use their own system. Google isn’t perfect, but their AdWords editing software is very user-friendly and is leaps above Microsoft’s software.
Let me know your experiences with the big 3 PPC players and their editing software. Leave a comment or shoot me an email (Jordon at lightburndesigns.com); I’d be happy to chat.
- More on Keyword Match Types
- Google AdWords Editor
- Microsoft adCenter Desktop
- Author
- Jordon Meyer
- Published On
- January 21st, 2010
2 Comments
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You nailed my experiences with both of these exactly. And Yahoo isn’t even in the game. Very frustrating. Don’t get me started on the tier 3 advertisers either. I’m amazed at how difficult they can all make it yet Google can make it seem simple with their Editor. The major difference is google recognizes their revenue source and focuses on how they can make advertising easier. The easier they make it, the more $ they will make. Others have yet to recognize that and get caught up too much in red tape. There is always the fall back they can go to, “just put it in a .csv and we’ll upload it for you”. I’m happy Google makes it easy but competition is good so others need to catch up!
DR
Thanks for your feedback. Good point; making the bidding process easier only makes the search engines more money. It seems like a simple concept, and yet some just don’t get it.