Your changes to Google Ads have not been fully reflected? The tool does not load anymore? Have you spent hours adjusting ad text, keyword bids, or URLs, and desperate to make massive changes to your Google Ads account? Then the Google Ads Editor is the solution to your problems.
In many places, where Google Ads customizations are an ordeal, the editor can help and make the job easier. The Google Tool is a powerful control for your campaigns.
Google Ads Editor
The Google Ads Editor is a useful, free editing tool provided by Google to help you work with Google Ads. It’s a desktop-based application used to support the eponymous Google Ads tool. The tool can be a powerful driver for your campaign and can help you manage campaigns more productively and efficiently. For example, with Google Ads Editor, you have the options:
- Download campaigns and continue working in offline mode,
- use the tool for bulk editing (mass editing)
- Check changes first and then publish.
A basic difference to the Google Ads web interface is that the first step is to download the Ads Editor because it is a program that runs on your computer and is not an online application. Changes are not made – as usual in the Google Ads account – live. Changes made in the editor must be sent to your account at the touch of a button after processing. This difference has several advantages, which are explained below.
Editor Advantages
1. Offline Function
You want to work with multiple people on a single campaign or account? By working offline in the campaigns via the editor, this is possible without any problems.
You want to optimize your ads and keywords while you’re offline on a flight or train journey? Again, this is not a problem with the desktop version. You can easily work on your campaigns offline without restrictions via the editor. Once you’re back online, you can upload the changes to the web interface.
In addition, changes can be repeatedly checked via the editor before going online. Obviously, the editor does not upload bad data, which would not work in Google Ads, into the web interface, but gives an error message.
2. Automatic Saving
Content that is changed in the editor does not need to be explicitly saved other than in the web interface. As soon as a change is made, this change is saved in the editor. So there are no problems if the tool should fail during processing.
In addition, the risk of a crash in a desktop application, of course, much lower, and thus the problem of lost changes unlikely. The situation is different with the web interface. If changes are made there and the Internet suddenly fails or Google Ads is overwhelmed with processing too much data, it is not clear which changes have been made and which have not. In the worst case, changes are online that you were not ready with. This can not happen to the offline editor due to the conscious uploading via the button.
3. Undo Changes Easily
Changes can also be easily undone using Ctrl + Z or the undo icon. This quick fix is another advantage over the online interface.
Watch out! Changes that have been activated in the editor will automatically become active in your Google Ads account when uploading to the Google Ads account.
Google Ads Editor Tips
1. Customize URLs
Do you want to change the URLs of multiple display ads at once to save time? This is unfortunately not possible in Google Ads for Display Ads, which means that all ads need to be clicked and changed individually. Of course, this is very expensive and time-consuming. In the editor, you can change and customize many display ad URLs at once. To do this, you only have to select all the ads that you want to change in the type list and adjust the URLs in the right-hand edit panel.
The same is true for mobile URLs of text ads. These can not be bulk adjusted in Google Ads but must be called and changed individually. Again, the solution is the step beyond the edit box of the editor. To do this, open the ads you want to edit in the editor, mark them and edit the final mobile URL in the edit panel.
2. Add Keywords
Also beneficial is the ability to insert a large number of keywords at once. There’s no problem with duplicate keywords in an ad group because of the handling via the editor. If a keyword is added to the same ad group multiple times in the editor, this “error” is marked with a red exclamation point in the editor.
If multiple keywords are added via the “Make changes” button, some of which are already in the ad group, these duplicate keywords will not be added to the ad group a second time. In this way, you can avoid having duplicate keywords within the same ad group, saving you the time and effort of double-checking possible duplication.
In Google Ads, adding new keywords that are identical to an existing one in the ad group will overwrite the data of the “old” keyword. This leads to the loss of important data such as clicks, impressions, and costs of the keyword, which are important for the evaluation. Adding keywords via the editor protects against losing this data if the error message responds and the duplicate keyword is removed.
3. Find Identical Keywords in Account
The next feature is the ability to search for identical keywords throughout the account. This is also possible manually if only a small Ads campaign with relatively few keywords to edit. However, if you have a very large account with multiple campaigns and multiple ad groups, and hundreds of keywords, identifying duplicate keywords is a hassle. Especially if they are in different ad groups or campaigns.
But identifying duplicate keywords is an important step. Keywords that are in the account multiple times are in direct competition. In the worst case, you are thus your own competition when bidding for the best ad space. Fortunately, the editor makes identifying these keywords in very large accounts easy.
Just click Tools in the top left corner, and then click Search for identical keywords in the drop-down menu. A field will appear for entering further settings. If you want that it is in finding a strict word order, eg to exactly the same keyword in exactly the same order, set among phrase strict word order one. You can also search for any word order.
This is especially useful when looking for duplicate Broad Match keywords, as these keywords in the search query are in order, the word is irrelevant to the result. To do this, select under Word order Any word sequence.
Furthermore, the match type and the location of the duplicates can be determined to refine the search. If there are duplicate keywords in your account, they will be displayed after you run the search.
After the search, you can think about how to handle the duplicate keywords. For example, you could summarize ad groups with identical keywords or change, so the performance of your campaign to increase.
4. Copy Alignment Settings Between Campaigns
You put Google Ads a detailed orientation of a campaign, for example, a precise location with country, state and city can, they will not be transferred to a different campaign, but must again manually be invested in the other campaign. Since creating this alignment is very time-consuming and time-consuming, the editor offers a good solution to the problem.
In the editor, targeting settings that apply to multiple campaigns need not be added one at a time. Here you can copy and paste the settings of one campaign for many different campaigns.
This requires only the type list in the editor Keywords and Targeting and there the point locations are selected. Then select the location that you would like to copy and copy it with Str + C or right-click on Copy. Then find the campaign from the tree view of the editor. You can select one or more campaigns to copy the location too. Then the location only needs to be inserted in the appropriate campaign, using Str + V or by right-clicking on Paste. Of course, you can copy and paste not just one location, but multiple locations between campaigns.
5. Export Google Ads Account
You want to back up your Google Ads account for emergencies? Again, the editor can help you, because it offers the possibility to export data from your account. To do this, click on the menu item Account, and in this drop-down menu the item Export.
There are various possibilities for export: You can make your Export whole account, Export selected campaigns and ad groups, the Export current view, or export Custom Rules. These exports are useful as hedging the accounts in case of acute errors or sharing changes with other people.
6. Drafts of Campaigns
The last useful feature of the editor I would like to introduce to you is the creation of campaign drafts.
You can create one or more campaigns or an entire account as a draft in Notepad. This is a very useful way to make changes on a per-trial basis and to try out campaign settings without those designs being inadvertently uploaded to the Google Ads account. To create a draft campaign, simply select Campaign from the Type list, and then click Add Campaign. Then change the status of the campaign to Draft.
You can also change an unposted campaign to a draft. Just change the status of your existing, unposted campaign to Draft.
Conclusion
In summary, it can be stated that the Google Ads Editor is in principle suitable for accounts of any size. The editor offers unique features that are not available in Google Ads. A look at the editor is definitely worthwhile for anyone who wants to manage their accounts more efficiently and better.
He’s especially helpful with editing accounts with multiple campaigns and long keyword or ad lists, as his biggest advantage is probably mass data manipulation. Advertisers who manage accounts with frequent change requirements will greatly simplify their work with the editor and make more efficient use of the editor’s work time.
Do you have any other tips for using the editor? Let us know these in the comments!
