Google are continually evolving the functionality  and depth of AdWords (one could say in an effort to squeeze every dime as most changes seem to justify charging more) but it’s now nice to see that they’ve been busy working on the bodywork instead of just the engine with the announcement today that they are soon to begin beta testing a new interface in the UK.

Upon first impressions it more like Google analytics crossed with AdWords Editor than it is the traditional Google AdWords interface but that’s no bad thing :

The main points to note are the navigation bar instead of the current tabs and the “tree view” campaign navigation structure, this will be familiar for AdWords Editor users (if you aren’t using editor then why not.. it saves so much time and is super quick to learn!)
When the new interface is released you will have more flexibility when working in your account, sorting keywords, ads, adgroups and campaigns. When viewing a campaign you will be able to see  tabs for ad groups, Keywords, and Networks (Networks  is basically the new name for placements).

When in the campaign view if you click Networks, ads, keywords etc. it will display all the keywords, placements and ads for that campaign in one table to help sort through everything in one place and aid identification of what is performing well and not so well. e.g. the “Keywords” tab lets you sort all of your ads by conversion rate and see which are performing well for you across all ad groups, you can  then possibly modify things based on this data.

Another feature of AdWords Editor has been the ability to search and create filters, basically in AdWords Editor you can search your account very quickly for any keyword/adcopy/number/url etc. and even create searches based on more than one criteria such as word x with less/more than x impressions/clicks etc. Its a great feature and it’s good to see the Google boffins bring some of those excellent features online now :

As if that wasn’t enough!, Reports are now integrated so that you have far easier access to detailed information on where your ads are showing, On the keywords tab you can click “show query report” to view a report of any keywords of your choice and see the search queries (one can only hope they also show “xxx other unique search queries” as is currently the case) that have triggered your ads, or you can check the “automatic placements” on the “Networks” tab to see the URLs in the content network where ads have been displaying.

There are a few more features but the main one was the work-flow feature, in the past when not using AdWords Editor (noticing a theme yet !? .. AdWords Editor Rocks!) you have had to create new adgroups how Google wants you to but with the release of the new interface you will be able to do what you want and when as you can create ads, add keywords and set bids in any order you like and there’s the flexibility to create adgroups via a one page set up process :

Testing on the new interface starts in the UK next week so it shouldn’t be too long before the successfully adopted features are rolled out into the mainstream.

It’s a positive thing to see some hard work go into something other than pure revenue generation and justification for click cost escalation as has been the case with most of the work over the last couple of years with Google.