New Look and Conversion Column

Well Adwords has a new look. A 'cleaner' look. Surprisingly this change in look wasn't too difficult to adapt to at least not as difficult as it was the '3 tabs in an adgroup' change.

• The date range has moved to the left.
• Instead of a drop down there are links to see only active campaigns, all campaigns, and all but deleted campaigns.
• Campaigns are broken up into those that are PPC and Site and 'Others' (which currently contains click-to-call campaigns)
• The 'create new campaign' has moved down to the right of the 'pause, resume....' section.

Also they finally give absolute number of conversions, so no more need to calculate.


[Click on the image to see an enlarged view]

Beat this CTR

Adwords sometimes makes you feel like a super hero - you seem to accomplish the Impossible.

Check out the Google CheckOut icon

So they changed it and made it way more jazzy. No awards for guessing why.



I honestly and totally believe that no user will trust this advertiser more than they would any other advertiser, just because this advertiser is using Google CheckOut as their payment gateway. I don't think most shoppers online would know about Google CheckOut or for that even care.

I feel this is a strategy to get more online business owners to start using CheckOut. How? Well I may be wrong but I believe that this icon would bring in better CTRs. Meaning more people clicking your ad. Meaning you have more "Relevant " traffic. It's interesting to see how Google keeps pushing it's own products this way. If this was not the case then why would they make the icon stand out so much? I am sure many people would cry foul if it was another company doing something similar.

Account Snapshot (Beta)

Okay so this isn't new but still good enough to blog about.
First in case you haven't realized, you can chose if you want your account to open in the Account Snapshot page or the Campaign Summary page. Just have to click the link at the bottom of the Account Snapshot page (or even the campaign summary page).
Well I thought Google added the Account Snapshot after Panama was launched with the same look and functionality for their first page for their 'marketing solutions' accounts. But apparently this Account Snapshot appeared sometime in October (assuming in a very few accounts)

Anyway the snapshot is a good way to get stats and other important updates. Have highlighted some in the 'cool' features.


You can view 'active alerts'.
It will show you when payments were made and with the amount that was 'accepted'.
All new features come under the banner of Announcements (or so I think). Also shows which announcements you might have missed.
There is a direct link to the help center. The good thing about this is that the search box is available right there.

Under campaign performance -
Gives the number of campaigns that are active, paused and ended.
Displays stats - you can chose by campaigns and date range. All campaigns that show in the campaign summary are shown.
It then gives a graph of the performance you want to see in graph format by date and stats for (tabs to chose) Cost, Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Conversion Rate. The more reports tab takes you to the report center.

Limit on the number of changes allowed to Daily Budget

The image below should say it all. So much for 'you have total control' at all times. I had no idea there was a limit till I saw this message. I think it's sort of unfair to not allow advertisers to increase daily budget more than 10 times.

April Fools but a good idea?

Well ya I fell for it and fell for it badly. But next year on 1st April I am not going to believe anything I see on google, gmail, orkut or any other property owned by Google.

Anyway Gmails idea of being hilarious was that on their main page they put up like their 'new service' like an announcement. Gmail was going to start Gmail Paper. Basically a service provided by Gmail where you could actually request for print outs of any email you like and they would deliver it to you for free (on special recycled paper). How could it be free? Well each printed out page on the back would have an advertisement. Sounds pretty believable doesn't it? Anyway they are doing no such thing.

But it's an interesting concept isn't it. I mean why wouldn't a restaurant want to send an ad to someone on the back of an important document with their number and maybe a list of few specialties? Or for that the new hair saloon in the area to give out information about their discounts.

Why would this work? Well it's localized advertising at its best. It would obviously be very similar to local classified or to dropping leaflets etc but only difference here is that these documents will be seen multiple times and stored unlike a new paper or pieces of paper.

Logistically it would be a nightmare I am sure to get ad inventory this way and then to actually 'display it', but it's an interesting idea none the less.

I do wonder if people would actually like to advertise with Google like that...

Also made me think about how much can we really charge to advertising. We get so many things 'free' today because there are advertisers paying for that product / service for us. Of course we are indirectly again paying those advertisers for those advertisements (in the product cost) but that's a whole different issue. I just wonder how far we can go on the back of advertising or for how long.

If you would like to know more about Gmail Paper and see how authentic is seemed, you can check out the Gmail home page on 1st April and also the 'more information' page for the Gmail Paper Service.