Google Expands AdWords Interface Beta Test

Mar 27, 2009 at 2:16pm ET by Matt McGee

If you’re a Google AdWords user, you may be able to kick the tires on the new AdWords interface. Google has opened the beta it to more US advertisers, as well as to new countries (the UK and Australia) and new languages (Spanish, Japanese, French, and Brazilian Portuguese).

When you login to your AdWords account, you might see a message pop-up like this:

adwords invite

(When trying out the new interface, you may get a second pop-up warning you that recommended browsers are Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7, and Chrome. It works in Firefox 2, but is a bit slow.)

The new interface is heavy on Ajax, and will probably remind you of the Google Analytics interface (if you use GA as your analytics tool). In this week’s announcement, Google mentioned these new features:

Performance graphs on every campaign management page
Insight across ad groups – you can see and edit all groups from a single “page”
Inline editing – no need to load separate pages to edit ads
Easier content network management via a new “Networks” tab

Here’s a look at the Campaigns tab in the new interface, where I’ve set the chart to show both Clicks (blue) and Average Position (green) on the graph:

adwords screenshot

Google emphasizes that the new interface is only about cosmetic and management changes; it has no impact on things like bidding, ranking, Quality Score, and how ads run.

Many advertisers will see the “New Interface (Beta)” link by default when signing in to AdWords. Advertisers who don’t see the link, but want to try it out, can learn more and ask to join the beta on the New AdWords Interface mini-site.

Matt McGee is the Search Engine Land Assignment Editor, and offers search marketing consulting and training to businesses of all sizes. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and HyperlocalBlogger.com.

See more articles by Matt McGee >

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