The New AdWords Interface - Do We Like It?

It isn't always easy for us Account Managers who spend our entire day in AdWords but we must move forward with change!

 

 

Late in 2016 Google announced the introduction of a new AdWords experience, complete with a new AdWords user interface - and it is safe to say that it has been completely overhauled! 

 

The new interface unlocks lots of new features and updates, along with a completely new appearance, and while we know we must move forward with change, it isn't always easy for us Account Managers who spend our entire day in AdWords! We've put together a list of what we love, and what we don't love just yet... about the new Google AdWords Interface.

 

What we like

 

Slick new visualisations that save time when analysing data.

 

The interface has a new 'Overview Dashboard' that shows at a glance how your account is performing. It's made up of different visuals including 'Day & Hour' which lets you easily select a metric such as impressions, conversions, or clicks, and shows you which time and on which days these occur. Similarly, 'Devices' offers a visualisation of how your account and campaigns are performing across the three devices. Other than on the dashboard, all aspects of new interface have been completely overhauled with visualisation, such as the Ad Scheduling view and Locations Overview.

New features!

We will always be excited by new features to try out, and the new interface has lots. These include Showcase Shopping Ads (perfect for showcasing your products, especially for general product search terms), Custom In-Market, Promotion Extensions (great if you have discounts, such as 10% off, on your shopping campaigns), Household Income targeting, and Call Bid adjustments. We've already tried a few of these features for our clients and we're loving the results so far!

Keyboard shortcuts make it really quick to navigate.

In the name of saving time, new shortcuts let us quickly do things that would normal take several clicks. Once you learn these, you'll be whizzing around the new interface in no time.

Up to 20% faster load times (apparently)!

In addition to removing clutter and making navigation easier, the new interface is said to let us do more in less time. That's more time to explore the new features and learn the keyboard shortcuts!

 

What we don't like

As with anything new, it takes a bit of getting used to…especially when you spend all day in AdWords and have our accounts set up just the way we like them. Here's what we're not so keen on:

• It doesn't default to enabled campaigns, instead showing all campaigns within the account, including those paused.
• We haven't noticed any faster load times yet, but we are hopeful this will roll out as Google deal with any glitches.
• Things have moved around a little and sometimes we just can't find what we're looking for! We couldn't find Call Details for a while, but we'll put this down to teething issues. Google does seem to be resolving issues ongoing though!

 

Most of the new features are prominent and easy to find, however there's some fancy new features that are hidden and are waiting to be discovered. For now, you can still toggle back and forth between the new and old interface when times get tough, but from Q1 2018, the new interface is here to stay!