Google Makes Key Usability Fixes To New Adwords Interface

Google Makes Key Usability Fixes To New Adwords Interface

Better Late Than Never

Google New Adwords InterfaceWith the permanent switch to the new Google AdWords interface, it looks as if Google has been making cosmetic changes over the past few days – which is good.

As you may recall, I had a few issues with the new interface and how it laid out data. I guess those at Google listened to my advice!   

Below is a screen capture of data from an AdWords account. My first impression was that it seemed cleaner and more presentable.  Continuing through to additional accounts, this ‘feeling’ continued. One thing I instantly noticed with the layout was that the conversions column on the far right is no longer ‘hiding’ data under the table’s right border.  There is even a small white space between the table and the border if you look closely!

New Google Adwords Interface

Ad Groups, Settings, Ads, Keywords – all of these section layouts look a lot cleaner.
 

The date range menu has also been given a bit of a makeover, and I must say it’s much easier to read, and reacts faster when clicked on.

New Date Range GA

When using the custom date range, the full pull-down menu disappears. An interesting change, and I’ll reserve judgement on this until I’ve used it a bit more.

Custom Date Range

Google Fixing The Simple Things In New Interface

It’s nice to see the simple things are being addressed by Google in order to keep advertisers happy. Something as simple as losing the conversion data under the right border might not seem like such a big deal, but when you deal with a high volume of accounts, it can becomes quite frustrating. Having to refresh the page every time you open an account or change the date range over and over in order to fix the data display can be tedious.

I’ll keep an eye open for any additional changes to the interface and post them here when they happen.

I am glad to see that Google has addressed many of the usability issues that were in the first release.  I am just surprised that it took this long. 

Better late then never.

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6 Comments

  • avatar

    Bill;
    I’ve seen a similar error message on a few of my accounts, but I have not experienced the issues you have after seeing it. Most times the error appears, it seems to be for no reason, as changes are applied.
    Are you still able to see your changes after the error? If so, this may be just a bug in the system.
    Additionally, have you tried making changes through the AdWords Editor or another bid management program and uploading from there? I do a lot of my changes this way, avoiding problems like the one you’ve described.

  • avatar

    Matt, I have another issue that I am encountering. Wonder if you know a solution. Every time try to add a new campaign I get an annoying error message and I cannot create the campaign. The error reads:
    “There was an error with your operation. If you were trying to make a change, it may not have saved. Please refresh this page to try again. If the error continues, log out of your AdWords account, then log in again and return to this page.”
    I have tried everything…logging out and logging back in, turning off my computer, I’ve tried multiple browsers (Firefox v3.5.2 and Safari). I have downloaded the latest updates for my computer (Mac OS X 10.5.8). I’ve seen this question once already on the Google Help forum but no valid responses. I’m clueless…

  • avatar

    Thanks for the kind words, Mariel, and thanks for following us.
    I myself and still working through the finer points of the new interface. The pleasant thing is I’m not having troubles like I thought I would with the change. It’s actually been quite an easy transition.
    I hope your experience with it turns out as well.

  • avatar

    Thanks a lot Matt…really helpful piece of information.
    I am driving ahead with the new interface, and this is a place I scout for handy relevant tips. You guys are keeping us abreast of the latest from the adwords front, Matt you’re the key player 🙂
    The main thing I like about AdWords new interface is that it brings more information accessible at once. And our account data is intelligibly displayed in a more visual and observable format.

  • avatar

    There is a bulk edit function, Mariel, but it’s not the greatest because you have to apply your desired settings to one campaign first before you can apply those settings to all or a select number of campaigns.
    Go to ‘All Online Campaigns’ in your account. You should see all of your campaigns listed in the Campaigns tab. Now click on the Settings tab, and the list of campaigns remains, but you now see the settings you are able to apply to all campaigns. These are Status, Location, Language, Networks & Devices, Bid Type, Budget, End Date, and Ad Scheduling.
    Let’s assume you want to bulk edit all of your campaigns.
    First, click on the top campaign, and you are taken to the Settings page. Make the edits you wish to any of the above categories. Once finished, click on the ‘All Online Campaigns’ link at the top of this page, and you should be returned to the previous Settings tab list.
    Now, check on the box to the left of the title ‘Campaign’ above your campaign names to select all campaigns listed. Now click on Edit beside the ‘New Campaign’ button.
    You should now be see the ‘Copy To All Rows’ button beside any of the settings listed, allowing you to apply this to all of your campaigns.
    If you only want to apply a setting to 7 of 10 campaigns, then instead of check the ‘check all’ box, check the 7 you wish to work with and when you press Edit, only these 7 will show the Copy To All Rows button and/or be edited when using this button.
    I hope this helps. I know it’s not the greatest way to bulk edit, but it shows that it can be done, if only in a limited way.

  • avatar

    Other than the fact that there is no option in the new interface to bulk edit settings for multiple campaigns the new interface is not that issue-ridden.
    I think this graphic rich new interface is a bit slow.

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