There has been quite a bit happening in the last month or so with Google AdWords, so here is a quick overview of the most significant news:
AdWords Editor 3.0 now available
Even though I don't use AdWords editor on a day-to-day basis, I do find it really useful especially for bulk changes or for setting up new campaigns. I have found the latest update of benefit tool, the changes this time are subtle, although it's continuing to improve all the time.
AdWords Keywords Search Tool Showing Search Volumes per Month
This is very much at the rumours stage, but it appears that Google is to offer a similar feature to Yahoo Overture Inventory Keyword Search "“ whereby search volume estimates are given for keywords for a given month. Currently a rating of 1 to 5 is given for search volumes, so let's hope Google gives us that extra bit of detail we all crave.
Google Content Network Ads to Show Sites URLs
Google plans to start showing publishers urls to AdWords advertisers, so you can see exactly where your ads are showing on the Google Network. Up until now you can only get this information from raw logs. I highlighted a Google Analytics hack for this back in December, and although this is a very useful addition to the armoury, I do not think it is as thorough as it could be "“ so I certainly welcome AdWords becoming more open.
Quality Score Update
Last month saw the latest quality score updates going live and you can also see a report (Great, Ok, Poor) of how various keywords are performing by customising columns within your AdWords account to show the quality score status. Many advertisers were seeing bugs with the launch of the quality score update, although this seems to have settled down now.