I'm currently managing a group of campaigns and ad groups which I need
to "split up" into a larger number of very narrow campaigns.  I need a
management tool (software or web service) that can assist me with the
management of many “parallel” campaigns.

Our specific current needs:

(1) Split current AdWords activity into separately-bid segments by:
   (a) 5 to 8 regions (groups of countries)
   (b) 3 language segments (English, Western European, and all others)
   (c) 4 match types (broad, phrase, exact, and content)
   (d) 2 or 3 day-parts within each segment
This ends up being a very large number of sub-divisions (5 regions
times 3 language options times 4 match types is already 60).  Of
course, the region, language, and day-part separations must be done at
the Campaign level, while the match-type and content separations only
need to be by ad group, and would probably be inside the same
campaign.

(2) Create and post these campaigns (initially and modifications)
efficiently.

(3) Manage changes synchronously.  For example, if I decide that my
campaigns bidding for "widget" need to add a negative keyword "free
widget," I want an efficient way to propagate that change across all
applicable campaigns and groups.

(4) Extend appropriate campaigns synchronously to MSN AdCenter, Yahoo,
and Ask.com (I realize that they have different segmentation
capabilities).

(5) Provide appropriate reporting capabilities, including aggregating
data from parallel campaigns (for report views and in making any bid-
adjustment recommendations).

I am seeking specific recommendations of any tools that you’ve
actually used which could meet these requirements. (Please don’t reply
with general suggestions like, “Contact Omniture or Marin Software.”)

Mark Welch
MarkWelch at MarkWelch dot com
(925) 462-8483

I'd be curious to ask what the overall spend level clocks in at (or
what kind of dollar return is expected). Solutions depend on cost-
effectiveness.

If the job is "too custom," maybe it's a custom job of developing an
app in house.

Sometimes I find that lists of requirements have a certain demanding
quality to them. Why might this list of requirements be more important
than some other aspects of mastering the ROI on the campaign. A tool
that would be really good at doing the above might cost you more than
changing the list of requirements. Just as an example, putting Ask.com
on the list vs. making more money off Google by doing the right things
with testing.

And why the specific need to dump in all match types and to segment
them? Separate content campaigns makes sense, of course.

My apologies for being overly general, but I think a lot of us are
going to try to be helpful by pointing to tools such as Adapt or
Acquisio - it's a start, anyway. I'm not going to do vendors' selling
for them, and it sounds like some of your requirements are customized,
and/or underestimate the need for a human analyst, and/or
underestimate how far you can get using AdWords-specific tools or help
from the engines (depending on spend, they will love you).

Another sense I have is that there is a big difference in strengths of
tools between building and reporting. Getting both strengths in the
same tools, at a price that is cost-effective, is going to be a
challenge.

Multiplying the number of ad groups is going to give you headaches,
without a doubt. The requirement to split out "four match types" may
be adding too much to the complexity here, if you have to make hard
decisions based on what is practicable. Just 2c, I hope others have
specific ideas.

Andrew

On May 14, 12:50 pm, Mark Welch <markwe...@markwelch.com> wrote:

Mark,

We reviewed six to eight different ppc mgmt solutions before settling on
Aquisio, which we're giving about a six month trial right now.  Aquisio made
sense to us given our specific client load, client types, our reporting
needs, our agency structure and PPC services pricing, the new features
they're releasing this summer, etc.- But the right vendor for you will
depend on your needs and spend.  For us, part of the decision was that the
solution had to make us more effective and more efficient- no matter how
powerful the tool was, if it was going to take more time than doing it
manually, we couldn't go that way, at least not right now.

For you, it sounds like you need to split all those into multiple campaigns,
and then use a ppc mgmt solution that uses the "portfolio approach"- that
means being able to, within the third party tool, designate your own keyword
groupings regardless of what adgroup or campaign they're in.  You might even
be able to place the same keyword in multiple portfolios- I didn't look that
deeply into it, because it's not a huge need of ours at this time.  I know
SearchForce does this, and maybe others do.  I'm not sure if you can do #3
with SF.

The best thing to do is contact several ppc solution companies and schedule
demos and walk-throughs, and ask them all your questions.  I had considered
doing a blog post about what we'd found about the various solutions, but
some of them are frequently changing and upgrading- pricing changes, etc.-
so my info would go out of date and not do them justice- in fact, one
company compared themselves to another based on old information about their
competitor- I'd suggest doing some due diligence in conversation with these
companies' sales reps.

I'm sure there are many reason to segment your campaigns the way you plan
to- possibly for tracking spends and performance- but I've found a big
factor in PPC mgmt to be the amt of time it takes to analyze and optimize
compared to the improvement in results- i.e. there's a point of diminishing
returns on the value you're creating compared to the cost of your labor.  I
suppose if there were a formula for figuring that out... well it's pretty
complicated ;-)

I think over the next few years as the solutions mature and agencies and
freelancers get their processes down, we'll see more clarity in which vendor
is right for which situations... for example there was a vendor, whose name
escapes me, that would be my #1 choice for managing campaigns with thousands
of e-commerce products, because of their specific time-saving tools for
creating the keywords and ads.

Hope that helps,
Brian

--
Brian Carter
Fuel Interactive
Director of Search Marketing
http://www.fuelinteractive.com
http://www.twitter.com/briancarter
http://www.linkedin.com/in/briancarterms

Following up on my earlier post: thanks to Andrew and Brian for your
thoughtful replies.

I'm always hesitant to talk about "spend level" because intelligent
management results in much lower spending levels. Some merchants set
illogical cutoffs based on a percentage fee model (which I dislike).
I'd consider paying $10,000 per month for a tool that would allow me
to reduce my spending from $35,000 to $20,000 per month without
reducing sales. Similarly, if I were spending $15,000 per month now to
drive $50,000 in sales, but a tool allowed me to drive $150,000 in
sales from the same spend, I'd consider paying even more for that
tool!

And that's what our "slicing and dicing" is all about -- effectively
and efficiently managing keywords and markets to optimize our bid
rates within each.  Segmenting match types is certainly not the most
important issue (but it's something I prefer to do, if practical,
because it speeds up my analysis).  Segmenting by country and language
is crucial, since we see significantly different ROIs from those
markets (and without separate campaigns, Google won't let us bid
different rates).

I hadn't heard of Acquisio before, so that name was helpful.

I absolutely agree with Andrew that "there is a big difference in
strengths of tools between building and reporting. Getting both
strengths in the same tools, at a price that is cost-effective, is
going to be a challenge."

campaigns, and then use a ppc mgmt solution that uses the "portfolio
approach"- that means being able to, within the third party tool,
designate your own keyword groupings regardless of what adgroup or
campaign they're in.  You might even be able to place the same keyword
in multiple portfolios..."

That's very perceptive, and is one aspect I did not include in my
"requirements," although I'd really love it.  For example, if I sell
"Wonder Widgets," I'd love to be able to analyze campaign data based
on "keywords that include 'widget' versus keywords that contain
'wonder,' which means comparing two groups that overlap.  When I was
promoting calendar sales, it was important to do this kind of analysis
and learn (for example) that searches which include the year (such as
"2008 Schnauzer calendar") were 50% more likely to drive sales than
the same search without the year ("Schnauzer calendar"), and searches
containing a generic word "dog calendar" were much less effective than
breed-specific searches ("Schnauzer calendar").  Being able to assign
an arbitrary number of keywords to an arbitrary number of overlapping
groups is certainly something I'd love as.

FYI, I chose about some of our "best" keywords to manually launch in
30 test campaigns (5 country groups x 3 language groups x 2 for
content/search, with separate ad groups by match type for each keyword
within each campaign).  After a predictable series of snafus in
uploading, the campaigns launched on Friday, and I've already gathered
some useful data.

Mark Welch
mark welch at mark welch dot com
(925) 462-8483