Ready to take your skills to the next level?

Cause I’ve run a few Google campaigns so I know exactly how frustrating it is to not be able to do bulk editing. It took me a while to learn the various shortcuts to get things done faster.

Today, I’ll share some of these advanced tips for power users. Note that we will be using Google Ads Editor for this. Google Ads, previously known as Google AdWords, is an online advertising platform.

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1. Download Google Ads Editor

The first step you need to do is download Google Ads Editor (previously known as Google AdWords Editor).

Google Ads Editor allows you to use bulk editing features to make multiple changes quickly. You can also manage, edit and view multiple accounts at the same time. This is especially useful if you run multiple campaigns across numerous accounts.

Source: Google Ads Editor

Bonus Tip: Always Ensure That Your Google Ads Editor Is Up To Date

So I always get this pop-up whenever I open the Google AdWords Editor in the past. If this pop-up appears for you too, always choose to Restart & Update Now.

By regularly updating Google Ads Editor, you’ll always be using the most up-to-date version of Google Ads Editor. You will then gain access to the latest features (eg. latest expanded text ads with 3 headlines & 2 descriptions, responsive search & display ads with numerous headlines & descriptions).

2. Get Recent Changes Before You Do Anything

This is a very crucial step.

Do remember to click on that Get Recent Changes button!

This way, your Ads Editor will be up to date about the account details including campaigns and ads.

You can choose

• Basic (faster)
• More data (slower)
• Schedule download

I usually just choose the basic option so that changes are downloaded quickly. And since I only edit campaigns once in a while, I didn’t choose to schedule download.

3. Master Shortcut Keys

Some of the common keyboard shortcuts can be used in the Ads Editor.

Check out the various shortcut keys for Windows and Mac!

It’s good if you remember most of them so you can quickly do what you want.

You should at least remember the shortcut keys to

• Copy
• Paste
• Cut
• Undo
• Select all

Photo by fancycrave1 on Pixabay

3a. Select All & Edit Everything

Simply press Ctrl+A or Cmd+A to select all items and edit them together in one shot.

This is what I always use when there’s a change in the final URL and all the ads need to be updated with the new destination page.

3b. Duplicate Campaigns, Ad Groups & Ads

Select the campaign, ad group or ad then click on Edit. You can then copy and paste to duplicate this campaign, ad group or ad.

Or you can simply use the shortcut keys of

• Copy: Ctrl+C or Cmd+C
• Paste: Ctrl+V or Cmd+V

You can choose to cut if you’re sure that you don’t want to leave the original copy. Meaning that you’re removing the campaign, ad group or ad from its original location and moving it elsewhere.

• Cut: Ctrl+X or Cmd+X

And of course, if you make any mistakes, you can simply undo what you just did.

• Undo: Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z

This is a feature I use most often. When duplicating campaigns, I’ll use this copy/cut/paste feature.

Most of the time, I take the longest to set up the first campaign. I need to ensure that the campaign is perfect.

• Settings: country, language
• Ads: ad copy, image, final URL
• Targeting: audiences, demographics
• Keywords: match type, negative keywords

Then, I simply duplicate this entire campaign and change to target another country instead. On top of changing the location from United States to United Kingdom, I will also replace all United States keywords with United Kingdom keywords.

See the next step for further details on how to use the replace feature~

4. Find & Replace Text

Replacing ad copy and keywords has never been this easy with Replace Text!

When you click on the Replace Text button, you can

• choose which field to perform the action in (eg. headline 3, description 1, path 2, all URL fields)
• define the text to be replaced
• define the text to be replaced with

There are also options like preserving capitalization.

Bonus Tip: Explore The Other Features

Click on the other tabs beside Replace for other features like

• Append Text
• Change Capitalization
• Change Bids
• Change URLs

Do try them out! They can help save time and effort.

5. Make Multiple Changes

Of course, you also have the option to make multiple changes at once. Simply click the button at the top.

I use this feature most often when adding lists of keywords. For example, I’ll copy the list of keywords from my Excel sheet then Paste From Clipboard. You’ll need to indicate which campaign or ad group these keywords are to be added to. If the Ads Editor automatically identifies them as keywords, you can process them immediately. But if it doesn’t, just change the column header at the top to Keyword.

This can be applied to ad copies too. Simply copy your list of headlines, descriptions, paths, final URL etc. then Paste From Clipboard. Ensure that you use the correct column header so Ads Editor can create the ads accordingly.

6. Tap Into Powerful Search Feature

By default, when you type into the advanced search box, Ads Editor will search for any field that has that word. For example, ‘Discount’ in the keyword, headline, description etc.

You can apply filters to narrow your search. For example, only headline 1 with the phrase ‘United States’.

I find this pretty useful because I can quickly find what I want. For instance, if I have hundreds of ads in one campaign, I can use the search feature to find all ads that mention the 20% discount, instead of tediously reading through all the ads. (PS. You can do this easily with labels too.)

7. Use Labels To Organize Your Account

Whether it’s the campaign, ad group, ad or keyword, there will be this Labels tab.

Simply click on this Labels tab to Add New Label or Apply/Remove A Label.

You can also edit an existing label by opening the Shared Library at the left sidebar and choosing Labels. Besides renaming the label, you can add a description or change the label color.

I use labels mostly for ads. For example, let’s say you have a different promotion every month but it’s always the same few promotions. You can just use the labels to easily find and resume running suitable ads. After pausing the current ads, simply choose to resume running the ads with 20% discount, free shipping or free gift.

So, Is Search Or Labels Better?

Of course, you can decide whether Search or Labels works better for you.

Search is automatic in that you just search a word or phrase and the software will automatically scan your account and give you results that match the criteria you specified.

Labels, on the other hand, is manual where you have to manually apply a label to each ad.

Hence, it’s more of a human versus machine issue.

You can catch things that Search can’t. For instance, if an ad copy doesn’t state ‘20% discount’ but mentions ‘20% off’, searching for 20% discount won’t make this ad appear in the search results. Thus, you might miss out this ad and lose the chance to resume running it during the promotion period. But if you search for 20%, this ad will appear in the search results.

8. Adjust The Data View As You Wish

Ads Editor is very flexible in the way that you can customize your data view.

8a. Sort Rows

Click on the column header to sort the data in ascending or descending order.

8b. Add & Remove Columns

You can modify the columns to only show the data that matters to you.

Just right-click on any column header. You will then see a list of all available columns. For example, you’ll see headlines, descriptions, paths and final URL for ads but you’ll see match type, max. CPC, quality score, est. first page bid for keywords.

Simply select the column headings that you want to add and uncheck the column headings that you want to remove.

For instance, I’ve removed the comment, tracking template and final mobile URL columns because I don’t use them.

8c. Modify Column Width

To adjust column width, you just have to hover over the column header and adjust the width as you wish.

You can also right-click the column header and choose to Auto-Size Column or Auto-Size All Columns.

8d. Freeze & Unfreeze Columns

Ads Editor allows you to freeze columns on the left so that they stay there as you scroll horizontally across. This makes it easy for you to see the important things even if the table becomes very wide and includes many columns. For instance, you can freeze the headline columns so you can distinguish each ad.

Right-click the column header and choose to freeze or unfreeze that column.

9. Remember To Post Your Changes

After you’re done making all the changes, remember to post them!

If you don’t post the changes, they will only remain in the Ads Editor. Like a draft that’s never published.

You need to post the changes so that they’re uploaded to Google Ads.

Bonus Tip: Do Not Edit Published or Running Ads Directly

Any changes to an ad will cause it to be removed.

In other words, even if you change a tiny punctuation symbol (such as changing the period to an exclamation mark), Google will delete the old ad with a period and create a new ad with the exclamation mark.

Bear in mind that once an ad is removed, you can never recover it. Meaning that you won’t be able to resume running a removed ad.

Therefore, do not edit any published or currently running ads directly!

Instead, you can choose to pause and duplicate the ads then edit the new ads. This way, you can still resume running these paused ads in the future.

This also applies to campaigns and ad groups. Don’t remove any campaign or ad group unless you’re 100% sure that you will never ever resume running them!

Photo by Joël Super on Pexels

Now It’s Your Turn

Hopefully, these tips have helped save you time when creating Google campaigns~

What other tips would you like to share about mastering the Ads Editor?

If you have marketing budget or prefer spending time on more important business matters, you can consider hiring a search engine marketing or display advertising expert from Fiverr instead. There are also top-rated professionals from Fiverr Pro who are hand-vetted for stellar quality and service.

For more business growth and marketing tips, join online business classes and marketing and sales classes. Or watch streaming broadcasts of free online classes at CreativeLive! You can also join online courses at Fiverr Learn~