If you are using Google AdWords then you have probably seen their new interface. If you are like us, you probably have mixed feelings about it. While it doesn’t quite “feel” the same as the old AdWords, it has definitely improved certain aspects of campaign management. Whether we like it or not it will soon be the only available interface, so we though we would start highlighting new features within the interface that we find useful (and perhaps offering our opinion on potential improvements, in case Google is listening).

A feature that caught our attention recently is the “See Search Terms” button that now appears at the top of each ad group:

This button allows you to select one or more keywords in the ad group (or all of them) and generate a Search Query Performance report for those keywords. Instead of taking you into the reporting area to setup and then access the report, it simply appears as a pop-up overlay above the current view. This gives you instant access to critical data about the keywords in the current ad group are connecting to actual search queries (including conversion stats for each query if you have Google Conversion Tracker installed). The date range for the report is determined by the date range of the current view.

Once the report is open, you will see that Google has tried to make the data actionable by adding some new indicators and functions. Search queries in the report that are already in the ad group are given green ‘Added’ labels. Keywords that have been added as negative keywords are given a red ‘Excluded’ label. Those should only show up if the date range you use includes dates before the negative keywords were added. Another caveat there is that the excluded label is only given to keywords that match a negative keyword exactly (i.e. if you have the negative keyword ‘free’, the keyword ‘free chairs’ would not register as excluded in the report, even though it would be filtered by that negative).

After you have evaluated the list, you can use the built in ‘Add as keyword’ or ‘Add as negative keyword’ functions to add selected keywords into your ad group as appropriate. While this is handy, it may be of limited use for many advertisers. If you need to add third party tracking codes onto your keyword URLs, for example, you might prefer to use the ‘Download’ function to grab a list of potential keywords that you can upload later. The same goes for negatives, since this tool only allows you to add whole keyword phrases. Adding larger phrases as negatives is often less efficient than adding just one word that is common to many trouble phrases (i.e. you could add ‘free chairs’, ‘free blue chairs’, and ‘free brown chairs’ as negatives, or just the word ‘free’, which would filter out all three, as well as many others that haven’t shown up yet).

All in all, the placement and functionality of this feature is a welcome addition to the AdWords interface that we think will help many advertisers improve the performance of their accounts.