Adwords/PPC and SEO Tools

[JamieLewis]

Hi everyone,

We are considering writing an Adwords related software tool in the coming month, purely because from everything I've seen and tested so far is in my opinion overpriced and could of be written so much better. However PPC is a new area for us and I doubt I have seen everything yet.

What I am after is some feedback from seasoned marketeers about what software they think is invaluable ... or even better specific features they couldn't live without.

Our research so far has proven we can implement all the features of Adwords Accelerator so this is going to be our rough starting point (keyword research, Bid Placement, Competitor analysis and campaign management), but we will take it further and make it much more user friendly / even quicker!

If we go ahead with this then the plan is to further develop it to cater for things like analysing the SEO of a site and generally get all the tools you need for online marketing in one place. It will be SaaS delivered Windows and Web application, but with a few tricks on the billing side of things that will make it far more affordable to the end user.

I look forward to hearing peoples throughts ....

 

[garyk]

Hi everyone,

We are considering writing an Adwords related software tool in the coming month, purely because from everything I've seen and tested so far is in my opinion overpriced and could of be written so much better. However PPC is a new area for us and I doubt I have seen everything yet.

You want to write adwords related software but PPC is a new area for you? An oxymoron surely. I use market samurai as do many people, I got a lifetime subscription for $149, its a superb tool and look at it for the money I wouldn't compete with it. Regular updates, loads of features, tutorial vids, o and its cross platform.

 

[JamieLewis]

You want to write adwords related software but PPC is a new area for you? An oxymoron surely. I use market samurai as do many people, I got a lifetime subscription for $149, its a superb tool and look at it for the money I wouldn't compete with it. Regular updates, loads of features, tutorial vids, o and its cross platform.

Thanks for the reply! My many years experience with internet services and software development is all I need to write this and anything else you will currently find in this market sector. I say PPC is new to me as I don't have anything other than theory when it comes to running a campaign, but I know the theory is sound and the aim is a tool to make it easy to put into action. Obviously without previous success and experience at PPC there will simply be things I do not know and didn't include, for which an expert could bring great benefit to a project like this. Saying that though from everything I've evaluated in the last month I would be more than happy to say the competition hadn't implemented it either.

I hadn't come across market samurai yet! Have had a quick look and I am keen to know where their data comes from as I couldn't see anything on the site, but I will give them a little test and see how they fit. If I find something that nearly half lives up to my expectations then I will throw the idea out, but so far it seems each product caters for a bit of one thing and not the other ... making me think even more I should do it.

 

[BenKirkwood]

Currently using PPC BidMax to help anayse best bid cost/position. Its reasonably good, takes an analysis of average bid costs over a specified time period then estimates optimal bid pricing based on a position preference criteria - not perfect by any means but allows us to control the overall spend to keep within our budget. As a heavy AdWords user I'd certainly be interested in this project. You will find that people use PPC in different ways (keyword grouping, ad display, split testing etc.) so its a tough challenge to provide something that goes beyond the basics - keep us informed, if you need beta testers in the future, look me up.

B

 

[JamieLewis]

Currently using PPC BidMax to help anayse best bid cost/position. Its reasonably good, takes an analysis of average bid costs over a specified time period then estimates optimal bid pricing based on a position preference criteria - not perfect by any means but allows us to control the overall spend to keep within our budget. As a heavy AdWords user I'd certainly be interested in this project. You will find that people use PPC in different ways (keyword grouping, ad display, split testing etc.) so its a tough challenge to provide something that goes beyond the basics - keep us informed, if you need beta testers in the future, look me up.

B

Yes beta testers I will defo be looking for. As for structure, I don't want to give away any killer details but there will be big emphasis on re-using and organizing data more effectively. I also plan a more transparent pricing model that should give flexibility and hopefully make it appealing for a wider audience ... heh sounds good in theory hey

 

[GNU]

One tool I found useful is called "the permutator".

Its grossly over priced @ $50 for a string manupulator, but worth it for what it does, which is allow you to generate very long lists of key phrasees on exact match.

The advantage of that is you have thousands of exact match phrases which can show you where the impressions are, as opposed to broad match, which "mask" the long tail impressions.

Hope that makes sense.

http://www.boxersoftware.com/thepermutator.htm

That would be a really easy win in any tool as its not hard to program something like that.

There is some interesting PPC stuff from AddGooroo but I always thought it looked a bit over priced for the number of keys it allowed you to track, useless for the kind of stuff I do, but if you have a single high value site it may be worth a look at the free trial (if they still offer it). Be careful to cancel trial in time or youll get a hefty bill (at least when I tried it that was the case):

http://www.adgooroo.com/

Also keyword spy is useful for getting ideas from competitors... but you need to build a massive database of search engine results to emulate that:

http://www.keywordspy.com/

 

[Mystro]

Sorry I know I am meant to be answering the question but I have a question: In my adwords account my "live campaigns" are taking ages to get approved (like 4 weeks) does any one have any advise?

The best advice i can give you is start your own thread and ask there, hijacking another off topic thread wont get you any answers

 

[MagnifyB]

I have tried and tested a far amount of PPC automated software's over the past 8/9 years I have been using PPC marketing and have always gone back to manual management.

I haven't found one yet that can read situations to maximise the ROI as well as the human eye or brain. To me, a PPC account is individual to a business's aims and needs and therefore needs to be individually managed. Software doesn't seem to be able to do this -