In response to Yahoo!’s new Convert Third Party Campaigns tool, today Google dropped the ability to download a spreadsheet listing all AdWords campaign data.
The change wasn’t unexpected. I mean would you want people to quickly and easily migrate campaign data over to a competitor? I think not.
Previously, the Download Bulksheet (.csv) option in AdWords provided a quick and simple way to make campaign-level changes to ad copy, keywords, bids, and destination URLs. For smaller companies bidding on a few dozen keywords, this change shouldn’t have made much of an impact.
However, to larger companies with several thousand terms in queue, this change could have a significant impact to day to day campaign management. The answer you’ll get from Google when you call about this change is to use their new AdWords Editor, which does allow you export/import, but not nearly to the level of granularity one would have retrieved from the Google Bulksheets.
Who moved my cheese? Google. And no matter how much I hem and haw, the fact that I need to scurry over and sniff out the new AdWords Editor will unquestionably remain unchanged. So I’m off to learn Adwords Editor and will be waiting for Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) to update their import/export tool.
About Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing offer a way to purchase “Sponsored” listings in their search results and on their content network. Advertisers bid for each click made on a sponsored ad. The benefit is the extended reach these ads have to offer, and the fact that you only pay when the ad is clicked. The negative is that PPC is one of the most expensive advertising mediums on the Web.
< ![CDATA[This is concerning. I wouldn't expect Google to block access to the information posted by its own user. In our experience, they've been very good with accessibility of data. I've asked them for a response. We've posted a lot of information through Googles APIs.
More on my article: Programming Search Engines: Adword Blocks Migration To Yahoo]]>
< ![CDATA[Very early this morning and got a response from AdWords support (see full email here). He stated that AdWords Editor is replacing the need for Bulksheets. Also, Bulksheets would effectively be incompatible with future changes and that it is already obsolete.
Think Yahoo modify their import app to work with AdWords Editor?]]>