Google is doing changes to Adwords on a frequent basis. The option to set up keywords on the campaign level may be new. (I have never set up negative keywords at campaign level) However, it is inflexible for some websites because the negative keywords at the campaign level can impact all ad groups included within that campaign. For those who have different marketing purposes for each ad group, negative keywords must be set at the ad group level for sure.

There has always been a debate about whether Adwords optimization should be done by outsiders or in-house. I have got 2 years experience with Google Adwords in China, one of them was spent on doing Adwords optimization for clients and I am now doing some in-house optimization now for a new start-up company.

In China, Google’s approach to selling Adwords is through authorized resellers. However, resellers tend not to fully undertand the needs of their clients. I have seen lots of websites with al kinds of expectations from Adwords, I must say that Google has some inflexible approach to client’s Adwords structure, and very often,making advertisers feel they lose lots of money to Google.

When you switch your role from doing optimization for someone else to doing it for your own employer or company, you will easily find that the way of thinking regarding how to maximize Adwords’s benefits is indeed different.

Hope to share more with you in the future

Regards,

Wei

Personally, I sense such a conflict of interest that I don’t think I’d want G tweaking my campaigns.

Martin

It doesn’t matter whether it is AdWords, AdSense, Gmail or plain old search, the company that smugly likes to think of itself as one that “does no evil” is absolutely terrible at support.

By way of contrast, the support people at Microsoft AdCenter are unfailingly nice and helpful.

Who’d of thought it, Microsoft get something right for once!

Overall I think the Google AdWords support team are fantastic – my account manager certainly goes beyond the call of duty when it comes to helping out. He is always ready to troubleshoot problems and gives good ideas to improve current campaigns.

However, I must agree that when it comes to them optimising campaigns, they definitely aren’t so hot.

Everyone has to try this once, but I can’t see Google getting too many repeat customers for this service.

They were all Oxbridge English grads who had no idea about direct marketing – especially not direct marketing on Google.

Okay, you’ve spent your entire academic life writing long-winded essays and you think you’re the best guy to tell us how to write a 70 character advert?

It didn’t go as planned….

I haven’t yet found anyone praising the service from google!

Eric – of course I read your blog I just forgot……

I had the same problem 1-1/2 years ago. They optimized my campaign so I’d blow through my daily budget – it was optimized for Google’s sake, not mine.

One by one, the ads got removed for trademark violations.

Needless to say, I didn’t take Google’s advice again