Google Ads Editor | HOW TO USE IT MOST EFFECTIVELY

Use the Google Ads online UI and offline editor together for maximum effectiveness - Google Ads Editor. In this article, we at Grow Easy Digital Agency will share much and important information about this offline editor that will surely be helpful to you.

If you've specialized in Google Ads for a while, you've probably used Google Ads Editor. It's an app that's invaluable for managing campaigns and making big changes. So how can you best use this tool and all the features it includes?

In this guide, you'll find everything you need to get started with Google Ads Editor, use basic features, create new campaigns offline, and more.

What is Google Ads Editor?

Google Ads Editor is an offline editor for your Google Ads accounts. Instead of making changes directly in the online UI, you can make them offline in the Editor and then publish in bulk.

Another great convenience is that you can work with multiple accounts at the same time using this editor.

How did Google Ads Editor get started?

In the early days of Google Ads (formerly called Google AdWords), all there was was the online interface. I started managing Google Ads campaigns as an in-house PPC manager for Grow Easy in 2018. This editor made things extremely easy, allowing us to quickly expand our client portfolio.

Managing so many campaigns quickly became cumbersome in the beginning. Any changes we made were activated immediately - there was no way to review the work before it became active. And there was no way to make group changes. Everything had to be edited by hand, one at a time.

We actually hired an intern to help us update just the prices in our ads. In early 2006, Google introduced Google Ads Editor (then called AdWords Editor).

Why use Google Ads Editor?

It turns out that Google Ads has been using an in-house version of Editor for a while. Advertisers could send group changes to their reps, and the reps used the Editor to make the changes.

The Google finally realized that it would be more efficient if advertisers could make group changes themselves. The editor became a boon for advertisers as accounts became more and more complex.

Getting started with Google Ads Editor

To use Google Ads Editor, first download it to your computer. After downloading the tool, you will be prompted to log in and download your Google Ads accounts from your "My Client Center" (MCC).

The Account Manager shows all accounts in your MCC, along with an optimization score, statistics as of the last updated date, and any errors. Simply select the account you want to work with and click "Open" to pull it into the Editor.

Using Google Ads Editor: The basics

Once the account is downloaded, you will see the main screen:

One of the things I like about Editor is that you can see your entire account at a glance and easily enlarge or shrink different elements like campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords.

In the left navigation, you'll see all of your campaigns along with an icon indicating the campaign type:

The magnifying glass shows a search campaign, and the video camera shows a "YouTube" campaign. There is also an icon for display campaigns.

You can search for a campaign in the left navigation menu by entering a search term or campaign name in the "Search Campaign" box at the top. There is also an icon that tells you if the account is synced. Syncing is important to make sure you've imported any changes made directly in Google Ads into the Google Ads Editor.

We'll talk about syncing later in this article.

To expand a campaign and view its ad groups, simply click the arrow to the left of the campaign name:

Now you can see all the ad groups within the campaign.

Below the top left menu you can find other elements of your Google Ads account such as keywords, ads, targeting and more:

Selecting a campaign or ad group in the top left corner will change the information at the bottom - you will only see information about the selected campaign.

This account has a total of five campaigns, 16 ad groups, 750 keywords and targeting, and 91 ads.

When you select an item from the bottom left corner, you will see details in the center and right editor:

In this example, I have selected "Ad Groups" for the entire account.

In the center I can see all ad groups, along with their status (with a green dot for active, and "bars" for paused). On the right, I can select an ad group and edit any of the displayed fields.

Selecting multiple items (in this case ad groups) allows you to make group changes at once. Let's assume I wanted to update all bids for each ad group across the account to the same amount. I simply select all ad groups in the center and then make the change on the right:

Then enter the desired bid in the "Default Max CPC" field shown above, which will update all of the ad group's bids to the same amount.

This way you can make countless group edits.

Let's assume I wanted to update all the end URLs for each ad in each campaign to the same URL. First select the campaign in the left navigation as seen in number one above.

Next, select "Ads" and then the ad type you want to update in the bottom left navigation panel as seen in number two. (Note that you will need to edit each ad type individually: RSA, ETA, Dynamic Search, etc.)

Then select all the ads in the center section as seen in number three. Finally, change the final URL to the new URL in the right navigation as seen in number four.

Publish your changes

You might be reading this and thinking, "I can do all of these things in the Google Ads online UI. Why would I use this editor?"

The difference is that changes made in the online UI are activated immediately.

As mentioned earlier, the great thing about using Google Ads Editor is that all of your changes are made offline. This allows you to check your work for errors before it is activated.

We've all made a change that we've had to go back and undo - and sometimes that's a difficult task. Using the Editor greatly reduces the possibility of error.

Training of new employees

I love using Editor to train new employees. Not only is it easy to see and understand the account structure in Editor, but it also helps when checking the quality of a trainee's work.

Changes made in Editor are active on the user's local device until they are published to Google Ads. They are not visible to other Google Ads account users.

If you work alongside the intern in person, you can physically preview their changes in Editor before they go live. If you're training someone remotely, you can have them upload their changes in a paused state, import them into your local Editor and check them out - and then change the state to Active.

To publish the changes you've made to the editor, click Publish in the upper right corner and then Publish in the dialog:

Be sure to select All Campaigns or Selected Campaigns to publish the correct changes.

Need to undo a change? There is an undo button above the center section:

Just be sure to undo before posting changes; once changes are posted, they cannot be undone by the editor.

View and edit settings using Google Ads Editor

Google Ads Editor is great for viewing and editing campaign settings.

Filtering in Google Ads Editor

If you're working across large Google Ads accounts, it can be overwhelming to look at the entire account at once, especially if there are a lot of paused campaigns. Here's what I see when I first open one of our enterprise accounts:

The entire screen is filled with pause campaigns. Not useful if I'm trying to work on active campaigns. This is where the filters come in.

You can create a filter for almost anything:

It's just by the "I" in the alphabet!

One filter I use often is a filter that only shows me activated sites: campaigns, ad groups, keywords, etc:

This filter is invaluable for working in large accounts with many objects on pause.

To create a filter, select your options and click the "Save" icon:

Import statistics into Google Ads Editor

We've looked at lots of ways to review your Google Ads account and make changes.

At this point, you might be thinking, "That's all fine, but if I'm working on my account, wouldn't I want to see performance data?" Yes, you would, and you can!

Google Ads Editor has a stats viewer feature that allows you to import performance stats. Neither is selected by default, but when you click "Get Stats," you have a few options:

You can select your time period in the top left corner and then select whatever statistics you want to see in the editor. You can also save the set of stats to view them later.

Viewing stats in Google Ads Editor allows you to make optimization decisions just as you would in the online UI.

Here, I've selected all the stats in the "Performance" drop-down menu:

Don't forget to check the box next to the campaigns you want to see stats for in the section on the left.

Create new campaigns in Google Ads Editor

One of the most useful features of Google Ads Editor is the ability to create new campaigns offline.

Unlike the online UI, where all uploads become active immediately unless you set their status to "Pause," uploads in the Editor don't become active until you post them. This allows you to check your work and even have someone else check your work before you post.

Many PPC managers use Excel to develop campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ad text. Excel is the perfect tool for developing campaigns because it's easy to sort, filter, organize, and measure the length of each field. Just make sure your Excel file has the correct column headings and you can easily import your new campaigns into the Editor.

I love starting a new build with keywords. You can create new campaigns and ad groups in Editor at the same time you create keywords.

Here are the column headings I use:

You can also add columns for status, offer and other relevant fields. To upload from your spreadsheet, go to "Keywords" in the left column of Google Ads Editor and then click "Make Multiple Changes".

From there you can simply copy and paste from Excel. As long as your column headers match the object name in the Editor exactly, the Editor will pick them up and know what they represent.

Make sure "My data includes columns for campaigns and/or ad groups" is selected, then click "Paste from Buffer".

Then check that everything is inserted correctly and click "Continue". You'll have a chance to review your changes before publishing them to Google Ads. You can also use the "Make Multiple Changes" feature to upload items to existing campaigns and ad groups. There are two ways to do this.

1. First, you can follow the steps above using the exact campaign and ad group names in your account. The editor will recognize them as existing and add the new keywords, ads, or other elements in the correct place.

2. Alternatively, you can select "Use selected destinations" in the top left corner of the "Make multiple changes" menu.

Select the ad group(s) or campaign(s) you want to add items to, then insert and process. Google Ads Editor allows you to check your changes before publishing. You can check for errors and correct them before you publish.

Find and replace

One of my favorite features of Google Ads Editor is the find and replace feature. You can replace text, add text, change capitalization or URLs.

Text replacement is useful if you need to change a word or phrase in ad copy or keywords, or even in campaign and ad group naming rules. Text append is especially useful if you need to add URL tracking parameters to a URL or object name.

Changing capitalization allows you to change the capitalization of a title, the capitalization of a sentence, or all lowercase letters. URL modification is a great tool that allows you to set URLs, add text to URLs, or remove a URL parameter.

Important reminders

Wow! I hope you can now see the power of Google Ads Editor. There are so many things you can do with it. Here are a few important things to remember when using Google Ads Editor.

Before you start an editor session, be sure to get the latest changes! Remember that Google Ads Editor is an offline editor. It won't know if changes have been made to your Google Ads account by you or others in the online UI unless you get recent changes:

Google is pretty good at drawing attention to the "Get Recent Changes" button to remind you, as seen above. However, make it a habit to always click this as soon as you open the app, regardless of what happened in the previous hours/days.

Be sure to publish the changes you've made before closing the Google Ads Editor app. I'm sure every PPC manager has forgotten to do this at least once and then wondered why the changes weren't active in their account.

The editor won't replace reporting, viewing charts, checking billing and many other features available in the online UI. Use both the Google Ads Editor and the online UI for maximum efficiency. The editor has many annoying error messages that are not "fatal" errors. Seeing a bunch of yellow exclamation point error messages in Google Ads Editor can make you nervous.

Think of them less as "mistakes" and more as "reminders."

This example is in an account that uses modified broad matching extensively. This is a large account where we haven't transferred everything over to phrase-by-phrase matching yet.

It's good to have a reminder to make the switch, but seeing a bunch of exclamation points can be scary. Keep in mind that red error messages are really fatal errors that will need to be corrected immediately.

Now that you understand how to use Google Ads Editor, I hope you'll make it a regular part of your PPC management workflow.