The New AdWords Interface

Same account, new layout

Since October 11, the redesigned AdWords, which Google calls the new AdWords experience, has been available to every advertiser. Owners who open their account a few times a year are meeting it now.

The tabs across the top have gone. A menu runs down the left, an overview page opens first, and the tools sit behind an icon.

The account underneath is the same: campaigns, keywords, ads, history and billing all carried over untouched. What changed is where everything lives.

That matters most to people who make changes rarely, because a setting that cannot be found tends to get changed somewhere else by mistake.

What moved, for a small account

• A page menu down the left replaces the row of tabs.
• An overview page opens first, with charts and summary cards.
• Keywords, negatives and search terms share one page.
• Ads and extensions sit together on one page.
• Locations, ad schedule and devices each have a page.
• Conversions, billing and access sit behind the tools icon.

The last is where owners lose the most time. Conversion tracking, billing, account access and shared lists such as negative keywords all moved into the tools menu, opened from a wrench icon at the top of the screen.

Where the familiar settings went

The old Settings tab is now a Settings page for each campaign, with networks, locations, languages, budget and bidding in one place.

The search terms report, which shows what people actually typed before clicking, is a tab on the keywords page, beside the negative keywords.

Call, sitelink, callout and location extensions are listed on the ads and extensions page. Performance by hour and day of the week, once under the Dimensions tab, can now be found through the Reports icon.

The change history, which lists every edit and who made it, has a page of its own in the left menu.

Nothing changed by itself

Switching to the new view does not alter a campaign. Budgets, bids, targeting and ads carry over, spending continues, and the bill arrives the same way.

The risks are human. Someone looking for a setting edits the wrong campaign, or builds a new campaign without seeing what it came with.

So the check that matters after the move is not of the interface. It is of the settings themselves.

New campaigns come with defaults

Campaigns created in the new version are where surprises turn up. A new search campaign can arrive with search partners and the Display Network already ticked, which sends ads to websites and apps as well as search results.

An account set up years ago as search only does not pass that choice on to new campaigns. Each one has to be told.

Before saving a new campaign, open every section of its settings: networks, locations and location options, languages, budget, bidding and the ad schedule.

A worked example

A concrete contractor with two crews pours driveways, patios and garage slabs from spring to fall, and runs one AdWords search campaign through the season.

In early November, with outdoor work winding down, the owner set up a small campaign for basement and garage floors, which the crews can pour through the winter.

It was the first campaign he had built himself, and his first time in the new version.

He added keywords and wrote two ads, but never opened the network settings. The new campaign had the Display Network included.

Within a week it had spent more than the main campaign, mostly on ads beside articles and inside phone apps, and its search terms tab showed very few actual searches.

The account had been set up as search only years before, and that choice did not carry over. The new campaign simply took defaults nobody looked at.

He unticked the Display Network, copied the location and schedule settings from the main campaign, then walked through every page in the left menu once, noting where each setting now lives. The change history confirmed nothing else had moved.

The overview page as a weekly check

The overview page is more useful than it first looks. Its cards summarise the searches that triggered your ads, how phones compare with computers, and the days and hours clicks arrive.

Five minutes there once a week catches the obvious: a search term that has nothing to do with your work, one device eating the budget, ads running at night when nobody answers.

Who can get into the account

Account access now sits in the tools menu. While you are there, read the list of people who have it.

Former staff, a previous agency and a personal Gmail address from years ago all turn up regularly. Remove anyone who no longer needs access, and make sure someone at the business holds administrative access in their own name.

Learning it in a quiet month

For seasonal businesses, November and December are the time to learn the new layout, before spring changes become urgent.

Click through each page in the left menu without saving anything. If something does get changed by accident, the change history shows it, and it can be put back.

If an agency or consultant runs the account, ask for a short tour of where your results and settings now live. It saves guessing later.

The counter-case

An account run entirely by an agency needs less of this from the owner, who mainly needs to know where results appear. AdWords Express is a separate, simpler product, and its users will notice nothing.

A single long-running campaign that nobody plans to change will also carry on exactly as before.

Even so, open each campaign's settings once after the move and confirm them, and check every new campaign's networks before it spends anything.

The checklist

1. Read the change history for the past month.
2. Confirm each campaign's budget and status.
3. Check locations and location options.
4. Review the ad schedule and device adjustments.
5. Untick networks you never chose.
6. Confirm extensions still show on your ads.
7. Check that conversions are still recording.

Step one is the quickest way to confirm nothing changed in the move. Every edit since the switch is listed there with who made it, so an accidental change shows up before it costs a month.

How the daily budget now behaves, wherever you find it, is covered in AdWords can now spend twice your daily budget.

Frequently asked questions

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