Over the coming weeks I’ll be your tour guide through the wonderful world of the adCenter Desktop (beta), a campaign management tool that was recently made available to US, Canadian, UK and French advertisers with fewer than 100,000 keywords in their accounts. Throughout this series we’ll be exploring the ins and outs of the adCenter campaign management tool. Today I’m diving into two of my favorite features for managing ads.

In updating ad copy, you’ll need to be familiar with the three main screen panes:

The Browser Pane houses a navigation tree where you can expand each level by clicking the triangle next to any item of all downloaded accounts, campaigns, and ad groups.

The Manager Pane gives you a view of data for the tab selected; you can view campaign, ad group, ad or keyword data in the manager pane. For updating ad copy and copying ads, I keep the manager pane on the text ads view.

The Editor Pane is where you can make bulk changes to campaigns, ad groups, ads or keywords. When items are selected in the manager pane, the editor pane will open automatically. With a basic understanding of these three panes, you should be all set to walk-though making ad copy changes!

Copy Ads from one Ad Group To Another

There are a number of ways to add new ad copy to ad groups using the desktop. The end-to-end campaign wizard is great when first setting up an account, the import functionality is quick if you already have everything in an excel file, but one of my favorite features is the ability to copy and paste ads from different ad groups. The adCenter Desktop makes copying ads from one ad group to another quick and easy - just the way I like it!

1. In the Brower pane, select the ad group with the ads you want to copy.

2. Once you have selected the ad group, select the text ads tab in the Manager pane and highlight the ads you want to copy.

3. Right click on the highlighted ads, and select copy.

4. In the Browser pane, select the campaign that contains the ad group where you want to paste the ads.

5. Right click the selected campaign and then click paste. 

6. In the Choose Ad Group dialog box, in the Ad group drop-down list, select an ad group, and then click OK.

Once you have copied your ads, don’t forget to upload the changes to your adCenter account so they’ll become active.

Make Quick Ad Copy Updates Using Find and Replace

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, the find and replace function allows you to update ad copy in seconds. I’m always looking to save time (aren’t we all) and this function does just that.

1. In the Browser pane, select the campaign that contains the ads you want to update. In the Manager pane, select the text ads tab. Highlight the ads you want to update.

2. In the Editor pane select the replace button (second from the right on the bottom).

3. In the “Find What” box type the words you want to change. In the “replace with” box, type the replacement text.

4. Click “More” in the bottom left corner of the replace dialog box. In the “Search In” drop-down list, select what parts of the ad copy you would like to update (ad titles, ad text, destination url, etc.). Then click replace all.

Once you have updated your ads, upload the changes to your adCenter account so they’ll become active.

Find and replace makes changing promotional ad copy a pinch and takes the headache out of updating destination URLs- no need to even export.

There are a number of resources available for adCenter Desktop users. Check out the Learning Center where you can review the adCenter Desktop^Beta FAQs, read the feature guide and watch video tutorials on campaign creation, campaign management and tips and tricks for using this. I’m always looking for ways to save time and the adCenter Desktop is just the ticket.

Did you find this helpful or is there something specific you want to do in the adCenter Desktop? Leave a comment below and we’ll direct the tour of the Desktop around your requests!

Thanks,

Emily