Over the last few days I have been learning about the new pay per click management tools that Yahoo! Search are soon to launch and the already live Google Adwords Editor in BETA.
Google’s AdWords Editor is a free, downloadable account management application for PPC campaign managers. You can download your whole AdWords account to your computer, make changes to your ads and bidding, then easily upload your revised campaigns.
Yahoo’s tool looks even juicier with some great features including dayparting and enhanced geo targeting functionality. There’a a nice post over at SerachEngineJournal.com that gives some good insights into the new Yahoo! Search PPC management tools scheduled to go live Q4 2006, along with some handy screen shots of the new interface.
So with all these new tools to be provided for free by the ad networks, how’s that going to impact the PPC Campaign Management Software market? No doubt Google will continue to innovate and launch new features over time. So will we start to see some advertisers closing down their accounts with the software vendors and start using the extra cash to bulk up their PPC spend to cope with bid inflation?
Reader comments (2)
COO at Latitude
9:54AM on 14th August 2006
I think the bigger issue is actually the shift from a "visible" to an "invisible" bid landscape as created my Google, soon to be launched by Microsoft and due to hit Yahoo! next year.
Bid management software came into strength as a way of managing the hourly updates of bid gaps on high volumes of keywords to create cost savings for individual advertisers. Now more of the search engines are providing more complex methods for ranking paid search adds where price is only one factor and there are no "visible" gaps. This then lowers the importance of frequent bid management in the paid search marketing mix as more focus is placed on creative and content.
So, goodbye bid management and hello to campaign management.
Search Manager at DMC/Fullsix
6:41PM on 14th August 2006
I wholly concur with Richard in that content and creative are paramount to the success of any paid search campaign, with gateway page strategies and easily optimisable, relevant content being as scrupulously managed as the bidding itself.
Niche PPC agencies have either the option to partner with creative agencies, merge with other niche PPC agencies to gain market share, or be subsumed by the larger media/full service agencies who can offer compelling creative.
Only time will tell....
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