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During the last few months Google has been trying to rejuvenate many of its different platforms, such as Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. As has been reported since last year, Google AdWords has also had changes made to its user interface, and these changes are already available for some accounts. This new interface is called Google AdWords Alpha.

don't panic
Don’t worry, this is a reason for you to rejoice, not panic, as the interface will help Google AdWords users to be more productive and will make finding more insights easier than ever before. Whether you’re sceptical because you’re happy with Google AdWords as it is, or you’re as excited as us to know more about it, here you can learn some of the additional features that are available with this new interface.

Overview of Google AdWords Alpha

adwords alpha overview
This is one of the most visual sections of the Google AdWords Alpha interface. In section number one on the graph above, you will be able to compare different metrics such as clicks, conversions, cost, and cost per conversion. On this graph, you will be able to see trends and how these metrics behave over time. You can compare up to four different metrics and visualise the data per hour, day, week, month and quarter.

adwords alpha - clicks and conversions
In the second section of the new added features on the Alpha interface, you will be able to compare changes in conversions, impressions and clicks – among other metrics – on a campaign level. On the righthand side, you can analyse the performance of each campaign on a top level.

adwords alpha - biggest changes and campaigns
Moreover, if you click on each campaign, you will be able to directly analyse the performance of the keywords living in that specific campaign. Furthermore, on the right-hand side you can visually appreciate the most displayed ads and their corresponding metrics.

adwords alpha - keywords most shown
On the left-hand side of the third section, you will be able to choose between different metrics to understand the contribution of each device. On the right-hand side, you will be able to view graphs that allow you to understand which devices, times and days your campaigns are performing better on.

These options present a big opportunity to save time and understand which devices you could further optimise your PPC efforts for, as well as optimising your efforts on your desired times and days – or it could allow you to restrategise which times and days to have your ads displayed.

adwords alpha - devices and day & hour

Campaigns in Google AdWords Alpha

There are not many significant changes in the campaign tab. However, if you are not familiar with the interface, you can spend time trying to find some useful options.

adwords alpha - campaigns
Filters: You can filter your campaigns with many different options. Some of these options include:

  • Daily budget
  • Label
  • Campaign type
  • Bid strategy
  • Conversions

adwords alpha - filters
Segments: For the moment, this is one of the most limited options available with AdWords Alpha. Every day I tend to check not just the same day’s conversions, but also the conversions of the previous day. After conducting research and contacting the Google team, I was told that the “conversion name” option is not yet available. On the image below you can check the biggest changes:

adwords alpha - segments
Auction insights: There are two ways to find this report. The first way is via a shortcut on ‘more’ next to the campaigns tab. The second way involves selecting the different campaigns by filter (a blue tick will appear next to each campaign), which will make a blue bar appear with an ‘Auction Insights’ available as an option.

adwords alpha - auction insights
These are some of the biggest changes so far to the user interface in Google Adwords. While Google tests our behaviour and interactions with Google AdWords Alpha, we hope that they will be adding more exciting features to help us save time and, most importantly, improve the performance of our campaigns!

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