Best PPC Tools to use?

[Eric Rohrback]

What are the best tools out there that you've used?

So far I've tested and have used (listed in order of usefulness):

1. Optymizer
2. Wordstream (playing with this now)
3. Google AdWords Scripts (actually using scripts in the AW account)
4. Excel and manual data crunching (time consuming... but I know how to pull a lot of insights out of a large amount of data)

I'm trying to find tools that can help me achieve the same insights I get from #4, but with a fraction of the time spent trying to do it.

Anyone have any cool tools out there which you've found helpful?

Edit: Typo

 

[Rik Delta]

Not sure what #5 is but let me ad(d) adalysis to your list.

My $.02:

1. Optymizer has a few nice features I like - I like that you can create a customized workflow and if you are inclined create SKAGs on the fly.
2. Wordstream's 20-minute work-week is nice for some quick account maintenance BUT IMO they could do better with their recommended KW and Negative KW suggestions - in particular the lists seem limited to 10 suggestions per week. I never did figure out how to automagically flip a suggested (positive) KW to a negative list or vice-versa short of notepad/using their note feature.
RE 3 & 4 - personally I mainly just use for reporting not updating campaigns.

These days kind of like adalysis but not married to it. They do occasionally post some pretty cool YT videos that I've found valuable and have immediate practical applications.

Can't wait for more feedback on this thread - thx for posting

 

[Greg Schueler]

PPC Samurai has some promise. It claims to be easy for non "programmers", but I found that you need to have a "programmers" mind in order to tell it what to program. So I stopped using it. It seems to be exactly what i wanted, just wasn't able to figure it out. ;-) Maybe you will understand it better.

For now though I am just using my MCC account and the new Adwords format and doing everything there.

Adwords Editor comes in handy every once in a while too.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

AW Editor is a must have, so I didn't include it in this list but it is super valuable if someone isn't already using it.

PPC Samurai looks interesting... turns scripting into flow charts. That's kind of cool.