AdWords Express is now available through My Client Center

As AdWords Express continues to grow (now available internationally in 15 countries), our AdWords Premier SMB Partners have asked us to make it easier for them to tap into AdWords Express for their clients. We’re happy to announce that starting today, these partners, along with agencies and other third parties, can create and manage AdWords Express accounts at scale through My Client Center (MCC).

Using AdWords Express via MCC can save agencies and other third parties time and overhead by eliminating day-to-day management for local, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). AdWords Express complements existing AdWords services provided by agencies today by offering them a new option to help SMBs get started quickly with online marketing. Third parties can now create new accounts by simply selecting ‘AdWords Express’ through the MCC. Get more details and instructions on using AdWords Express through MCC in the AdWords Express Help Center.

Steve Curry, President and CEO of 411.ca, a site serving millions of Canadians, has the following to say about AdWords Express:

"We have been using AdWords Express through MCC in a beta trial and have found it to be very simple to set up. Since AdWords Express doesn't need ongoing account optimization, it's a great tool for us to be able to efficiently deliver a valuable advertising solution to our SMB advertisers.” 

For more resources on My Client Center and other tools to effectively manage large accounts at scale, visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Nicholas Boos, Product Manager

Taking Automated Rules to the next level: Now in My Client Center

We’ve added My Client Center support, so you can now run Automated Rules across multiple client accounts, to help you manage many accounts more quickly, easily and efficiently. To get started, simply click the “Automate” drop-down menu on the Performance or Budget tab:

This AdWords Help Center article walks you through how to set up Automated Rules in My Client Center. As you may notice, the steps are mostly the same as for individual accounts, except that we’ve added sections for account and currency selection:

As always, remember to click the Preview results button to verify that you've set the rule up correctly. Previewing displays the time you’ve chosen for the rule to run in groups according to your clients’ timezones, and allows you to get a glimpse of the changes that the rule will make to the first account you’ve selected.

To see popular types of rules created by advertisers, please see this AdWords Help Center article. To learn more about Automated Rules, please visit Ad Innovations.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Product Marketing Manager

New My Client Center feature provides easier account management across agencies

Today's post comes cross posted from the AdWords agency blog:

We’ve just released a new My Client Center (MCC) feature called multiple links, which makes it easier for agencies, SEMs, AdWords API developers, other 3rd party providers and clients to work together while taking advantage of the benefits of the MCC structure. It enables up to five MCCs to link to and manage a single AdWords account as necessary. Multiple links also removes the distinction that Google currently has between UI/API and API-only links.

FAQs to help you make the most of this feature:

• How will the process change for linking an MCC account to a child account?
  The process for linking remains the same. The only change is that when you click on the button “Link Account,” you will no longer see the radio button asking you to identify the access level you require (‘User Interface and API’ or ‘API only’)
• Now that there are up to five MCCs linked to an account, which MCC will be the bill-to?
  Even though an AdWords account can be linked to up to five MCCs, there will still only be one active budget at a time. Same as today, each budget can be associated with only one Manager Defined Order and each MDO can in turn be associated with only one MCC. Hence, for each budget period, at most one MCC will be billed for the account.
• Will having up to five MCCs linked to an account impact who is doing account management?
  Anyone who has access to any of the MCCs linked to an account may make changes.
• Is there any chance that two users of different MCCs could make conflicting changes to the account?
  Yes, this may happen. To reduce the chances of conflicting changes being made, we recommend having clear communication amongst all users about roles and responsibilities for account management.

Additional FAQs for multiple links can be found in the MCC section of the AdWords Help Center.

In addition, if you wish to learn more about multiple links and optional-login accounts in detail, we’ll be hosting a webinar on Wednesday, June 8 2011 at 9amPST / 12pmEST. Register here. Event password: googleMCC.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crewPosted by Agency Blog Team

Simplified account creation with new My Client Center feature

As part of our continued effort to improve the account management tools for agencies and large advertisers, we've rolled out optional-login accounts, a new feature that simplifies the account creation process through My Client Center (MCC) by enabling a new AdWords account to be created within the MCC without a login or password.

The benefit of optional-login accounts is that it allows agencies and clients to create new AdWords accounts within the MCC without the need to create email addresses and passwords exclusively for the new account.

Here are some FAQs to help you take advantage of this feature:

1. How do I create an optional-login account in AdWords?
   Click on the "Create Account" button within your MCC, then complete the three required fields: account name, time zone and currency. You’ll also see a collapsible link to “Invite another user (optional),” which provides the option to invite a user to the account. Even if you opt not to, once you click "Save", you'll have a new, live account.
2. What if I want an account to have a login?
   You can either “Invite another user (optional)” during the account creation process or follow the normal process for inviting a user to an AdWords account: go to the “My Account” tab, click on “Account Access” and choose the link “Invite other users”.
3. Where do notifications go for optional-login accounts?
   Red Alert Account Notifications (such as billing notifications or policy violations emails) will be sent to the email address associated with the MCC. For non-red alerts, make sure you’ve opted into notifications on the "My Client Settings" page at the MCC level. You also may opt into performance suggestions and newsletters specifically for the optional-login account. Such notifications will be sent to the email address associated with the MCC.

Additional FAQs for optional-login account creation are in the MCC section of the AdWords Help Center.

For more resources on My Client Center and other tools to effectively manage large accounts at scale, visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

New My Client Center features: email notifications and custom alerts

For those of you who use My Client Center (MCC) to manage your client accounts, we’re launching two new features to help you stay on top of critical notifications and alerts about your accounts.

Email notifications

As we make this feature available over the next few weeks, you’ll be able to manage which email notifications you receive about your client accounts. From the My Account tab, click 'Notification settings' then the ‘My Client Settings’ tab to edit settings for email alerts about billing issues, campaign updates, and disapproved ads. These alerts will be emailed to the email address associated with the Google Account you’ve used to sign in to your MCC.

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Custom alerts

In the past, to create custom alerts for your client AdWords accounts you had to sign into each account directly. The new MCC custom alerts allow you to create alerts at the MCC level from your single MCC login. To create alerts at the MCC level, click the ‘Custom alerts’ button from your MCC dashboard.

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Please note that alerts you create when you’re signed in with your MCC login are associated with your MCC login email address and won't be accessible when you or your client sign in at the client account level. Learn more about creating and managing custom alerts within client accounts.

To let us know what you think of these new features, click the ‘Send feedback’ link in your account.

Posted by Jason Shafton, Inside AdWords crew

Changes to reporting in My Client Center

For those of you who use My Client Center (MCC) to manage your client accounts, we’re introducing a new interface for the Client Reporting tab. Over the last few months, we’ve developed a new reporting interface to help you get your reports faster, easier, and more securely.

These changes will only affect reporting for MCC users. If you use the AdWords Reports Center in an individual AdWords account, see our earlier post to learn about the reports that have moved to the Campaigns tab.

Key features of the new interface

• No more templates: We’ve removed templates. Each report today can be the basis for a different report. Just click ‘Create Similar’ next to the report, and you’ll create a new report based on the one you just selected.
• Faster report generation: We’ve built new infrastructure that allows you to create complex reports more quickly and easily.
• More reports: We’ve increased the number of reports you can store from 15 to 100. Now you can build many customized reports to meet your unique needs.
• Increased security: To allow you to better control who receives your reports, we’ve changed the level of access for emailed reports. With the new interface, only email addresses that were invited to the account can receive emailed reports. You can modify the access levels by clicking ‘Account Access’ in the My Account tab. Learn more.

To learn more about all of the new features, visit the Help Center.

Migrating from the old interface:

Over the coming weeks, you’ll see a message in the old interface inviting you to switch over and experiment with the new interface. The old interface will still be completely functional, and all of your previous reports will continue to work.

When we start migrating your reports, you’ll be redirected to the new reporting interface when you click on the Client Reporting tab. Once this happens, you’ll be able to see your reports in the old interface, but you won’t be able to create new reports or modify scheduled reports. You’ll also notice that your scheduled reports will be generated twice – in both the old and new interface. You can delete reports from the old interface to stop seeing duplicate reports.

If you send scheduled reports to email recipients, we’ve introduced a way to give you more control over who receives your new reports via email. Only email address invited to the account will be able to receive emailed reports.

At the end of the transition to the new reporting interface we’ll remove the link to the old interface, reports scheduled through the old interface will no longer run, and you’ll need to schedule emailed reports using the new interface.

How to prepare

We recommend experimenting with the new reports available in the Campaigns tab of any individual AdWords account. You can also take a tour of these new reporting tools in the AdWords Online Classroom. Once the new reporting interface is available in your MCC, you can try out the new features and start creating reports. To learn more, visit the Help Center.

To let us know what you think of these changes, click the ‘Send feedback’ link in your account.

Posted by Omry Pruzan, Product Manager, My Client Center

New My Client Center features: search across accounts and labels

If you use My Client Center (MCC), over the last few weeks you might have noticed that we've added some new features to your MCC interface. We've introduced search across accounts, labels, and simplified dashboard buttons.

Search across accounts

With this feature, you can search across all of the accounts linked to your MCC. When you search, your results will include accounts, campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, and placements that match your search term. Let's say you want to find all keywords related to Canada. Just enter the search term "canada" and we'll show you results that match that term. Learn more

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Labels

Labels help you organize your accounts into groups or flag clients that require attention. You can identify important clients with the label "High Priority," mark active vs. inactive accounts, or identify accounts belonging to the same client. Then, you can filter your dashboard to quickly view all accounts with a specific label. Learn more

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Simplified dashboard buttons

We noticed that as we added features to the new MCC interface, the buttons on the dashboard were getting a bit crowded. We’ve made some changes to clean things up and make it easier for you to quickly manage your client accounts.

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To let us know what you think of these features and the new interface, click "Send Feedback" in your account.

Posted by Jason Shafton, Inside AdWords crew