If you’ve ever tried to use one of Google’s native tools to manage your ad campaigns, you likely know how time consuming and confusing they can be.
Thankfully, there are a number of other Google Ads tools that can help you run your campaigns more effectively and efficiently.
This article shares our top recommendations for Google Ads tools (based on specific results or goals you’re trying to achieve) to keep your campaigns organized and your productivity on point.
Analytics and Management Tools
These are comprehensive tools that allow you to manage multiple facets of your advertisement activities and get a bang for your buck.
Adalysis: Excellent all-in-one PPC tool
Adalysis helps you track the performance of every aspect of your PPC account and be aware of any issues that arise. This includes bidding, keyword management, budget management, keyword quality score analysis, ad copy AB testing, custom reporting, audience insights, and more.
Key features:
- Gain fresh insights into the best performing ad patterns to validate your strategy and discover overlooked opportunities.
- Automated audit checks alerting you to any issues discovered in your campaigns, keywords, ads, search terms, landing pages, placement, ad extensions, and more.
- Custom KPI monitoring and data visualization with prebuilt templates.
If you want to make sure you never miss an opportunity for improving your performance, Adalysis is the tool you need.
Google Analytics: Excellent for conversion tracking and auditing Google Ads accounts
Google Analytics enables enhanced goal tracking and gives you an overview of who is driving conversions as well as a better understanding of the overall value of your campaigns.
Key features:
- Tracks website conversions and user activity.
- Provides funnel analysis and custom reporting.
- Unlocks performance opportunities and potential issues with the website.
Competitor and keyword research tools
These tools allow you to gain valuable insights to your competitors and the key aspects to focus on in your campaigns to get better results.
SEMrush: Excellent for monitoring competitor performance and getting competitive insights
SEMrush primarily defines itself as an advanced SEO tool, but it is also popular amongst PPC professionals. SEMrush lets you see how your competitors’ ads are performing so you can get the insights you need to sketch out performance strategies.
Key features:
- See what people click on the most, ads that get the best reach.
- Find out what search terms your competitors are bidding on.
- See the amount of traffic brought to your competitors’ websites through PPC.
Google Trends: Excellent for uncovering seasonal demand
Google Trends is an essential free data source for PPC marketers. It helps you provide your target audience with the right information at the right time. And this boosts your chances of converting them.
Key features:
- Uncover valuable trend data that you can use to adjust your campaigns to match seasonal demand.
- Discover event-triggered spikes in keyword search volume.
- Access keyword-related data, including search volume indexes and geographic information.
Google Keyword Planner: Excellent for finding the right keywords for your campaigns
Google’s Keyword Planner is an essential PPC tool for keyword research. It’s a free tool that finds the perfect keywords to target in your ads based on Google Search data.
Key features:
- Type in a phrase, website, or category to generate new ideas
- Get instant bid estimations for your keywords.
- Discover the historical trending and search volume data of keywords
Fraud prevention tools
These tools allow you to eliminate any threat to your campaigns and your ads accounts.
ClickCease: Excellent for fraud protection and white label reporting
ClickCease eliminates the frustration and cost of account/ad campaign creep. The tool detects fraudulent clicks that inflate charges and waste your ad spend. It lets you see the people bidding on your keywords. In turn, you can see their ads, monitor their performance, and outbid them.
Key features
- Constant campaign monitoring.
- Automated real-time IP and user blocking.
- Custom detection rules and detailed reports.
PPC Protect: Excellent for eliminating click fraud across all channels
PPC Protect tracks every click on your ads and landing pages, as well as how users interact with them. Using cybersecurity insights, the tool allows users to create a protection layer across all channels automatically.
Key features:
- Automated monitoring to determine if interactions are legitimate or invalid.
- Protects against click fraud across all acquisition channels.
- Leverages powerful cybersecurity technologies to build a proactive defense layer
Landing page tools
Consider these tools if you want to build a great landing for your ad campaigns.
Unbounce: Excellent for building ad landing page quickly and efficiently
Unbounce is a popular choice for building ad landing pages amongst top PPC specialists. It has a pretty intuitive UI with drag-and-drop features that make designing even the most demanding ad landing page a breeze.
Key features:
- Tons of templates to go from.
- Requires no prior experience or coding skills.
- Landing page A/B testing
Optimizely: Excellent for landing page A/B testing
Optimizely is an excellent alternative to Unbounce. It offers the same features and takes away almost all the experience requirements in building fantastic ad landing pages. It also claims an intuitive and clean interface. Though, we must note that Optimizely has better A/B testing functionalities.
Key features:
- Unlimited A/B testing and experimentation
- Content and product recommendations
- AI-driven personalization.
Tools for creating and editing ad copy
These tools help you write and design ad copy that ranks and converts your target audience.
Dashword: Excellent for creating ad copy that ranks
Dashword helps you write better by determining the relevance of copy based on data from the top Google results of any given keyword. You can easily create well-optimized ad copy and see how they’ll perform across channels.
Key features:
- Uses an integrated keyword tool to guide writers to produce content that ranks.
- Provides an overview of all of your competitors outlines.
- Gives a clear indication of quality through content scoring.
PPC Ad Editor: Excellent for designing and presenting ad copy
It allows agencies to create mock-up ads in one place for feedback and approval thanks to a commenting feature, enhancing productivity. PPC Ad Editor users handle all of their tasks online, eliminating Excel files.
Key features:
- Build campaigns and collaborate with teams in real-time
- Create a preview of your campaigns in an easy-to-read format
- Export a Google Ads Editor friendly CSV
Choose the best tools to keep your campaigns organized and improve your productivity
As you’ve seen, there are several tools you need to leverage to make the best out of your PPC campaigns. That said, juggling between tools can be a pain, and you’ll need to build some technical skills to properly maneuver each tool.
That’s why I recommend that you choose an all-in-one solution like Adalysis. It’s a combination of PPC automation tools, auditing tools, as well as reporting and offers the best value for money.
Guest Author: Maria is the co-founder of Loopex Digital and an independent writer about search marketing. She works with brands such as Sprout Social, Shopify, Oberlo, and many others to help them increase their search visibility and conversions. Her main area of specialization is PPC and SEO.