AdWords Preview Tool More Information Overall Rating: Not Rated Pay Per Click Universe Recommends: AdWatcher - 100% Click Fraud Protection. Concerned about click fraud? Protect your online advertising dollars with the world's most trusted & accurate click fraud solution on the market today. AdWatcher will put a stop to competitors and fraudsters who are looking to drain your hard earned advertising budget. Test-Drive AdWatcher For FREE For 30 Days! One tool that anyone who uses Google AdWords needs to become familiar with is the Google AdWords Preview Tool. The key benefit to this tool is the ability to preview your ads as they would appear on a Google SERP (search engine results page), but without altering your analytics in any way. Why is this so important? Given that Google uses the number of impressions and the number of clickthroughs as part of its computation of Quality Score, which affects your ad’s placement and click cost. If, as a part of checking your ad’s placement and appearance, you run queries in Google designed to show your PPC ad, you will rack up numerous impressions that will count against your Quality Score calculation. In addition, if you click on the ads during this preview process – or if you do NOT click on them – the number of clickthroughs is also being affected, and this number is part of Quality Score and ad cost as well. The Ad Preview tool is simple and easy to use. All you need do is go to the tool’s location at www.google.com/adpreview, enter the keyword you expect to trigger the ad, add the Google domain and language, and enter the location. Geographic locations are available from a drop-down menu or can be entered in latitude and longitude if you wish to target more closely. A SERP-like page will be displayed, identified as not an actual Google results page, and with linking not enabled. A diagnostic tool is available if you ad fails to show up when expected via the preview tool. You typically will see what Google expects to present to other users. A mobile ad preview tool is also available, which can be configured by country and mobile carrier, according to markup language. One key to remember is to use the preview tool while in a browser that is not logged into your Google account. Otherwise, the personalized results associated with your Google account will influence the placement of your ads in the preview rankings. There are other factors that could affect results – Google may stop serving your ads to your IP if you check them too often, despite your efforts or they may feed you IP-based results despite clearing your cache and cookies, attempts to use an anonymous proxy may be blocked by Google. Such possibilities just mean that you need to be cautious with the AdWords Preview Tool, as you should be with any tool. Compare results with the average position stats that are a part of your AdWords account metrics to ensure that the preview tool is working as it should. |
