aroubtsovA few months ago when we first began publicly discussing the ClickEquations paid search platform, I wrote about why we developed ClickEquations after years as a paid search agency and our experience with a number of other leading tools.
Our premise was that everything had to built upon great data. That’s why our initial release was focused on providing not only all the standard metrics but also a lot of information most existing tools don’t, such as:
- Impression Share
- ClickShare
- ClickVariance
- Search query data at the keyword level
- Quality Score and Min First Page Bid
- Net profit and ROI based on actual COGS of each item
And access to all this data had to be fast and flexible, which is why we created over 40 default and customizable browser-based reports, and our Excel plug-in which enables all kinds of amazing custom reports and dashboards with one-button updates.
Over the past few months we’ve shown ClickEquations to many of the top paid search managers – leading bloggers, top PPC folks at the world’s largest agencies, and million-dollar-per-month spending advertisers.
The feedback has been consistent; we were told over and over again that no other package come close to ClickEquations in terms of data collection or reporting.
And as a result in just a few months we’ve added major agencies, very large advertisers, and some of the industry’s most advanced practitioners onto our platform.
Now Including: Management and Bidding
But we also heard clearly there was more to do beyond that initial release.
Most specifically, we heard requests for more comprehensive campaign management and editing, with complete bid automation.
This wasn’t surprising. That was the clear next step on our roadmap, as stated back in Sept: “With comprehensive data and flexible reporting in place, the next natural step is the ability to make changes and take action – the core of what the category defines as paid search management.”
So we’re pleased to announce that this new release of ClickEquations adds full paid search management capabilities and powerful bid management and automation.
Click this or any image in this post to see larger screen shots.
Our editor is great. It’s fast, easy to use, and very powerful. At any level in your account you can open an editing tray at the bottom of the screen and make the desired changes. Click ‘save’ and your Google or MSN account is updated instantly.
Our bid automation is powerful. There are built-in algorithms that provide the core capabilities for different goals such as bid-to-position, target ROAS, or ROI maximization – and then use defined options and parameters you can set to define the rules you want applied at the ad group or keyword level.
You can choose to have bid changes submitted automatically, or presented as suggestions you can review and either reject or accept or modify before submission. And we’ve included a clear bid history so you can easily see when changes were made, who made them, and why.
And More
There are other improvements in this release too. Such as a new central dashboard with account statistics and performance graphs, further refinement and extension of the data field available in our reports, another step forward in the interface, and more. Future posts will provide further details on these and other changes.
And Beyond
As the ‘Why’ post describes, we don’t think great data, reporting, and editing are enough. We’re also delivering features that help prioritize opportunity and risk, formalize testing, and automate tasks.
You can see examples in the innovative reports presented in ClickEquations Analyst (our Excel Plug-in) and our multivariate text-ad testing utility. Even in these first few releases there are capabilities very different than those provided in any other paid search software.
Moving forward, 0ur goal is to push the mechanical tasks of filling in blanks in search engine advertising forms slowly but surely into the background, and bring the broader marketing work of finding, qualifying, and converting customers to the forefront.
If you’re a serious paid search manager or an agency that manages significant PPC spend then we’re confident you’ll be impressed with all the ways that ClickEquations helps you more efficiently deliver better results.
To see this new version of ClickEquations, you can visit our booth if you’ll be at SMX in San Jose this week, sign up for our next demo webinar on Weds Feb 17, or just sign up for a free demo.
Pam Neely
