PPC Management for Firefox (beta)
Why This Firefox Addon Rocks!
This toolbar will display today’s basic key performance indicators at the bottom of your browser.
Double Click this toolbar for your stats to update - it may take 60 seconds to update depending on the size of your account. The data you see will be for today only.
Right click to see the tool menu and drill down into your account level statistics.
Clicks: Total number of clicks accrued today
aCPC: average Cost Per Click today
Cost: Total spent today
Conv: Total number of conversions accrued today
C/C: Cost per Conversion today
Requirements
-FF 2+ preferred while we’re confident this works from 1.5-3.0.*
-AdWords Client Center
-AdWords API Tokens
Tip: Your statistics might take 60 seconds or more to load depending on the size of your account. If you still do not see data, you may need to restart FF and test your credentials again.
How to Install This Firefox Addon
Upon download, Firefox should automatically recognize the extension and install it.
If you get any errors:
Right click the logo, click ’save link as…’, after saving you can scan it with any Anti-Virus program, then open Firefox. In FF, click file -> Open File -> Find the file and open it -> Install
How To Use PPC Management for Firefox
Credentials
Login Email: Your Client Center login email address
Password: Your Client Center login password
Developer Token: AdWords API Token found in your Client Center (My Account->AdWords API Center)
Application Token: AdWords API Token found in your Client Center (My Account->AdWords API Center)
Client Email: The email address of the account in your Client Center that you want to see stats for
Save your credentials, then test! Load is kind of a pseudo button for now…
Tip: You might need to restart FF after saving your credentials for the tool to work properly!
Keyword Estimates Tool
This tool is very similar to the Estimates tool you find in AdWords.
You don’t have to enter a Max CPC if you want to see the absolute maximum you can expect to pay with the highest possible bid ($100).
Keyword Tool (AKA Kewyord Suggestion Tool)
Search Volume and Competition are on the old scale…1 to 5 where 5 is very competitive or very high search volume and 1 is limited competition with a very low search volume relative to other keywords in that space.
In the future we will incorporate the new real number estimates currently available at Google.
Site Keywords Tool
Enter your landing page in the Site URL field and click Generate Suggestions to see what keywords Google thinks the page is targeted towards.
Account Statistics Tool
You can drill down to the keyword level statistics to find out how your account is doing for the day!
Double click your way through and new windows will open displaying the next level of statistics. For example, double click on a campaign to see the ad groups of that campaign in a new stats window. Then, double click an ad group to see the keyword stats!
Privacy and Security
We are confident that this tool is secure and your privacy is protected. semvironment will not and will never ask for or gather the information you enter into this tool. All of your credentials are stored on your local machine, not our servers. All AdWords API calls are made via https. This project is in beta right now so there aren’t any guarantees that a site you visit might have malicious material that could crack this…or one of your buddies could borrow your computer and get your credentials, etc. Please send any privacy concerns back to us asap so we can add it to our development time line as a priority!
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September 30th, 2008 at 7:48 am
looks like a nice addition in a ppc marketers tool chest, james. i will try this asap as soon as i satisfy the requirements of the tool. thanks for another helpful post.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:10 am
James, Love the tool! Have yet to try it out but will give it a try soon. And I’ll be looking for more creative downloads here in the future. Right???
October 4th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Clever, but I worry about knee jerk PPC adjustments versus considering trends and the ebbs/flows any PPC campaign goes through. Making too many changes to a PPC campaign can perturb quality score and cause you to lost any chance of getting good test data.
On the plus side, there are many out there who “fire and forget” and then get a nasty surprise on their credit card bill. I guess in this case a toolbar display would be a good thing.
I certainly would never encourage my clients to install this. receiving, reading and understanding a well designed adwords report for a reasonable time span is better.
October 4th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Hi Scott, Thank you for your thoughts!
We agree - this tool is for the PPC Manager, not the client. We also agree that knee jerk adjustments are not a good way to manage PPC - but a knowledgeable ppc manager will consistently watch for trends…and this makes it easy to get a general feel for what is happening without having to log in several times a day.
October 7th, 2008 at 3:11 am
Will there be an options menu available? It would be handy to change the default currency from $ - Would be good as well if we could choose which state to display on the bottom toolbar as I’ve got various other developer add ons installed and after installing PPC Management it does seem to take up the whole of the bar now.
Seems a great tool though and will prove very useful, thanks
October 7th, 2008 at 3:13 am
state… Meant to be ’stats’. Heh
October 7th, 2008 at 3:20 am
Also, would it be possible to create the ability to add multiple client accounts at a time and then have a drop down box or similar to switch between them?
When you are managing about 50 accounts, it could prove long winded to keep changing the client email address in the credentials.
Thanks
October 7th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
F8888888ING AWESOME JAMES :D.
Funny, I had an idea for something like this a while back for linkbait, but this is just brilliant. And of course, your rankings for ‘ppc management’ are about to skyrocket :D.
October 7th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Geoff, thank you for the suggestions! We should have an update in a couple months - I will definitely add your suggestions to our development list!
October 7th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Gab, Thanks for the compliment!
We’ll see about the rankings. There is definitely some tough competition up there.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Nice one James, thanks
October 13th, 2008 at 7:04 am
This is fantastic! Nice work and thanks for sharing! I’m curious .. are there plans for adCenter and/or YSM to be integrated into the tool using their respective APIs as well? I’ve definitely added you to my ‘blogs to read’ list! Cheers!
October 13th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Hi Jon Clark, Yes! We definitely want to work with Y! and MSN APIs in the future - I’ve heard MSN is a best to work with so Y! is first in line.
Thanks for your comment/suggestion! -James
October 14th, 2008 at 6:05 am
[...] PPC Management est un plugin Firefox qui vous permet de suivre votre compagne AdWords via votre navigateur préféré. Vous garderez ainsi un oeil sur les informations importantes telles le CPC moyen, le total des dépenses de la journée, etc. [...]
October 16th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Do you know when we can expect the next update/release?
Many thanks.
October 16th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Hi Geoff, Probably at the end of this year/beginning of next year. Thank you!
November 8th, 2008 at 9:03 am
[...] PPC Management for Firefox (beta) | SEMvironment [...]
December 5th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Finally a tool for the SEM geeks !!
Will there be versions for symbian OS ? Android ?
If there is one, it will really rock, having a great feel anywhere, anytime as long as there is wi-fi
December 10th, 2008 at 12:33 am
must client manager open a developer’s account, with billing info? is it possible to test this out with real stats without paying, using sandbox account?
how much does it cost generally to check 10x day a particular account stats?
thanks,
January 6th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Great idea guys. Well done.
February 5th, 2009 at 6:23 am
[...] more extension I’ve never used but plan to: PPC management for FireFox which looks also [...]
April 10th, 2009 at 10:56 am
A very nifty addon, well done
May 12th, 2009 at 10:28 am
[...] of paid search, SEMvironment came out with two helpful PPC posts. The first is a PPC Management for Firefox toolbar. This add-on lets you quickly see your key performance stats whenever you double click on it. The [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 11:01 am
You have done a great work. It will really help me to manage my clients more easily.