PPC Bid Management Software - the best!

[Stuart -M'Source]

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We are looking for a good allround bid management software package to manage our ads on Google and other engines.

Can anyone recommend an excellent package please?

We've looked at Atlasonepoint and makemetop so far - does anyone have an opinion on these?

Ideas gratefully and humbly received.

Stuart

[drivetowin]

Can you lose the big graphic in your signature please thanks...

[tim_lb]

I used Atlas in may last job and it worked very well for us. We had several hundred keywords and got a big benefit from automating the process. Very pleased.

We only used it for Google, though, and I felt frustrated because more seemed to be possible with Yahoo. But that's probably down to differences between Google and Yahoo.

I left that job nearly a year ago, so my impressions are not current. But it was well worth the money for us at the time

Tim

[Paul Wright]

Bid Buddy from The Search Works
http://www.thesearchworks.com/products.php

[Stuart -M'Source]

Thanks guys.
I'll dig into Atlas and bidbuddy and see what I find.
Atlas does sound very good.

Ive also looked at makemetop.co.uk - they look interesting too and their online presentation is very good.

Any further suggestions welcome! :-)

[tim_lb]

Ive also looked at makemetop.co.uk - they look interesting too and their online presentation is very good.

I should take a look at them too, thanks. Of course, the name gives a dangerous impression: one of the great uses of these systems is to optimise the ROI by NOT aiming for the number one spot. We found number 3 was much better for us. My vague recollection in fact was that the actual volume of transactions was higher, not just a lower cost per transaction!

At the time it was much harder to work with such information within Google itself.

[JMJ]

We used Atlas for quite a while but in the end gave up as they were having technical problems with google (which they didn't fully acknowledge), the support is fairly responsive but they won't escalate any problems or give proper answers to more technical questions - which is no good when you're paying the kind of fees that they charge.

We use Bidrank now which is has been OK but it runs on our server which takes a bit of upkeep and it won't optimise to a CPA target.

[tim_lb]

Could you say a bit more about the Atlas/Google problems, please? Just the general area they dealt with, would be fine.

Although I'm not using Atlas at the moment, I'm likely to start again and it would be interesting to keep up to date with any new issues.

Thanks

Tim

[Itchy]

Can you lose the big graphic in your signature please thanks...

UL but it took Stew ages to come up with it and i think she wants to try and advertise something

[JMJ]

Could you say a bit more about the Atlas/Google problems, please? Just the general area they dealt with, would be fine.

It was quite a while ago now - Miva bids kept dropping back to 10p for no apparent reason and Miva claimed that it wasn't a flaw with their system, but we couldn't be sure it was Atlas - in this case the issue was with support as they didn't seem willing to escalate the issue to take a proper look. As far as they were concerned Atlas worked and it couldn't be them.

The google issue was acknowledged by them (although they were vague) and again I'm afraid i can't quite remember what the issue was, but meant that bids had to be set at the same bid price as was in Atlas through adwords control panel before KW's were 'picked up' and managed.

I understand software can be faulty and that workarounds sometimes need to be applied and I'd be happy with that - the problem was that support although quick and friendly wouldn't look into issues and could never give accurate advice when it came to the functionality of more complex features - in the end I think through trial and error and the docs and KB i knew more about how certain things worked with atlas than the support.

Overall, my experience wasn't great and I'm a believer of spreading the word about good and bad service from companies. Bear in mind my expectations were higher because of the price of the service.

[JMJ]

I just noticed you said you wanted to keep up with current issues - the issues we had were at least a year ago so i'm sure technically they'll be fixed now.

[tim_lb]

JMJ: thanks for the insight. Yes, I said 'current', but your insight is most likely still relevant since it is about the general service from support, as much as about the specific incident. (That can improve in a year too, of course.)

Your story is most interesting. I never had much call to use their support, so I have no experience of this myself. If I wanted to start using such a system again I would certainly bear your experience in mind.

Thanks again.

[gordonl]

I have used Atlas until today when they increased their prices fron $599.95 per month to $1724.94 per month!! Unless they can reduce this to the existing amount I will be closing my account with them.

They also seem to have a problem with timings. Our account is set up at GMT but they don't seem to amend their timings when the clocks go forward in March and all bids are changed 1 hour behind when they are supposed to be updated.

[dialtosave]

Do any of these tools work with Google Analytics (not the main part of Google Adwords) to use Goals to track ROI?

[vince@euroffice]

Atlas is good, but getting the conversion tracking to work requires adding a redirect url to your destination URL.

Also, it requires adding tracking code to your confirmation page, which relies on your session code passing the relevant parameters.

Dave Chaffey wrote an interesting article comparing the different tools available

http://www.davechaffey.com/Internet-...t-tools-review

Vince