In my opinon the bulksheet was superior, for my purposes. For instace, you could change the state (active or paused) of an individual keyword using the bulkupload sheet. Now you can’t, you have to manually change each one, unless you want to change all of them to pause or all of them to active. The api, as far as i am aware, does not give this function either.

thanks for the insight.

From your perspective, it appears that Google may only be accidentally affecting agencies. You could be absolutely right - all I can go on is the actions of the Googleplex.

From my perspective, disintermediation looks like a rational strategy for a publisher that uses the Nash Equilibrium. I certainly don’t feel the love…

I could quibble with your points - for example, AdWords Editor isn’t a direct replacement for a bulksheet. So far as I can discover, I can’t use a thid party program to prepare a list of keywords, match types and destination URLs and embed that, which I can do with a spreadsheet based bulksheet. The bulksheet was pretty much an agency tool, and was replaced by something accessible to anyone. Which was the point I was trying to make.

While Analytics and Optimisation require expertise, pragmatically a free tool results in a user expectation of free support. It isn’t a razor/razor-blade model. Businesses offer free tools to in order to reduce the perceived risk and fears of users. Google will offer support and advice - probably by user forum, such as the AdWords Help Forum, which also reduces fear and perceived risk (”if those users can do it, I can”). There can be a period when usage is supported by experts, but later the tools are supported by the community - this is the FOSS model. It works. Ask Microsoft. Ask Urchin - I might elaborate on that point in another posting…

The single real opportunity to allow differentiation from Google’s offerings is subject to a fee (AdWords API). That really looks like a way to disincentivise competition from agencies.

I suspect that if the AdWords API fee was designed to displace agencies and third party AdWords management tools, that’s not a message that would be loudly broadcast within the Googleplex. The basis for charging a fee would be described as being for another reason - such as offering “improved service levels”, or “to level the competitive playing field”. Given how US, European and other anti-trust and anti-monopoly regulators work, no-one is going to wander the Googleplex shouting “yay, that really stuffed the agencies!”.

It’s the effects that count, not intentions and not announcements.

Cheers, JeremyC.

I can understand how agencies may perceive some of the moves above as a threat to their business. However, if you look at the situation from a broader strategic perspective, Google’s overall priority is simply empowering advertisers of all levels of spend and savviness.

I don’t believe Google has any interest in removing agencies from the picture, as there will always be a need for an agency’s expertise as internet advertising platforms get increasingly complex.

Yes, when Google releases a Starter Edition with a simplified interface, it may eliminate some work for agencies. However, Google’s objective there is not to remove agencies, but simply to have an easier option for advertisers intimidated by the Standard Edition.

I’m intrigued by your argument, but personally I’m not convinced that any of the items you’ve bulletpointed as anti-agency have any such motivation from Google.

For example, regarding bulksheet support being removed, this is only telling half the truth. It was removed and simultaneously replaced with superior bulk upload ability from the AdWords Editor that more thoroughly auto-corrects the frequent errors associated with the raw bulk uploads. There’s no anti-agency objective involved.

As for ‘Google explains the obfuscated Quality Score - no need for interpretation by that professionally qualified agency’ - I don’t know about your experience, but when I was an independent AdWords consultant my clients were still confounded by the quality score and the whole notion of optimization. If anything, Google’s Ads-Quality initiative adds such complexity to the system that agencies are practically a must for most mid-sized businesses that don’t want to hire in-house.

Overall, I think SEM agencies will continue to flourish as internet marketing platforms continue to grow in functionality/complexity. Just because Analytics & the Website Optimizer are free doesn’t mean an amateur can leverage them with the same effectiveness as a seasoned SEM professional.

…for AdWords. Is this another move to disintermediate advertising agencies?…