Software Type: Desktop Software (Windows)
Cost: $19.95 per month

AdwordAccelerator is software that is totally focused on getting the most out of Google AdWords. This software uses a slightly different method for Keyword Research by searching on themes rather than single seed keywords. This methodology suits Google AdWords because experienced advertisers use thematic clustering to create ad groups. This lets them get better click-through rates, and consequently lower click costs.

As this software has obviously been designed by an AdWords power user, it can be assumed will be on the right track in terms of its underlying design. I like it when design is birthed out of a need.

Let’s take a look at how I went with AdwordAccelerator.

My Experience

After opening AdWordAccelerator, I was able to get straight into it due to its simple interface. There are no configuration settings to mess with. I could just get started.

I entered my theme, “fly fishing”, into Step 1 and pressed the “Get AdGroup Themes” button. This returned a whole lot of words that related to fly fishing under the lateral tab. However, it didn’t bring many words under the refined tab. This should ideally bring me lots of vertical results such as “fly fishing trips” or “fly fishing store”.

I asked the developer Steve Juth about this, and he said: “It's a limitation within the source from which AdWordAccelerator pulls its data.  However, this could change in a few days, as it often does.” I hope they improve this because it’s a really nice interface, loading up vertical and lateral at the same time separated by tabs.

Once the lateral and refined keyword results were returned into Step 2, I was able to click (or multi-select) the ones that interested me and place them into the “Keyword Theme Basket”. I was able to jump back and forth adding words as I required. The software was smart enough to know which words were already in the theme basket and not display them in the tabbed section.

I was able to reload any keyword back into the lateral and refined search section by simply clicking on the recycle button. This is a neat way to keep expanding your list and adding ad group themes that relate to your campaign.

Once I felt I had a sufficient number of themes loaded into Step 3, I let AdWordAccelerator investigate each one by automatically generating related keywords, checking their bid and position estimates, along with the related # of competing AdWords ads. I entered the maximum CPC into Step 3 and pressed the “Get Keywords” button. AdWordAccelerator will went to work mining for this information.

Once mining was complete, I could click on any theme in the theme basket under step 3 to see what keywords, estimates and ad counts AdWordAccelerator discovered for a particular ad group theme. For each keyword or phrase it gave me the plural of that word, plus broad, phrase, and exact matching. These are the different methods of keyword matching that AdWords allows – different ways to optimize for the types of searches your ad is shown for. You can learn more about this from Google here: https://adwords.google.com/select/tips.html

I noticed that the ad count column showed not just the number of ads for a particular match type (broad/phrase/exact), but also shows the number of ads that contain the actual keywords (this is the number after the slash /).  This is significant, since a keyword with a high number of ads and a lower number of ads with the actual keywords might be a good place for you to get into AdWords for that keyword phrase at a cheaper price.

As I used AdWordAccelerator, it was interesting to see the methodology in action. A lot seemed to rely on Perry Marshall's "wildcard" trick.  This trick cleverly helps advertisers learn how to get clicks for a cheaper price while discovering which of their competitors' ads have higher click-thru ratios. For people interested in this technique you should grab a copy of Perry’s ebook “The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords”, which among other excellent information explains this technique clearly. AdWordAccelerator also has some videos available that help explain how they make use of this technique using this software.

I was also able to click a keyword phrase in Step 3 and click the “View Ads” button to see what my competitors' ads look like for this phrase. I could then press “Refresh” which is just like refreshing a browser on Google's page. This updated the AdWords ads to show you which ones are split-testing, which ones show only some of the time, and which ones are more stable.

I could also press the “Negatives” button to come up with a list of negative keywords for an ad group theme, ranked by popularity. These are especially useful for broad and phrase matches.

Finally, there is a “Filter” checkbox and “Settings” button at the top. Steve gave me a tip on how he uses this feature. He says:

“Sometimes what I do is this:  load up Step 3 with a lot of themes, mine data for them, click the filter checkbox to turn on filtering, press the Settings button and set max ads to 12 or so, press OK, and then click the Total Clicks column to sort the results. This way I can quickly test out a lot of ad group theme ideas to find out which ones have a better chance of allowing me to enter into that market at a cheaper price while getting traffic (clicks).”

This is a very useful tool for large AdWords users to more powerfully research the best keywords and themes. The actual data source (especially for vertical keywords) is a bit weak at the moment. However, I’m hoping they will ramp that up somewhat or find an alternative source.

Summary

So what did I end up with after using AdWordAccelerator?

• Hundreds of relevant keywords with Supply, Demand, KEI and Ad Data.

Strong Aspects

The strong points of this product:

• Nice interface.
• Ability to save sessions.
• Advanced AdWords interaction.

Weak Aspects

The weak points of this product:

• The actual data source didn’t bring me a lot of results.
• Focused primarily on AdWords users.

Who is it ideal for?

This software is designed specifically for AdWords users almost exclusively. However, I would recommend using an alternative data source and paste keywords in manually until they can ramp their capabilities up.

Ratings

For Niche Miners:
For Search Engine Optimizers:
For Pay Per Click Advertisers:
For AdSense Publishers:
Usability:
Value:

Site: Check Out AdwordAccelerator Now!