Google Ads Editor: How to Use the Free Tool

If you manage Google Ads campaigns at any scale, the web interface starts to slow you down. Editing one ad at a time, waiting on every save, switching between accounts: it adds up.

Google Ads Editor fixes that. It is the free desktop app for building, editing, and managing your campaigns in bulk and offline, then uploading everything in one go. This guide covers what it is, how to install it, the functions worth knowing, and how to pull your stats.

If you run more than one account, or make the same change across dozens of ad groups, this is the tool that saves you the most time.

The short version

• Google Ads Editor is Google's free desktop app for building and editing campaigns in bulk and offline, then uploading everything in one go.
• It is the fastest way to make the same change across many ad groups or accounts, which is why agencies live in it.
• You download the account, edit with no internet, and post when you reconnect; nothing goes live until you upload.
• It handles multiple accounts and manager (MCC) accounts, search-and-replace, and pulling stats to spot what to fix.
• Build and bulk-edit in Editor, then finish the newest Performance Max controls in the browser, since a few still live only there.

What is Google Ads Editor?

Yes, Google Ads Editor is completely free. It is a downloadable desktop tool that gives you full control of your campaigns and settings without an internet connection, so you can work offline and upload your changes when you are ready.

Known as the AdWords Editor, PPC pros use this downloadable application to create, manage, and edit Google Ads campaigns.

Google Ads Editor can help you be more efficient because it serves as an offline editor for anyone who wants to make changes in bulk on the go.

You can also download multiple accounts at once, make your changes offline, and then upload them all together.

What is Google Ads Editor For?

Because it is a desktop application built around bulk editing, it lets you:

• Manage multiple accounts
• View statistics for different campaigns
• View multiple accounts
• Search and replace text in multiple campaigns
• Export and import files offline to share proposals

What Makes the Offline Version So Good?

If you're a PPC professional, you're probably familiar with the significant advantages offline Editor tools can give you. But managing multiple accounts or upgrading your account took a lot of work before making these changes was possible.

The early days of Google Ads (previously known as AdWords) made it hard to edit and redo multiple ads. To make things worse, reviewing the changes you made to your account wasn't an option.

Google introduced bulk editability in 2006 when things got better quickly because this allowed campaign managers to edit their entire accounts offline.

Its current version allows you to make the necessary bulk changes to Google Ads, such as tweaking the ad copy so that you can remove duplicate keywords and broken links, replace text and add new keywords.

How To Use Google Ads Editor

With many useful features, the Google AdWords Editor downloadable application has a smart interface that we'll take you through. Its hallmark is allowing you to quickly expand or collapse campaigns, ad groups, and ads in your Google Ads account.

First step: Download Google Ads Editor on your Desktop from Google Ads like in the screenshot below.

Get to Know Google Ads Editor Interface

Toolbar Overview

You can find a toolbar in the top right corner with the Google Ads Editor. Here, you can select the account you want to work on and see its stats.

On the left, you can see the Accounts Manager, which shows all the accounts in your MCC (My client center). You can upload changes to Google Ads, view your statistics and even add new accounts.

Since you can work on multiple campaigns and accounts in the AdWords Editor, you need to select the account you want to change and click "Open" to download it to your Editor.

After you open the account and before you start working on it, click on Get Recent Changes to make sure that all of the data we have in Google Ads is now downloaded into Editor.

We're always making changes in the account online, so to ensure that all data is available in the Editor, we never skip this step. This option allows you to edit all campaigns, those you downloaded, or specific campaigns you choose to edit.

Editing Campaigns, Accounts, and Ad Groups

As you can see in the screenshot below, a little search box on the left helps you navigate any Google AdWords account you own, Google Ads campaigns, and ad groups.

Click on the arrow next to the account name to see the submenus. This is called the "account tree" or the "tree view" because you can easily expand or collapse campaigns and ad groups in your account, whether they are active, new, or other.

In a red square in the screenshot below, you can see the Campaign and ad group, while the list below shows everything else you can edit.

Campaign Types

Once you select account/campaign/ad group, the information displayed in the collapsed menu will change. Now, you can see different campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, etc.

Search box. If you want to search for a campaign by hand, type a search term or Campaign, ad groups, and asset groups into the box.

The three dots next to the search box are important. Clicking on them, you can see enabled, paused, and other types of campaigns, as shown in the screenshot below.

After you've found the campaign you want to edit, take a look at the left navigation menu. The icons next to them imply the campaign type you can choose:

• Search Campaign
• YouTube campaign
• Display campaign
• Discovery

You can choose the Campaign or ad group you want to view. Whatever you select at the top will trigger the Editor to change the information displayed at the bottom.

View and Edit Data

This function allows you to view your account data and campaign status. The information you'll see will vary based on your choice in the tree view.

Here, we can see each Campaign's status: green dots mean that the ads are active, while others show that they are "paused."

Bulk Changes

One of our favorite things about Google AdWords Editor is how easy it is to bulk edit your campaigns.

On the right is a window with multiple ad group options, keywords, or texts you want to edit. This allows you to make bulk changes at once.

The AdWords Editor allows you to tailor these bulk changes based on your current needs, which includes lowering bids or updating the bids in the same amount for each ad group.

But bulk editing can look a bit cluttered, as we can see in the screenshot below.

When you have a lot of empty fields, it's tedious to search through all that information. Luckily, we can use the edit pane and hide all empty tabs that clutter your screen.

Find and Fix Errors Across Your Account

Google Ads Editor allows you to search across all your campaigns and ads so that when an error pops up in one ad group or Campaign (e.g., missing images), you'll find out exactly how many other places it's showing up!

Google Ads Editor: Top Functions

Make multiple changes at once

Add Campaign, Ad Group and Keywords

You can use Google AdWords to create new ad groups & campaigns and post them. To upload the different keywords from your Google Sheets, find Keywords in the Editor and select them on the account level.

Want to know how to make these changes all at once? Follow the steps below:

After that, copy and paste your keywords from Google Sheets into the Editor.

With the option "Check changes," you can review if everything is correct before you post anything and then click Process. This will upload your campaign structure to the Editor.

Then, you can...

Upload Ads

Here, we can see the sheet with ad structure for a new campaign we want to upload.

From left to right, you can see the account level, ad level, and type of ad (we choose RSA here). After you choose the headlines and descriptions you want to upload, go to the option Make Multiple Changes.

Also, there is another option you can see in the Multiple Changes box that appears.

With option number 1, you can choose that your data includes columns for campaigns and ad groups like in the Google Sheet above.

With option number 2, you can choose that your data doesn't contain them by clicking on Selected Destination and choosing the campaign/ad group where you want to upload the ads.

Copy or Move Items

Bulk changes are powerful on their own, but there is a second option that saves even more time when you work across many campaigns.

Imagine you are working on a complex number of campaigns with various geo-targeting. Editing them can seem like a never-ending task. So, to simplify the process, you can copy and paste big bulks of assets like ad groups and keywords into various campaigns and accounts.

You only need to build the Campaign once instead of multiple times, right-click Copy, and then paste the campaign material where you need it.

Allocate Negative Keywords Across Multiple Accounts

Here's a hack: if you'd like to allocate a list of negative keywords common for audiences in all your Google AdWords accounts, you can try this recent application in the Editor tool's Shared Library.

The screenshot below shows the tool's name, "shared negative keyword lists," and what the tool offers.

Now, you can search your accounts and dig for types of negative keywords from different campaigns, how many keywords they have, and how many campaigns is this keyword list related to. After you review the keywords, you can connect them with other campaigns by adding campaign associations.

Apply Custom Rules to Multiple Campaigns

Custom rules let you tailor your ads for the best possible performance.

You can create reminders to optimize extensions, fix broken links, tweak ad copy in new campaigns, or remove poor-performing advertisements.

Let's take a look at the screenshot below:

On the right-hand side is a box where you can customize violations and warnings for your campaigns and bidding.

"Violation criteria" lets you instruct the AdWords Editor to notify you of specific violations to best practices before posting any changes, allowing you to access those errors and remove them quickly.

Don't Forget the Extensions

When you run search ads, do not forget the extensions. Good extensions take up more of the results page and lift your click-through rate.

If you want to edit extensions, find them in the Shared Library and add them to your campaign.

You can add one new extension with the Add Shared Callout Extensions. But existing extensions can only be added on the account level within the same category of changes.

Or you can add them in bulk with the option: make multiple changes.

Here's the list of ad extensions AdWords Editor allows:

• Sitelinks Extensions
• Structured Snippet Extensions
• Location Extensions
• Price Extensions
• Callout Extensions
• App Extensions
• Call Extensions
• Promotion Extensions
• Message Extensions
• Image Extensions
• Lead Form Extensions
• Hotel Callout

Remove Repeating Keywords

Duplicate keywords creep in, especially when you allocate keywords across ad groups or make a lot of changes at once. When two of your own keywords compete, you bid against yourself and push up your own costs.

The Find duplicate keywords feature catches them for you, flagging repeated keywords in the same ad group, campaign, or account.

On the left-hand side, you can tick checkboxes to choose where to look for duplicate keywords.

You can make the search more precise on the right by telling the tool where to look, choosing word order, match type, and locations. You can also hide the duplicates without removing them.

Run TrueView Video Campaigns

You can create and manage interactive TrueView video campaigns in Google Ads Editor on YouTube or across the broader network of sites. TrueView Campaigns are fantastic because they allow you to engage prospective new customers.

What can you edit in these video campaigns?

• CTAs
• Headlines and number of headline fields
• Tweak & manage paid video ads

...and more!

Smart Budgeting

Watching your budget matters, and Editor lets you check it before you overspend. If a campaign is getting fewer impressions or clicks than you expected, you can see how much room is left before the budget runs out.

Select "Recommended Budget" from within the campaigns; you can view and set this option early on to keep an eye out for overspending daily on the campaign level, account level, or ad group level, as you can see below.

Geo-targeting

The AdWords Editor allows you to edit your target location on the right-hand side of the interface.

It is easy to find, so keep it updated and set correctly. Wrong location targeting just spends your budget on the wrong people.

Replace Text Features

Another benefit of Google AdWords is that you don't have to upload text changes from an Excel sheet or delete or pause old ads with unfitting copies. You can do this directly, making your online advertising job much more efficient.

How to do this?

Go to Edit in the menu bar, then make your text changes through the options in the drop-down menu, shown below:

Now that you've got the gist, here are some more options you can try to replace text with:

• Capitalization. Select the text and switch its case. Useful when you advertise long-form content and need to fix title case or sentence case in your headlines.
• Append text. Add text to the start or end of an item, including any final URL you select.
• URLs. Change the URLs you want. Replace them outright, edit the final URL, or strip out parameters.
• Change bids. Adjust bids in bulk by setting limits or raising them, however you need to within Google Ads Editor.
• Replace text. Swap text inside the existing ad copy across your ads.

Statistics in Google AdWords Editor

You can use Google Ads Editor even for viewing, importing, and downloading statistics. Let's go over each:

Viewing and Importing Stats into Google Ads Editor

Once you know how to make and post changes, the next thing to learn is reading the numbers.

Google Ads Editor has a great feature that imports performance stats from your campaigns in its offline form.

You can also choose the View statistics option, which will allow importing performance stats from other sources such as Excel and Google Analytics.

Click on Get statistics to view your ad campaign's performance in Google Ads Editor by defining the date range at the top left, and then choosing any statistic you want from among several options.

Mind this: check all the boxes for campaigns you need stats on.

Download Your Search Term Report

Google Ads Editor can also download your search terms, which makes it easy to see how both your keywords and your negative keyword lists are performing.

It shows you which phrases are actually triggering your ads, so you can sharpen the ones that bring in customers and cut the ones that only waste spend.

When you click Search Term Report, the window on the right appears. Here, you can choose for which Campaign you want a report, data range, and more.

Google Ads Editor vs the browser: when to use which

Editor and the web interface are not rivals; they are two tools for two jobs. Editor is built for bulk, offline, structural work. The browser is where live, single-item and reporting work belongs, and the people who get the most out of Editor know which job goes where.

Reach for the browser when you need Recommendations, Experiments, asset and Performance Max reporting, Scripts, or the newest campaign settings that have not reached Editor yet.

Reach for Editor when you are making bulk changes, migrating or restructuring an account, working offline, or duplicating campaigns and whole accounts. If a change touches more than a handful of items, it is an Editor job.

Common Google Ads Editor errors, and how to fix them

A few problems come up again and again, and almost all of them trace back to one habit: get recent changes before you start and before you post.

• Editor will not download your account. Usually a sign-in or permission problem. Confirm you have access to the account, sign out and back in, and check that a firewall or VPN is not blocking the app.
• Sync or Get Recent Changes errors. The account changed in the browser while you worked offline. Pull the latest state in first, resolve anything Editor flags, then carry on.
• Post failed. Almost always a validation error Editor already flagged in red, such as a missing final URL, no budget, or a policy issue. Fix the flagged items and post again.
• Duplicate items after posting. Editor added instead of replaced, usually because an ID did not match. Get recent changes, delete the duplicate, and re-post the correct version.
• Conflicts after browser edits. Someone changed the account online while you worked in Editor. Get recent changes to pull the live state in, resolve the conflict Editor shows, then post.

Tips for Working in AdWords Editor to Keep in Mind

To get the most out of Google Ads Editor, remember it works best alongside the online interface, not instead of it.

It lets you review everything before you upload, so always run that check before you post.

Its real safety net is catching errors before they go live. You fix the red warning flags inside Editor instead of pushing broken changes into a running account.

Frequently asked questions

Is Google Ads Editor free? Yes, completely free. It is a desktop app from Google for Windows and Mac, with no paid tier and no usage limit. The only cost is the time to learn it.

Can multiple people use Google Ads Editor at once? Yes, but not in the same file at the same time. Each person downloads the account, works in their own copy, and uploads their changes. Run Get Recent Changes before you start and before you post so two people's edits do not overwrite each other.

Does Google Ads Editor work offline? Yes, and that is the point of it. You download the account, make all your edits with no internet, and upload everything in one go when you reconnect. It is the main reason bulk work is faster in Editor than in the browser.

Can I undo changes in Google Ads Editor? Yes, before you post. Editor keeps your changes local until you upload, so you can undo, revert, or discard anything while it is still a draft. Once posted, a change is live, and you undo it by editing again and re-posting.

Does Google Ads Editor work with a manager (MCC) account? Yes. Sign in with your manager account and you can download and edit multiple client accounts, switching between them without signing in again. It is one of the reasons agencies live in Editor.

Can I edit Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads Editor? Partly. Editor supports Performance Max asset groups, budgets and much of the structure, but a few of the newest PMax controls and reports still only live in the browser. Build and bulk-edit in Editor, then finish the newest settings online.

Can I schedule uploads in Google Ads Editor? No. Uploads are manual: you post when you are ready and the changes go live then. There is no built-in scheduler, so if timing matters, post at the moment you want the change to take effect.

Used well, Google Ads Editor takes a lot of the grind out of managing campaigns, and the bulk work it makes easy is what the rest of a strong account is built on: a clean Performance Max setup, a tuned Google Shopping feed, and a full ecommerce Google Ads build all depend on changing things at scale without breaking them. Once you have Editor down, it also pairs naturally with the granular structure in our guide to single keyword ad groups. If you would rather hand the whole account to a team that lives in tools like this, that is what our Google Ads management is for.