If you’re not familiar with the Google Ad Preview Tool than this post is an opportunity for you to add something new to your PPC tool belt.  It seems that more now than ever clients are interested in seeing their ads in action.  They are doing multiple searches daily with the hope of seeing their ads show above their competitors or just to monitor the ad generation that hired guns are doing on their behalf.  What most fail to realize though is that the impressions generated from these “false” searches count towards specific metrics utilized to measure success on both the agency-side and the Google algorithm-side.  Essentially, these searches inflate impressions without the chance for clicks, thus lowering the campaign’s click-thru rate (CTR).  The click thru-rate is a large component of the ads quality score, and the quality score has a direct impact on the bid that is needed to obtain a certain position.  Agencies and consultants need to communicate to their clients that while these searches are alleviating their obsessive need to micro-manage their ad campaigns, they are ultimately affecting the performance of the ads and their wallets.

The benefit of the Google Ad Preview Tool is that clients and account managers now have the ability to check ads without generating impressions and affecting key metrics.  Additionally, this tool was designed to help advertisers see the ads when they’re targeting a location outside of their own location, and target specific languages other than their own computer language setup.