How About an Open Source PPC Campaign Builder?

Over the last couple of years, the number of tools available to affiliate marketers has been growing. As the industry is in continuous growth, so is the need for more advanced methods and techniques to gain an advantage over the competition.

For those of us who run large search campaigns, one of the most significant advances has been the release of PPC campaign builders. There are already several commercial offerings on the market - the most notable being Speed PPC and Efficient PPC.

These tools are actually really good, but they can be a bit pricey for the aspiring affiliate marketer who has little or no extra cash to spare (the two above tools currently run around $500 for a lifetime license)

Luckily, there is a poor man’s solution available. Well, the word “available” can be argued here. Because it was originally coded and released by respectable blogger Derek Beau in 2007 as an open-source project, but later taken off his website due to threats from the legal team of Speed PPC.

The script has since been hard to find - only occasionally mentioned in threads on Wickedfire, or offered to members there by me upon private request. Why me? Well I want to make it clear that I do not in any way claim to take credit for Derek’s work. His script is very well written and does exactly what it’s supposed to do. However when I started using it a while ago, I found a bug in the code. The bug would cause some tokens in some instances to be switched in order. And this would result in incorrect campaign .csv code.

So all I have done is correct the minor bug, and repackage it as version 1.1 (as to not be mixed with Derek’s original “version 1.0″)

So how does it stack up against the commercial tools?
When Derek first released the script, Speed PPC was the only competitor as Efficient PPC hadn’t been released yet. And at the time - Speed PPC had less features than it has today. Derek’s script actually did all the things Speed PPC could - and faster! (No wonder Speed PPC felt threatened and forced Derek to remove it)

But the most recent versions of the aforementioned competitors now have developed with more advanced features. Derek’s tool has the following basic features:

- mixing two sets of keywords into a combined keyword list
- generating unique destination URLs for each and every keyword combination
- generating unique ad title, descriptions, and display URLs for each keyword combination
- ability to generate 6 different text ads per keyword combination
- ability to set different bids for each destination URL (broad, phrase, exact)
- branching options (before, after, before & after, pair, no branch)
- grouping options (by root keyword, by branch keyword, by combination)
- formatting options (uppercase/lowercase, space, hyphens, blanks)
- output for Google Adwords only

As of this writing, the latest version of Speed PPC is version 3. Efficient PPC is in version1.1. They largely share the same features, and can do more things not supported by Derek’s script such as:

- output for MSN Adcenter and Yahoo YSM, with separate cpc pricing
- built-in keyword tools
- built-in keyword lists such as US states, cities, countries, brand names, etc.
- downloadable keyword lists
- more than 2 keyword lists as input for combinations
- multiple campaign creation
- automatic split of large adgroups and campaigns
- error detection in output
- ability to save and load existing project files
- cut/copy/paste functionality
- ability to define custom tokens for even more advanced output
The most notable difference however, is that the commercial offerings are installed and ran from your desktop pc. Whereas Derek’s tool is a php script that must be uploaded to your server and ran within your browser. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion - just FYI.

So why am I sharing this script now?
I believe the commercial tools have matured enough to no longer see this free script as a competitive threat. It obviously has its shortcomings compared to the paid tools. But on the other hand, I think it is an awesome alternative for those starting out and learning the ropes. If anything, Derek’s tool will make people want something more and eventually purchase either Speed PPC or Efficient PPC.

Besides, any affiliate marketer who is serious about this business and starting to make money shouldn’t think twice about investing in quality tools that will help him or her expand his business.

Download and Installation
1) CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE SCRIPT

2) Unzip the .zip file to a temporary folder on your harddrive

3) Upload it your server under a domain or subfolder. e.g. My-Test-Domain.info/derekppc/

4) Run the script by visiting that URL

How to use the script
Update: Since I first posted this, it turns out that Derek actually wrote a user guide to this script as well. One of my readers found it on Smax0r’s blog (Oooff.com) and posted it in the comments below.

CLICK HERE to download the PDF manual hosted on Oooff.com

CLICK HERE to download the PDF manual hosted on Profitapolis.com

Thanks to Slava and Smax0r for.

That being said - most of my readers can probably figure out how to use the script, but if you have questions feel free to drop them in the comments section.

Ok - now it’s your turn to tell me what you think. I wanna hear what you think of the script, if you find it hard to understand, or even if you just found it useful. So leave your comments below!

Lastly - thanks to Derek Beau for coding this script and originally making it available to the public!