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Google Adwords Optimizer - Careful

Google adwords has a tool called optimizer.  This tool automatically reviews a specified campaign and suggests places to improve at the adgroup level. Specifically, it suggests new keywords, and, or updated prices for a specific term. 

We like the additional keyword suggestions.  It does add some terms that may not otherwise have been found.  However, when they make the suggestion of keywords, they also include a price.  So far, we have found the price to be higher than our maximum bid.  If you proceed with their suggested keyword and price, the individual keyword will be assigned a specific price using the ** function.  The ** function lets you assign a special bid within a adgroup without having to create a unique adgroup.  We've never found this very useful, and in fact, after optimizer, we found it dangerous as our max bid was exceeded. We had to go back and manually remove the uniquely defined maximum cost per click. What a bother.

If you have done this yourself, here is a quick tip for removing the uniquely defined cost per click with a set of keywords.

Navigate down to the specific adgroup. 
In the summary tab, you should see an EDIT link next to the Current Bid.  Click the link. 

The "Edit Keywords and Bids" control panel opens. 
Select all of the keywords from the text box where the keywords are listed.  Copy and paste into notepad. 

In notepad find the ** x.xx string.  (The x.xx will have numeric values of the unique cost per click. Ie: ** 2.25.) Be sure to select the WHITE space between the word and ** x.xx string. 

Now, click Edit > Replace. Past in the value you string you copied. Leave the replace value empty.  Click the replace button. Presto-Whamo! All the ** x.xx values have been removed.  Now, copy everything and paste OVER the keywords back in the Google Edit Keywords and Bids control panel.

Save.

Do this for each campaign where optimizer set unique cost per click  values above your max.

*Note.  Be sure to wait and see the results after clicking the SAVE CHANGES button under the text box with the keywords.  Sometimes a message will be seen that says the last changes were not saved.  If you see that message, just repeat the process.

*Note: In some instances you may want to have a high CPC for a specific word where the competition is particularly fierce, and you want to test results against bidding higher with out having to create a new campaign.