Working daily in Google Ads accounts has taught us as an agency a few tricks over the years that we want to share with you today. So, if you manage a Google Ads account for yourself or your customers, you should definitely know the following three tips!
Tip 1: Automatic rules
If you’ve ever wanted to advertise a special promotion via Google Search Ads, you’ve probably already been faced with the following problem: The promotion starts on Friday morning and ends on Sunday evening. Who is now responsible for activating or pausing the ads accordingly?
On the one hand, of course, a new campaign could be created with a corresponding start and end date, but then a new learning phase starts again. We therefore recommend using “Automatic Rules” if you want to make changes to your Google Ads account that should happen outside of regular working hours. Furthermore, there is always the possibility of preparing changes at an early stage.
Our main areas of application are:
- Activating /Pausing campaigns, ad and asset groups, ads
- The adjustment of budgets
You can find the “Automatic Rules” either via the shortcut “GT” > “Rules” or in “Tools & Settings” > “Bulk Actions” > “Rules”
If you manage multiple customer accounts in an MCC, you must make sure to specify the correct owner of the rule! Otherwise, the rule appears in all linked subaccounts.
When creating, make sure that the filters and conditions of the rules are always set correctly! Otherwise, it can quickly happen that rules are only applied to activated ads, even though you wanted to activate paused ads.
A great function when creating is the “preview”. It shows you when setting up the automation whether the settings you have made are really correct.
I also always recommend sending the results by email “every time this rule is executed” . This gives you a better overview of the current status of your Google Ads account.
Tip 2: Hidden settings
Automatically applied recommendations
Who doesn’t know them: the “automatically applied recommendations” through Google Ads.
We generally recommend that you continually monitor the recommendations provided by Google Ads and reject them if necessary. This improves the optimization factor of the account.
You can also prevent Google Ads from automatically applying the recommendations. This means that no changes can be made to your account that you do not have an overview of.
However, if it still happens that you overlooked recommendations that were then applied to your account, you can mostly undo them in the change history! Clicking on “Undo” will reset the account to the old state of affairs.
Automatically create assets
Just as annoying as “automatically applied recommendations” are the “automatically create assets”. The big problem is often that control over the advertised content is lost. For many new customers, we see automatically created sitelinks that link to the imprint, for example.
You can remedy this by simply deactivating certain automatic assets. You can find this option under: “Assets” > “More” > “Auto-created assets at account level” > “More” > “Advanced settings”
Caution is particularly advised when making changes to ads, such as longer ad titles and dynamic snippets and additional information! We therefore recommend the following settings.
App placements
If you’ve ever run display ads, you’ll be familiar with the long list of various apps in “Where ads served.” Since app placements often do not result in conversions and incur costs, we recommend excluding app placements in most cases.
In order to exclude the approximately 140 app categories at campaign level, you have to manually click through the long list of categories in Google Ads.
But the whole thing is quicker using the Google Ads Editor. Here you can simply select and exclude all categories with one click under “Keywords and Targeting” > “Mobile App Categories, Exclusive” > “All Apps”.
Tip 3: Scripts
Anyone who often works in the Google Ads interface knows that loading times are often very long and that working efficiently can be tedious. The Google Ads Editor can help in some areas, but a lot of preparation is still necessary.
We particularly like to use Google Ads Scripts to automate recurring activities.
Areas of application
- Static campaign and ad structures
Various keyword match types and RSAs can be created much faster in a Google Sheet than in Google Ads or the editor. With the appropriate script, you can then easily upload the ad groups, keywords and ads to your Google Ads account. - Feed-based ad placement
Your shopping feed determines the current structure of your campaigns. The changes are imported into the Google Ads account daily! This can be particularly helpful for larger e-commerce customers. - Performance Monitoring
Our MCC overview provides us with a structured overview of the performance of the accounts we manage. The most helpful functions are: monitoring budget goals, campaign & ad status monitoring and monitoring Merchant Center accounts. You can find more information in this blog post about automation in Google Ads.
