Optimizing Automated Rules in Google Ads

PPC advertising can be an incredibly beneficial marketing modality for eCommerce organizations. According to Google, “businesses generally make an average of $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend on Google Ads.” This return makes Google Ads an essential element in a company’s marketing blueprint and a meaningful avenue for revenue.

However, managing Google Ads can be a tedious and time-consuming enterprise, particularly if a brand doesn't have the means to employ a dedicated team to maintain it. Without specialists, merchants are stuck having to make changes far too often.

Fortunately, there is a way around some of the monotony as Google has given advertisers the ability to automate various campaign factors.

Looking to save time and money on your Google Ads campaigns? Here is a breakdown of how to use automated rules in Google Ads and three essential rules to implement.

How to Use Automated Rules

Automated rules are a massively beneficial feature for handing partial management over to Google. As one would expect, this component enables advertisers to create a set of rules that abide by specific conditions to run and alter certain campaign settings automatically.

Automated rules possess a high level of customization, allowing advertisers to schedule adjustments on most account elements. Automated rules can be applied to:

• Campaigns

• Ad groups

• Keywords

• Ads

• Audiences

• And many other areas

When users are ready to create a rule, navigate to the top menu and click the "Tools" icon to reveal the drop-down menu. Then, under the "Bulk Actions" section, click "Rules."

From here, merchants will have several different choices (depending on which aspect of the account is targeted) as to what they wish to automate. These choices (for the most part) come down to:

• Pause

• Enable

• Send email

• Change budget or bid

After selecting an option, users will be brought to the automated rule builder where they can set the parameters and conditions for the rule. Advertisers will notice that this page features six to seven different sections (depending on what is being automated).

These categories include:

• Rule type: Outlined above (pause, enable, etc.).

• Apply to: Dictates which elements the rule will be administered.

• Set action (if applicable): Determines which action will be taken (increase bid, decrease bid, etc.).

• Conditions: Provides instructions on which criteria must be met for the rule to run.

• Frequency: Establishes how often the rule will analyze conditions to potentially implement the defined changes. The “using data from” section determines the timeframe to be assessed.

• Email results: Informs Google on how often advertisers would like to receive emails on this rule.

• Rule name: This is the rule's moniker. Make it detailed as meticulous organization is critical when various rules are implemented.

Now that you understand how to create an automated rule, let's go over some of the most beneficial rules to employ.

Increase/Decrease Budgets

Many advertisers tend to either increase or decrease their ad budgets at the beginning of each month to fall in line with a company’s needs. Fortunately, this is one aspect of Google Ads that can be automated.

To set this rule up, navigate to the “Campaign Rules” tab under the “Rules” section. Set the rule type to “Change budgets.” Click “select campaigns” to choose the campaign(s) to which this rule should be applied.

Next, choose to either increase, decrease or set the new budget amount. If you decide to increase or decrease the amount, it is necessary to alter the budget either by a percent or dollar amount. Now set the "Upper budget limit" to ensure the rule doesn't exceed a fixed monetary ceiling.

Enter the time and date for the rule to run and generate a name for the rule. Finally, click the “Preview” button to review the settings to ensure that everything is correct. If all is acceptable, click “Save” to apply the rule.

Pause Poor Performing Keywords

As far as keywords are concerned, rules can be established that enable, pause or increase/decrease bids for keywords. This feature is incredibly handy as it can help to maximize a brand's ad budget by reducing wasted spend.

For instance, advertisers can change keyword bidding rules when a term is eating up a budget, yet not producing any conversions. A reasonable timeframe for establishing if a keyword will be fruitful or not is about 60 days, so be sure to set this as the rule threshold.

Moreover, advertisers should consider assisted conversions as no campaign exists in a vacuum. Therefore, it is essential to isolate keywords that fail to support last click conversions and pause them. However, if retailers are aware that specific keywords don't produce any meaningful last click volume yet do play a significant role in the top of the funnel, this should be weighed and balanced when implementing this rule.

Otherwise, feel free to pause ineffective keywords.

Get Emailed About Unprofitable Ads

Employing this rule is essentially the same as the keyword rule mentioned above; however, the difference here is that instead of keywords, users should navigate to the “Ad Rules” section.

Moreover, by implementing this rule, Google will not make any account changes. Instead, advertisers will receive an email notifying them about poorly performing ad groups, as defined by the "Conditions" section.

These notifications are essential for optimal performance as it allows merchants to manually review and potentially pause any ad group that is proving to be unfruitful.

With Google Ads, retailers have been given the power to automate some of the most monotonous and redundant tasks involved in campaign management. This enables merchants to focus more of their efforts on producing results and less on tinkering with settings.

While automated rules can be a powerful way to save time, the implications of various rules should be thought through before allowing them to run unsupervised as certain rules could ultimately damage performance (as mentioned in the keyword rule section).

The mechanics and rules discussed here provide eCommerce sellers with a solid foundation for automating various Google Ads account aspects. It is certainly recommended that retailers go more in-depth to fully optimize the rules they apply; however, it is essential to bear in mind that these automation features are intended to assist, not take control of the account.

In the end, there is no replacement for manually implementing PPC best practices.