Use formula words in the Replace Text tool

1. Insert the account, campaign, or ad group name into your keywords. Suppose you're running a campaign for grocery stores with the locations as your ad group names. You could replace the word 'grocery store' in your keywords with [adgroup] grocery store.

Start:

Ad Group New York California

Keyword grocery store grocery store

Find text: grocery store
Replace with: [adgroup] grocery store

Finish:

Ad Group New York California

Keyword new york grocery store california grocery store

2. Insert the account, campaign, or ad group name into your ad text. Suppose you have general ad text in each ad group in your account, and your ad group and campaign names have more specific geographical and seasonal words. You can use 'Replace Text' to make the ad text more specific.

Start:

Campaign Summer Summer

Ad Group New York Paris

Headline Cheap hotel Cheap hotel

Find text: [headline]
Replace with: [headline] in [adgroup] for [campaign]

Finish:

Campaign Summer Summer

Ad Group New York Paris

Headline Cheap hotel in New York for summer Cheap hotel in Paris for summer

3. Update multiple ad group names at once. Suppose you create new campaigns for a large holiday promotion, and you fill the new campaigns with ad groups copied from a summer campaign. Now you want to make the new ad group names reflect the new campaign.

Start:

Campaign Christmas Holiday

Ad Group Summer gifts Summer shoes

Find text: summer
Replace with: [campaign]

Finish:

Campaign Christmas Holiday

Ad Group Christmas gifts Holiday shoes

4. Update every editable field in your selection. If you ever need to do this, you can use the [field] formula word. Remember, the editable fields change for each tab. For example, on the Ad Groups tab, the ad group name is the only editable text field. Using the [field] formula word on this tab would have the result below.

Start:

Campaign Flowers Gifts

Ad Group Roses Greeting cards

Find text: [field]
Replace with: Beautiful [field]

Finish:

Campaign Flowers Gifts

Ad Group Beautiful Roses Beautiful Greeting cards

Note that the Append Text tool is another way to simply add a word before or after the existing text in a particular column.

Finally, here are two cautionary examples:

1. When you insert a formula word into your text to find or replace, be aware that the tool looks for words, not just fields. For example, if you put [headline] in your 'Find' text, you're asking the tool to find and edit the text that appears in the headline field, wherever it appears in your selection. You're not asking it only to edit the headline field. If you have the same text in your headline field and the description line field for a given row, both will be replaced.

Start:

Headline Safe, Fun Toys

Description Line 1 Safe, fun toys for children

Find text: [headline]
Replace with: Buy [headline]

Finish:

Headline Buy Safe, Fun Toys

Description Line 1 Buy Safe, fun toys for children

To contain your edits within a particular column, you can select the column in the drop-down menu in the Replace Text tool. In the example above, you could select 'Headline' to make sure the edits only apply to the headline field.

2. If a field contains a formula word, Replace Text won't find it. Suppose you specify the following replacement on the Text Ads tab.

Start:

Campaign Christmas

Ad Group Gifts

Headline Safe, fun toys for [adgroup]

Find text: [adgroup]
Replace with: [campaign]

Finish:

Campaign Christmas

Ad Group Gifts

Headline Safe, fun toys for [adgroup]

There was no change, because the Replace Text tool doesn't find literal formula words. To find formula words in your account, use the basic search box above the data view.