Set up automated rules for campaigns, ad groups, product groups, keywords, devices, and ads
Bulk actions are owned by the manager account or sub-manager account that you're directly signed into. You can't make a client account the owner of a rule you create for that account. Learn more.
This article shows you how to set up automated rules for campaigns, ad groups, product groups, keywords, ads, and devices, and includes an example rule that increases campaign budgets.
Create an automated rule
Follow the series of procedures below to create an automated rule. Note that the procedure steps vary slightly according to the rule category or “entity” that is updated by the rule’s actions.
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Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- On the Campaigns, Ad groups, Product groups, Ad, Search keyword, or Devices page, c lick the 3-dot icon
above the statistics table. (You can also reach the “Rules” page by clicking “Bulk actions” under “Tools and settings”.)
- Click Create an automated rule.
- Specify the rule category, name, and owner account:
- Enter a unique name for your rule.
- Select the owner account for the rule.
The owner account allows users with access to the account to manage, edit, and specify certain conditions - such as labels - in the rule. Labels and some other items can also be owned by a manager account or a sub-manager account. If the rule is owned by a sub-manager account and a label is owned by a manager account, you can't apply the label as an action or condition in the rule.
- Define rule actions and conditions:
- In “Action”, click the pencil icon next to New action.
- Enter a unique name for your action, and click Save.
- In “Apply to”, select an option. These options vary depending on the rule category. For example, for a Campaign rule, you can choose to apply your rule to:
- Campaigns in selected accounts
- Selected campaigns
- Click Add condition to select a condition which triggers the action.
Repeat to select multiple conditions from a full range of options for the rule category. The conditions can refer to characteristics of entities that are different from the rule category: for example, you can change keyword bids based on campaign ROI. - Click Apply.
- In the “Action” drop-down menu, select the action you want to trigger when the condition is matched.
- Click Add.
- Set the rule run frequency and evaluation data time frame:
- In the "Frequency" section, select how often you want your rule to run (for example, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or only once on a particular date and time), and the time frame of data to be used to evaluate the rule.
- You can schedule a rule to run during an hour window (e.g. a rule set for 9 - 10 am may run at any time between 9-10 am.)
You can choose Set time to schedule a rule to run at a specific time. - The "using data from" option lets you select the time frame for which data to include as the basis for the rule.
Keep in mind that the time frame you choose is relative to the rule and not to the entity to which you apply the rule. For example: You create a rule on July 1, apply it to a campaign that has been running since January 1, and set this option to "All time". In this case "All time" begins July 1 and does not take into account the January 1 - June 30 data from the campaign.
- In the "Email results" section, select if you’d like yourself and/or others to be notified when your rule runs, and the frequency of the notifications.
- Preview and save the rule:
- Optionally, click Preview to verify that you've set the rule up correctly. Previewing displays the list of the items that will be changed and shows the changes made to them. No permanent changes will be made. Click Close to close the preview, or click Save rule.
- Click Save rule.
above the statistics table. (You can also reach the “Rules” page by clicking “Bulk actions” under “Tools and settings”.)
Example: Rule to automatically raise campaign budgets
- Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- From the page menu, click Campaigns.
- Click the 3-dot icon
- Name your rule.
- Select an owner account.
- In "Action", click the pencil icon in New action.
- In the "Apply to" section, select one of the following options:
- Campaigns in all accounts
- Campaigns in selected accounts. Choose the accounts.
- Selected campaigns. Choose the campaigns.
- Click Add condition to select the condition which triggers the action:
- Choose the status of the campaigns that you want to change budgets for:
- All but removed
- All
- All enabled
- Apply conditions for the rule (you can add more than one condition):
- Click Add condition, and then select a condition.
- Set a value if required.
- Choose the status of the campaigns that you want to change budgets for:
- In “Action”, click Choose what happens and then select the action you want to be triggered when the condition is matched. In this example:
- Select Change budgets.
- Select a currency.
- Under "Action", click Increase budget.
You can choose to increase your budget by a percentage or specific amount. - Optionally, specify an upper budget limit to ensure your budget cost doesn’t exceed a certain amount for the billing period.
- Click Add.
- Set the frequency of the rule.
- Optionally, specify if and when you want to notified when the rule runs.
- Click Preview to ensure you've set up your rule to run the way you want.
- Click Save rule.
Example: Keyword rule to change keyword bids when campaign visits > 10 and send an email
Follow the general procedure described in Create an automated rule, entering the settings presented in the table below.
This rule makes use of multiple actions and multiple conditions:
- The first action sends an email.
- The second action changes keyword bids in the Euro currency to 1 Euro when the campaign receives more than 10 visits.
| Field name | Selected field entry | |
|---|---|---|
| Name | As required. | |
| Owner | As required. | |
| Actions | Action 1: Send email. | Action 2: Set keyword bid to 1 Euro. |
| Apply to | Keywords in selected accounts. | Keywords in selected accounts. |
| Conditions | Keyword status = Enabled, Paused. |
Keyword status = Enabled, Paused. Campaign Conditions Performance = Visits > 10 |
| Frequency | Choose Weekly, Tuesday 1:00 AM, using data from the Previous week. | |
| Select an email option: "Every time this rule runs", "Only if there are changes or errors", "Only if there are errors", or "No emails". |
Rule category options summary
The options for creating rules vary by rule category - Account, Campaign, Ad group, Product group, Ad, Keyword, Ad rules, and Devices - in the Actions, Apply to, and Conditions fields.
The table below summarizes what’s available for each rule category:
| Rule category | Actions | Apply to | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| ALL | The action list only includes actions that can be applied to the selected rule type. | The rule will apply to the accounts you select here and any conditions you specify. |
Default types of conditions:
|
| Account |
|
Selected accounts |
All default conditions, plus:
|
| Campaign |
|
|
All default conditions, plus:
|
| Ad group |
|
|
All default conditions, plus:
|
| Keyword |
|
|
All default conditions, plus:
|
| Ad |
|
|
All default conditions, plus:
|
| Device | Change device bid adjustments |
|
|
| Product group |
|
|
|
Create automated rules to manage these features
In the new Search Ads 360, you can create rules to change the following features:
- Campaign, ad group, keyword, and ad status
- Campaign budgets, ad group and keyword bids
- Keyword final URL and final mobile URLs
- Labels
General tips
- Use enough data to make an informed decision. To ensure changes are being made based on enough data, make sure you use a long enough timeframe, or add an additional requirement - such as "impressions > X" - to your rule.
- Preview. Preview your rules before saving them so you understand their impact. Depending on your requirements and settings, you could be making significant changes to a large portion of your account, so it's important to double-check.
- Be vigilant. Try implementing a rule with a frequency of "one time" to monitor the actual impact. Once you're comfortable with how your rules are working, you can set them up to run on a recurring schedule (e.g., daily or weekly).
- Configure rules appropriate for your business. Be aware of intraday and intra-week trends (e.g. peak hour or weekday traffic could differ from non-peak hour and weekend traffic). Also be aware of how far away you are from your goals when setting magnitudes of changes (e.g. changing in small increments of 5% when closer to your goal and large increments of 20% otherwise). All these issues can be addressed by using multiple rules in conjunction with one another.
- Be smart when scheduling two rules that affect the same items.
- What happens if you have two rules that affect the same items scheduled to run at the same time? Rules don't have a way to prioritize themselves, so even when you have two rules set to make concurrent changes to the same entities, both rules will run and make the specified changes to all entities. Search Ads 360 recommends that you don't schedule multiple rules at the same time if they affect the same set of data. Instead, if you'd like to have two or more rules that make changes to the same part of your campaign, we suggest that you choose different times of the day for the rules to run.
- If there are multiple rules on the same entities that are scheduled at the same time, our system will do its best to run them all, but there could be some errors resulting from trying to make conflicting changes at the same time. Setting different times for your rules not only helps avoid these errors, but it also serves as a way for you to prioritize your rules, so that the one scheduled earliest runs first.
- To view the list of rules and schedules on the "Automated rules" tab, from the page menu, under “Tools & settings”, click Bulk actions, and then click Rules.
Tips for rules that affect keyword bids
Setting up recurring bidding rules that operate on entire accounts or campaigns can be complicated. If they're applicable to your needs, you may want to try automatic bidding to help you manage your bids and budget. Here are some tips to help you configure automated rules that modify keyword bids and run on a regular basis.
Search Ads 360 bid strategies and some bid-strategy related components such as data-sharing, will be available only after your account has been migrated to the new Search Ads 360. Learn more about how to upgrade your bid strategies to the new Search Ads 360.
Check the Experience hub to stay up to date on your available features, including bidding.
- Changing bids based on conversion data. Measuring a conversion is a longer process relative to measuring a click or impression; a conversion can happen many days after a click, and is only recorded if it happens within your chosen conversion window. Conversions also occur much less often than clicks or impressions. If you create any rules based on conversions, Search Ads 360 recommends that you use longer "using data from" time ranges to properly capture your conversions.
- Changing bids based on clickthrough rate (CTR). Your ad's CTR depends on its position on the page. If you create a rule that lowers your bid if CTR is low, this could result in a negative spiral where the ad declines further down the page and your CTR falls lower accordingly.