A rule is a condition or set of conditions which, when matched in the new Search Ads 360, triggers an action or set of actions to be carried out on data that you specify.
Automated rules let you make changes in your account automatically, based on settings and conditions you choose. You can change your ad status, budget, bids, and more. In addition, you can use automated rules to trigger emails, without taking any other action, when specific conditions occur. These rules are referred to as notify-only or email-only rules.
Automated rules can save you time by cutting down the need to monitor campaigns and make frequent, manual changes.
In the new Search Ads 360, you can combine multiple actions and conditions in one rule. Rules can be run once, or to a schedule: hourly to monthly. When you create the rule, you can define the frequency and time at which the rule runs.
There are different rule categories: Account, Campaign, Ad group, Product group, Ad, Keyword, Ad rules, and Devices. The rule’s accounts, conditions, and scoping options can vary with the rule category, but all rules are created through a screen form with the same fields.
You can use rules to update the following:
- Campaign, ad group, keyword, and ad status
- Campaign budgets, ad group, product group, and keyword bids
- Keyword final URL and final mobile URLs
- Device bid adjustments
- Labels
There are many ways to use automated rules. Here are a few examples:
- Scheduling ads for special promotions or events
- Pausing low-performing ads or keywords
- Adjusting budgets or scheduling budgets for certain days each week
- Raising keyword bids to ensure ads show on the first page
Search Ads 360 manager accounts can have 100 active rules per user and can run rules on up to 1,000 accounts. A rule is considered active if the rule status is “Enabled" and it’s not a one-time rule that’s already been run in the past.
This article describes some significant features of automated rules.
Rule ownership
You can choose a manager account or a sub-manager account, as the owner of an automated rule. This means that the selected account (and all manager accounts above it in the hierarchy) can modify the rule as needed. You can't make a client account the owner of a rule you create for that account. Learn more about Search Ads 360 manager accounts.
Once the rule has been created and saved, you can't change the owner account.
How the owner account impacts other features
The rule owner account determines the following:
- Accounts that a rule can be applied to. If a manager account owns a rule, the rule can run in any account under the manager account. If a sub-manager account owns a rule, the rule can run only in client accounts under the sub-manager accounts. Only items in the sub-manager account are visible.
- Actions and conditions that can be applied in the rule:
- Owner accounts are also specified for certain actions and conditions, such as labels and custom columns. A rule owned by a sub-manager account can't apply actions or conditions that are owned by a manager account.
- A rule owned by a manager account can apply actions and conditions that are owned by the manager account and any sub-manager accounts under it.
- Edit permissions. You must be scoped to the owner account to edit the rule.
Creating and managing automated rules
Create and manage automated rules from the "Rules" page. Click the tools and settings icon , select Bulk actions, and then click Rules. You can also create an automated rule from the three-dot menu
On the Rules page:
- The "Automated rules" tab lists all your rules. You can pause, enable, or remove them by clicking the status icon, or edit them through the "Actions" column. Learn more about managing rules.
- The 'Results" table provides details on each execution of a rule, including the client accounts impacted and the status.
- The "Version history" tab lists details about the different versions of your rules, including the last run date of a version.
Creating an example rule
How to create an automated rule is covered separately, but here’s an example of how you might define a particular rule.
Let's say you create a rule that runs every Monday to increase keyword bids in certain accounts that receive low traffic by 10%.
You specify the following settings when defining the rule:
| Name | BoostKeywordbidsMonday |
| Owner | The rule's owner account is a manager account called "ManagerAcct1". |
| Action |
|
| Applies to | Selected campaigns |
| Conditions |
|
| Frequency | Weekly on Monday at 11AM |
| Email results |
Select an email option:
You can select individual email accounts, or you can choose to send your report to all users for the desired manager account level. |
Next steps:
- You preview the rule results: everything looks good!
- Before saving the rule, you decide to change the rule's owner account to limit the scope of the rule to a sub-manager account.
- When you select a sub-manager account, a message indicates that you can't select the sub-manager account because some settings aren't available in the sub-manager account. In this case, the label is owned by the manager account, and isn't available to the sub-manager account.
- To resolve the issue, remove the label that is owned by the manager account. You can then specify the sub-manager account as the rule owner.
- Save the rule.
Change your email notifications
- Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- Navigate to a manager or sub-manager account.
- From the page menu, under “Tools & settings”, click Setup.
- Click Preferences.
- The "Notifications topics" column shows the different email notification type. In the "Email settings" column, select your preferred email setting for each type.