Automation is everywhere. There is no way to fix it.
In the world of advertising, automation Not only became the norm, but in some ways the default way of advertising.
With every technological update (good or bad), the marketing world always makes some concessions on how to avoid or move beyond automation, or how to take advantage of the latest technology.
Automation used to be a scary word because it implied that you had to know how to code.
Don’t be afraid anymore! Automation itself has become so automated that it allows you to use the right tools and work smarter, not harder.
I’ll walk you through three different areas where you can embrace automation and use it for Google Ads without any coding skills!
Before diving into these tips, let’s first understand what automation is in the Google Ads sense and how it can benefit you.
What is automation?
In the simplest sense, automation can be used to many ways in Google Ads. You can use automation to:
- run A/B testing or ad variants.
- Make bid changes based on your criteria.
- Enable or pause campaigns, ad groups, keywords or ads.
- Change the budget.
- Run the report.
All in all, automation can help you simplify account management and expand your workload.
Pushing the importance of automation, Google announces one of its three priorities 2022 is automation.
The benefits of automation
There are many benefits to using automation with Google Ads.
As mentioned above, the biggest benefit is the time saved by allowing automation of ongoing monotonous tasks.
Additional benefits of adopting PPC automation include:
- Higher efficiency and productivity.
- Extensibility.
- Focus more on analytics and strategy.
- Spend time on the needle thing.
- Faster results and more power to test.
Are you convinced to try automation? If not, hopefully these three automation methods will help you change your mind!
1. Take advantage of Google’s built-in basic automated rules
This is the most obvious of the three, but needs to be repeated.
Google Ads is constantly improving its interface and automation tools available to PPC professionals.
The first example of where you can use automation is to create A/B tests or “experiments” in the Google Ads interface.
I’ll be the first to admit that when Google first launched experiment, which is a pain to set up. The process was so confusing that my tests failed multiple times because of the wrong setup!
Luckily for us, Google has simplified the testing methodology and expanded the types of elements you can test.
In the interface, click “Experiments” in the left menu, then click the blue “+” button to create a new experiment.
In this example, we’ll select the “Optimize Text Ads” feature.
This experiment lets you select campaigns to test text ads.
After you’ve selected a campaign to test, you can create ad variations on any of the following:
- Find and replace text in title and/or description.
- Update text to add, delete or pin title and/or description.
- Update the final URL, display path, or final mobile URL.
Screenshot by author, April 2022Finally, you set your variant details. This includes choosing a time frame to run the experiment and experiment splitting.
If you’re looking for true A/B testing, I recommend keeping your split at 50%. Make sure to choose whatever suits your personal testing requirements.
automatic rules
In my opinion, automated rules are the most underrated feature of Google Ads. There are so many things that can be automated with simple rules!
Some examples of tasks you can automate:
- Create a rule to pause all promotional ads with a specific tag on the last day of the sale. Instead, create another rule that enables evergreen ads after your sales ads are paused.
- Set up rules to run daily for keywords below first page bids. Note: If you’re constrained by your budget, be sure to set a maximum CPC threshold to prevent Google from going crazy with your bids.
- Set up rules to run weekly (or monthly, depending on your volume and spend) for keywords with CPA above a typical threshold. You can choose to pause these keywords or have Google send you a list of these keywords.
- In this case, I usually choose to report, because usually non-branded keywords will have higher CPAs than brands, and you may inadvertently pause keywords that help drive incremental brand conversions.
Bidding strategy
Google has refined (and simplified) its suite of automated bidding strategies.
Regardless of your goals, Google has the potential to provide automated bidding strategies that match your goals.
Some of the most popular bidding strategies include:
Screenshot by author, April 2022Google has recently simplified the number of available bid strategies.
They used to have Target ROAS and Target CPA strategies, but combined with the “Maximize Conversion Value” and “Maximize Conversion” strategies, respectively.
You can set a target ROAS or CPA target in both bid strategies above.
Remember, bid strategies are set at the campaign level. This is important when building a PPC account and running campaigns at the same time.
Make sure to group your ad groups and keywords into campaigns with a common goal. Segmentation + automation is a great way to succeed.
Microsoft Advertising
It’s worth noting that many of the automation tools used for Google Ads can also be used in Microsoft Ads.
As the search engine landscape changes and expands, many advertisers are branching out to other platforms to expand their reach.
They do have all the available features listed above:
- experiment.
- Automatic rules.
- Automatic bidding strategy.
Because Microsoft Ads has a plethora of automated tools that mimic Google Ads, it’s easier than ever to recreate a PPC search strategy into Microsoft Ads.
2. Utilize custom scripting capabilities
Scripts are another easy way to automate account Not sure how to code.
In the past, the word “script” was shunned by many PPCers because it included the connotation of encoding.
While the use of scripts technically uses code, the good news is that you don’t have to know how to code.
Scripts are usually pre-coded and you only need to enter certain parameters to run the script.
There are many different scripting resources available to you. Some of the top-level scripts available are for:
- Bidding and budget management.
- Automated spreadsheet reporting.
- Enable or pause campaigns, ad groups, keywords or ads.
- Search query N-Gram performance.
- Landing page content inspector.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of script content.My two resources to script are brain lab and Optmyzr.
With Brainlabs, they provide scripts that you can enter directly into your Google Ads account. Currently, there are 49 scripts to choose from.
To insert the script into your account, navigate to Tools and Settings At the top > Bulk Actions > Scripts.
It’s important to note that you need to authorize the script to make changes on the user’s behalf. You will be prompted in Google Ads.
In this example, I’ve copied and pasted the “Low Quality Alert Score” script from Brainlabs into Google Ads.
They prompt you ahead of time for input that needs to be changed for the script to run successfully.
Screenshot by author, April 2022This script made me change:
- Email address (so it is sent to me at runtime).
- Quality Score Threshold (send me keywords with a Quality Score below a certain Quality Score of my choosing).
- Mark keywords as “true” (if you want to mark low QS keywords for easy identification).
- Pause keywords to “true” (if you want the script to pause for keywords below a threshold of your choice).
There are various pricing options out there, so no matter what your budget, you can find a script that can benefit from it and stay within your budget.
3. Leverage third-party software tools for advanced automation
As mentioned above, the explosion of the MarTech space has created many tools available to advertisers.
Optmyzr is a great tool if you want a hands-off experience when working with scripts.
Scripts are maintained and updated by the company. They also have dozens of Google Ads scripts to choose from.
Optmyzr does have a 14-day free trial, so you can try it out before making a plan.
analyze It’s another great tool if you’re looking for in-depth ad testing features and insights.
Similar to Optmyzr, Adalysis also has a 14-day free trial period before committing.
Other tools recommended by the PPC community include:
- get
- Ninja Cat report.
- shape.
There are many more, so I encourage you to research third-party tools from which you will benefit the most.
generalize
With all the tools available, it’s up to you to decide that automation isn’t something to be afraid of.
As a PPC professional, your job isn’t at risk of disappearing.
If anything, using automation to manage and grow your account allows you to be more strategic.
You’ll spend less time focusing on time-consuming tasks and more time analyzing incoming data.
This change in the way you work every day in PPC will ultimately drive your professional success.
You’ll acquire knowledge of how to use automation, coupled with your critical thinking skills, to make you a better marketer.
The combination of automation + people is the ultimate key to success.
As with any automation tool, it’s important to understand the “why” behind the automated task. Automation can only go so far based on the input you give the system to learn.
Automation alone cannot replace humans in marketing. Advertising always has a personal aspect. That’s where you come in.
If you’re not sure where to start, these three things can help you get out of the woods and find the “why.”
More resources:
Featured image: Laurent T/Shutterstock
