Maximise the effectiveness of automated rules on Google Ads and learn how to optimise your campaigns, save time, and improve your ad performance.
Martin Langborg Hansen
Within an agency setting, we tend to use automated rules in Google Ads to a limited extent, as we monitor various accounts daily and are therefore better equipped to optimise in greater detail. However, if you are managing your own Google Ads, automated rules can help you set some basic parameters for your account, saving you time and keeping your account running according to the effective principles you put in place.
This can also be an excellent solution if you wish to make changes during weekends, holidays, or at times of day when you may not be available.
An automated rule is a condition you can set up for most elements in Google Ads. This could be a campaign, ad group, or keyword, but you can also set rules for audiences, demographics, and many other parameters.
With these rules, Google Ads will automatically carry out an action based on a trigger you have defined. In the set-up, you also determine how often your account should apply this rule – for example, once every night.
For instance, a rule can automatically increase bids by 5% for all keywords in one or several ad groups that are, on average, below position 3 in Google’s search results. This rule can run once a week, continually optimising keywords that are ranking low.
There are two ways to set up a rule:
1. Go to Tools > Bulk Actions > Rules
2. Add a rule at the desired level using the blue “+”
Further down in the article, we will look more closely at the actual set-up of the rule.
1. Find the menu here and select “How to create an automated rule”
Here you will automatically create the rule at the level you are on – for example, for campaigns, ad groups, or keywords.
With these rules, you have the opportunity to save a lot of time. There are many ways to optimise, far more than I can cover here. Here are three examples of effective rules that can save you time:
Here you can see a practical example of how to set up one of these rules
1. Select “Rules for keywords”
2. Select rule type “Pause keywords”
Note that this is also where you can activate keywords, adjust bids, and get an email notification if you wish.
3. Now set the parameters for your rule
Here you can choose all keywords or select keywords from specific campaigns or ad groups.
Under conditions, choose Cost / conv. and set your limit for the maximum value that suits your business.
There are endless options in the conditions, and you can spend a bit of time working out what to focus on. Once it is set up, it runs automatically going forward, so you only need to check your campaigns occasionally.
Finally, you decide how often your rule should run, whether to receive an email in case of errors, and you have the option to preview before saving your rule.
Once you start using rules, you will quickly see how the system works.
It can be a good idea to set up a rule for a specific campaign you are running. For example, if you have a summer sale with 50% off, you can set up a rule for when this sale should no longer be advertised.
If you have set up individual ads or campaigns in Google Ads for your sale, I recommend labelling them with a tag. You can set up rules based on your tags, so you can automate when all campaigns linked to your sale should be paused.
This way, you do not need to search for each individual campaign, but can end your summer campaign automatically.
If you have a campaign for “Winter boots”, for example, it will make the most sense to concentrate your ad spend on this campaign during the winter. Here, you can set up a rule to lower your bids from March to August and increase them again in the colder months. In some cases, it may even make more sense to pause the campaign entirely and reactivate it later.
The same of course applies to other seasonal types, holidays, or events.
Often, you will look at your ad scheduling in Google Ads to adjust this. But if you want a more dynamic approach, you can also automatically adjust your account based on the time of day using rules.
For example, if you have a shop, it might not make sense to advertise outside of opening hours. Here, you can use rules to get Google Ads to update your advertising automatically day-to-day or week-to-week.
As with the previous point, there may be various times when it makes sense to allocate more ad spend to your campaigns. Depending on your industry, demand may of course rise and fall for many reasons.
Therefore, it may make sense for some to set up rules for their budgets. However, note that you cannot do this for shared budgets, which are typically used to manage an account.
But if you have a particular campaign that converts better than others, you can automatically add more budget to it during the day if it runs out. That way, you do not have to monitor it yourself every day.
Last but not least, you can receive an email notification after a specific trigger. For example, you can set up a rule to notify you if a particular campaign has spent more than X pounds, or if it has achieved more than X conversions, etc. This allows you to quickly get an overview and make changes to your campaigns as needed.
Unfortunately, it is not all smooth sailing when it comes to automated rules. You still need to ensure your bid adjustments do not get out of hand in case of errors.
Be careful not to make changes that generally affect all your campaigns or keywords at once. Monitor the effectiveness of your rules over a period before making larger changes via rules. If you use percentage increases in bids or budgets, do not apply more than a 5% increase at a time, as things can escalate quickly – especially if you are running rules daily. If you are running daily rules, it can also be a good idea not to include data from more than the previous day.
As mentioned earlier, it is not possible to use automated rules on shared budgets, which is important to keep in mind. You cannot make budget changes via rules if you have set up a shared budget covering several campaigns. In contrast, with individual campaign budgets, you can optimise using automated rules.
If you need further assistance or advice on automated rules, do not hesitate to contact us. We are happy to help with any questions.
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