Automatic rules in Google Ads: why are they needed and how to set them up

Google Ads is an extremely popular and widely demanded tool in the field of digital marketing. According to the latest data, this service is visited by about 250 million users monthly. And such figures are not accidental, because any advertiser can get excellent results from their campaigns if they learn how to effectively manage this platform. In particular, today over 65% of all small businesses operating in the B2B sector attract their clients through Google Ads, and over 60% of Internet marketers use this platform in their work. At the same time, the average conversion rate for search companies here is 4.4%, while for media - 0.57%, and the click-through rate was 3% for absolutely all areas. These are the figures that clearly show the effectiveness of using Google Ads in practice.

But the main difficulty here is that working with this service will also require a lot of time and effort, human resources. And for the most part, we are talking about tasks that must be solved almost daily, and be of an ongoing nature. And here such a solution as automatic Google Ads rules comes to the rescue. This is something that can significantly reduce the cost of time and resources, but at the same time will allow you to get an excellent result in practice. Automatic rules offer modern marketers flexible and effective management of advertising campaigns. You can delegate some of the routine processes to the program itself, while the main efforts will be focused on key business tasks and processes.

In today's review, we will dwell in detail on what Google Ads automatic rules are and when it is advisable to use them in practice, we will talk about the limitations that exist here. We will briefly get acquainted with the main types of automatic rules that can be set on the service, we will provide step-by-step instructions for their settings. We will provide a number of tips that will help you use automatic rules correctly, as well as several application ideas along with example settings. The information provided will help you navigate this tool and learn how to use it in the process of optimizing advertising campaigns as correctly as possible.

What are Google Ads automatic rules

Automatic rules in Google Ads are a set of conditions and the actions themselves that you, as an advertiser, can set for your campaigns. As soon as such conditions subsequently appear, the system will automatically launch the corresponding actions, that is, without your participation. This solution has a number of more than insignificant advantages, in particular:

• More than tangible time savings This is ensured by the automation of similar and routine tasks Alternatively, you can set rules for starting and stopping an advertising campaign using a special timer. That is, a marketer will be able to throw this issue out of their own schedule and focus on more strategic issues.
• Guaranteed accuracy of execution. This is due to the fact that when using automated rules, the human factor is minimized. The completed preliminary settings will work around the clock. It also eliminates the possibility of confusing projects, which would be relevant in cases where several tasks are being solved simultaneously.
• Full control over the schedule of advertising campaigns will be in the hands of Internet marketers. If you wish, you can choose any time of day, day of the week. This is what will allow you to optimize your advertising costs, and will also significantly simplify the work in the case when they are carried out with different countries and regions, including those located in different time zones.
• The ability to instantly respond to any fluctuations in the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Despite the fact that some complex changes in rates and advertising budgets cannot be automated using rules, you will still be able to identify problem areas and make timely adjustments, that is, before all this negatively affects your advertising campaign as a whole. Alternatively, you can identify keywords that are no longer working.
• Simple and fast scalability. This advantage will certainly be appreciated in practice by fairly large advertising agencies, reputable brands and all those who are faced with the mass launch of advertising campaigns in their practice. Thanks to automation, it will be possible to use the same settings for different ads, optimizing work and eliminating the need to increase the workload.

It should also be understood that automatic Google Ads rules are what will improve the process of making critical decisions, including those related to changes in the advertising budget, stopping strategies that have shown poor results in practice. In most cases, such decisions can only be made based on the analysis of large volumes of data, expert assessment. And this is something that cannot be automated in any way, including with the help of rules. That is, it can be said with confidence that automatic rules in Google Ads are this is something that can automate routine processes, but the solution of strategically important tasks should still be performed by experienced marketers.

In what conditions is it most appropriate to use automated Google Ads rules

To understand whether it is worth using automated Google Ads rules directly for you, you need to comprehensively assess the situation, take into account the specifics of your business. Now we will highlight a number of works where the application of this technique will show you the most effective in practice. In particular, we are talking about solving such problems as:

1. Managing seasonal promotions. In such situations, it is often necessary to launch advertising that will be limited in time. That is, automatic switching on and off in this case will significantly simplify these works.
2. Control over the effectiveness of changing rates. In this case, a number of criteria are set, based on which the optimal bid price will be determined at a given time, which will prevent excessive budget spending, and will also be automatically increased or decreased.
3. Tracking how marketing activities work. Alternatively, it may be necessary to pause impressions for those queries where the cost of conversion will already exceed pre-set limits. Here you will just need to specify the appropriate figure, and automated solutions will take full control over this task.
4. Monitoring advertising budget spending. Anyone who has already worked with advertising probably knows that monitoring the costs of launching ads is one of the most difficult and important tasks. Thanks to automated Google Ads rules, you can set up control over current expenses and make future planning more transparent and effective. That is, you yourself specify the parameters under which the advertising budget will increase or, conversely, decrease. This solution will be especially convenient when you launch large-scale shopping campaigns.
5. Constant control over the positions of your ads. In this case, the automation process will look like this: each day will begin with the Google Ads algorithm checking the current bid value and comparing it with the predicted cost of an ad appearing on the first page of the search results or with the bid for placing an ad at the top. As a result of the information received, changes will be automatically made to the size of the set bid, which will guarantee that you will take the desired position. This rule can be set up for different periods of time, such as morning, lunch or evening, since the activity of the user audience is constantly changing throughout the day and there is no point in spending money on impressions when your target users will simply not see the ad. That is, you can set up a very flexible response to bidding with an accompanying constant fixation of a decrease or increase in the bid.

These are just the most common tasks that Google Ads automated rules can help solve. But along with the wide functionality, there are also a number of limitations, which should definitely be taken into account in practice.

Limitations in using Google Ads autorules

In this case, we are talking about limitations that apply to the number of automatic rules that each advertiser can create in their Google Ads profile. This is done by the system specifically to minimize abuse, as well as to ensure the effective work of absolutely all users. That is, everyone will be in the same conditions. In this case, you need to consider the following:

• the total number of automated rules in Google Ads cannot exceed 500;
• in one rule, you can set no more than 5 actions that must be performed automatically in the future;
• per rule, there can be no more than 5 conditions;
• in one day, you can make a maximum of 50 adjustments, edits;
• in one day, the same rule can be launched no more than 24 times.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that such limits can, in principle, change and directly depend on the features of your account and a number of related factors. But if you need, as an option, to create more than 500 rules, you will have to resort to alternative options, including working from several accounts. We will tell you how to organize something like this and not fall under restrictions from the system closer to the end of the review.

We would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the automation process itself, including the use of the rules that we are talking about at the moment, are solutions that require extreme caution. In particular, it is necessary to regularly monitor the effectiveness of the specified rules to be sure that they work as correctly as possible and achieve the set goals.

Types of automatic rules that can be set in Google Ads

Today, Google Ads users can use different automated rules, now significantly simplifying and speeding up the execution of everyday tasks that they face. In particular, these can be:

1. Campaign rules. They are designed to activate and suspend advertising campaigns for a while, make changes to their budget. Here we are also talking about the ability to set up automatic mail sending. The main task that this rule faces is This is a review of all existing campaigns and the suspension of those with too low conversion. That is, after setting it up, the advertising that does not give good results will automatically stop, thereby preventing the empty spending of the budget. In parallel with this, you can also additionally invest money in those ads that, on the contrary, have shown themselves well. The campaign budget in Google Ads can be increased by a percentage or by a specific amount. The main parameters for the settings here can be a mention of checking the budget at a certain time of day, increasing the budget on certain days of the week, focusing on user activity, pausing the campaign if clicks on ads exceed daily (monthly) limits or if the allocated budget is exceeded.
2. Rules for placing ads. Based on this rule, you can automate the process of identifying ineffective campaigns, as well as pausing them for a while. In practice, it is used to activate and deactivate advertising. Additionally, we recommend setting up sending ads via email newsletter to receive timely notifications about the performance of your campaigns and the suspension of ads that show poor results.
3. Keyword rules. Based on this, you can identify and deactivate those keywords that do not provide conversion actions. To set it up, you will need to analyze the effectiveness of keywords over a certain period of time in order to determine the key parameters for setting this rule. As a result, you will be able to activate and pause keywords, changing their bids, as well as the final URLs of the keywords. Here we would like to draw your attention to the fact that almost every niche has a set of keywords that rarely give clicks, but at the same time play a key role in displaying in high positions. That is, you need to understand which of these phrases will be relevant in your case and not add them to this rule.
4. Ad group rules. Here we are talking about rules that allow you to influence ad groups in accordance with the specified parameters. With its help, you can activate and deactivate ad groups, change bids for them, and completely disable them in case of poor results. That is, in this case, you are not influencing one separate advertisement, but an entire group. With the help of this rule, you can optimize advertising campaigns and avoid budget overspending, remove expenses where there is no effect.
5. Thematic rules. With their help, you can select the most correct topic for launching media campaigns in the Google search engine. Here you can view all existing topics and increase rates automatically each time when certain requirements are met. These rules can be used to activate and deactivate topics, make adjustments to CPC and CPM rates, as well as change the rates themselves, etc. The effect of this rule is aimed at reaching potential customers. Alternatively, if the system detects a low number of conversions (the maximum indicator for this is set by you in the rule settings), it will automatically pause the corresponding topic.
6. Media keyword rules. It is worth setting it up if your advertising campaign is working well enough and it is time to scale it by adding media keywords in the corresponding Google campaigns. In addition, it is also possible to pause them, make adjustments to the bid for media keywords. In this case, you can give permission to the Google search engine to activate media keywords after your advertising campaign receives the first thousand impressions.
7. Audience rules. They provide significant assistance in filtering targeting for the target audience in order to determine the possibility and feasibility of using automatic rules in a particular case. With its help, you can pause or re-enable the audience, change the maximum CPC and CPM rates, and make related adjustments to them. That is, this rule will help to identify clients who will ensure high efficiency of launched advertising campaigns and those who will simply pass by your ads.
8. Gender rules. Such rules will allow you to launch advertisements aimed at men or women, that is, the category that will be more relevant for your business. Alternatively, if we are talking about cosmetics, then it is better to direct such advertising to women, and if you sell tires, then it will be more appropriate to direct advertising to men. As in other groups of rules, here you can also change the bid adjustments maximum CPC and CPM bid rates. By activating and detecting the "gender" option in a certain ad group, you can exclude an unnecessary category if the number of clicks here is less than the parameter you set.
9. Age range rules. From the name alone, we can judge that with the help of this rule you can direct your advertising campaigns to people of a certain age. Among other things, here you can also change bid adjustments, set other maximum CPC and CPM bid rates. That is, here you can automate the process of directing your advertising to an audience interested in your product or service.
10. Parental status rules. This rule will be relevant for launching advertising for stores that sell goods for children, for parents. Alternatively, this could be children's clothing and footwear, accessories, strollers, furniture for children, various transport for children, toys and much more. That is, by activating such a rule, you can exclude the display of your ads to people who do not have children. It is also possible to flexibly set up rates and make the necessary adjustments to them.
11. Placement rules. These rules are designed to make adjustments to ads that will be displayed in certain geolocations. This allows you to optimize those media campaigns of the Google Ads platform that have proven to be ineffective in practice. In particular, in this case, you will be able to pause and re-enable the location for displaying ads, adjust the maximum bid in CPC and CPM, etc. This rule will automatically start working after the number of clicks on a certain ad exceeds the indicator you set (it is recommended not to exceed 200 clicks). And the point here is that you will be able to attract as many representatives of your target audience as possible, focusing on the geolocation where most of them are located territorially.
12. Range of income rules. This rule is designed to group your target audience based on their income indicators, that is, you can select the group of potential buyers who can afford your goods or services from a financial point of view and then set up your advertising campaigns for them. It is also possible to change the maximum CPC and CPM rates, make adjustments to the rates.

In practice, you can use one or more of these rules, focusing on the specifics of your business and the type of advertising campaign that is being launched at a given time.

Setting up automatic rules in Google Ads: step-by-step instructions

If you are just starting to work with Google Ads, in particular, want to connect automatic rules, then there are a number of nuances that you need to know and take into account in your work. But the first thing we want to draw your attention to is the correctness of the basic settings. The stability of the subsequent operation of your rules and the results you expect directly depend on them. To avoid mistakes at this stage, follow our instructions:

1. Log in to your Google Ads account. Here, in the left vertical menu, find the option “Tools and settings”. From the list that opens, initially go to the “Bulk actions” section, and here click on the “Rules” button. Now you are in the section where all the relevant settings will be performed.
   
2. Click on the icon with the blue “+” sign to set a new rule. Here you will see a list of all the automatic rules that we described above. From all the proposed options, you choose the one that you want to use at a given time. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that subsequent actions will directly depend on which category of rules you would choose for yourself at a given time. We will describe the subsequent settings using the example of such a group as “Campaign Rules”.
   
3. To set up a specific rule, you need to enter a clear name. Let's assume that at the moment you want to pause your ad in case the allocated budget is overspent. That is, in this case, we write a phrase such as "Stop campaigns when overspent". Now you need to specify which elements of your account this rule will be applied to in the future. Here you can mark absolutely all running advertising campaigns or select one, two, three absolutely any. In the next window, select the action that will execute your rules. In our case, it will be "Pause", but there are many options to choose from. We also recommend that you provide for sending an email with a corresponding notification, which will allow you to respond to the situation as quickly as possible. Here you can choose from 5 different actions per rule, which we have already indicated above. Here you must specify the sequence of execution of all these actions, in which your rule will be triggered. It is also important to specify how often the system will check this rule. In particular, you can specify not only the frequency of repetition, but also the time of such a check, as well as set the optimal time interval for analyzing the received data.
   
4. Check all previously made settings to ensure that they are correct. In particular, you need to click on the "Check rule" button. This is a kind of testing that will show how the system works taking into account your rule. If you see that everything is correct and beautiful, you can click on the “Save rule” button.
   

This completes all the basic settings. But we want to draw your attention to the fact that even before doing all this work, you must make sure that you have enough data to operate the rules that you want to configure. Alternatively, you have statistics on impressions, conversions or clicks for the last week or month, that you know the cost of each target action, understand the effectiveness of certain keywords, you have information on the use of the advertising budget. It is also important to take into account the seasonality of the business in order to get the most comprehensive and clear picture. In any case, it is better to start working with the simplest rules, and then you will be able to expand them, supplement them, and complicate them. It is also very important to check the efficiency of the settings you have specified from time to time, and also make adjustments to them if necessary.

No other actions are required from you at this stage. By connecting automatic Google Ads rules, you will be able to optimize the process of managing your advertising campaigns and increase its efficiency, since the rules will work around the clock.

Additional recommendations for using automatic rules in Google Ads

When thinking about connecting automatic rules in Google Ads, weigh all the pros and cons of such a decision. The following recommendations will help you make the right and informed choice:

• Automatic rules in Google Ads should be configured only when there is a real need for this. That is, your actions should be fully justified. There is no need to automate the work that is not needed at the moment. It is also very important to think through the general logic of your rule and make sure that everything here is as reasonable, correct, and justified as possible.
• Make sure that you have all the necessary information that you will need at the stage of performing the settings. Collecting this data can take quite a long time, so it is better to do such work in advance.
• When setting the cost per click and advertising budget, it is important to specify not exact figures, but the upper and lower limits. Thanks to this, you will be able to ensure maximum flexibility of your advertising campaigns, but at the same time avoid uncontrolled and inappropriate spending of the budget, and maintain a stable flow of user audience.
• Do not set cost and budget adjustments too often. Too high a deviation coefficient can also cause uncontrolled spending of money and sharp jumps in the performance of your ads.
• To be able to adjust click rates based on conversion data, set a longer time interval. Thanks to this, the accuracy of conversion calculations will increase.
• Think over the schedule that works best for you. Each of the rules should be distinguished from others by the time of operation. Contradictions between them should also be excluded.
• Bids for keywords in accordance with the CTR of the ad should be adjusted with the utmost caution. The point is that this parameter has a significant impact on the ad position in the search results. If it turns out that your advertisement moves closer to the bottom of the page, then with a high degree of probability the CTR will change.

Now we will give several examples and ideas for using automatic rules in Google Ads, and also tell you how to set them up.

Several options for using automatic rules in Google Ads

Practice shows that most automatic rules in Google Ads are used to perform fairly simple, but at the same time important operations that any specialist who has launched an advertising campaign encounters. It is in such conditions that this technology shows maximum results, is highly efficient and reliable. The mistakes that marketers most often encounter in practice are mainly related to a lack of understanding of the process itself and the potential that is hidden in such rules. Now we will give 3 examples of practical use of automatic rules in Google Ads, which will allow you to better understand this issue and, perhaps, use some of them in your work.

Automatic rule for disabling expensive keywords

In this case, the main goal is to automatically disable those keywords that will exceed the specified threshold of the cost per conversion. Thanks to this, you can optimize the costs of the advertising campaign and increase its effectiveness. Here you will need to select an action such as “Pause keywords”, then specify whether it will apply to all campaigns or only to some. Then we set the conditions, in particular the cost of conversion (let's say $5), total costs per keyword ($10), clicks, frequency of checking, and the time interval that will be taken into account during data analysis (30 days).

After saving all the settings, the rules start working, that is, the effectiveness of your keywords in any search campaigns is automatically monitored. Three key conditions will be checked:

1. The cost of conversion is higher than the threshold you set at $5.
2. More than $10 was spent on one keyword, which will avoid premature disabling of those keys that give good results in practice.
3. The keyword received more than 200 clicks, which is necessary to obtain a good sample, which will form the basis for making the most correct decision.

The rule will be triggered daily, but data for the last 30 days will be collected for analysis. Thanks to this, even long-term trends and seasonal fluctuations will be taken into account.

Automatic rule that notifies about low quality of keywords

This rule is set when you are faced with the task of identifying problematic keywords and making appropriate adjustments to them. In this case, select the rule type “Keyword”, and then select the action “Send email” to receive a newsletter when such words are detected and specify for which companies you want to do this. As conditions, specify quality indicators, number of impressions and frequency. As a result, you will create a rule, thanks to which the system will automatically check all active keywords and send you notifications every time something is found among them that matches the characteristics you specified. You should understand that low-quality keywords can lead to excessive spending of the advertising budget and lower your ads to lower positions. That is, thanks to the connection of this tool you will be able to:

1. Identify problematic keywords.
2. See the overall structure of advertising campaigns and individual ad groups.
3. Delete or suspend those keywords whose quality turned out to be insufficient.

Automatic rule that optimizes the daily advertising budget

This rule is quite specific, so it can only be launched after a preliminary comprehensive study. If you make mistakes here, you will most likely make the entire process of managing the budget of your advertising campaign completely unmanageable. That is, it is better to start with only one ad, using it as a test option. And only if the results meet your expectations, you can scale it to other campaigns. But in any case, you need to monitor the results very carefully and disable this rule as soon as you notice an excessive increase in expenses.

The main purpose of setting such an automatic rule is to increase daily expenses on those advertising campaigns that are most effective in practice. That is, this way you can increase the number of conversions. As key conditions for the task, you will need to enter the cost of one conversion, the total budget, the daily budget and the number of conversions made on a given day. The rule must be executed daily. You also immediately indicate by what amount or what percentage the program can increase the budget if the previously specified conditions are met.

Let's summarize

Automated Google Ads rules are what will help you get the maximum effect from the advertising campaigns you have launched. But you should not rely on them completely, as this will not be able to completely replace manual management of your account. To keep the entire process under control, it is important to regularly check the specified rules, make sure that they work correctly. It would also be a good idea to test different ad options and rule types to understand which of them work best in your case and then place your main bet on them.

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