Teaching Tuesday: Automation with Google AdWords

When it comes to campaign performance, one of the most time consuming matters is that of clicking around an account looking at various statistics to make informed decisions. Anybody who uses AdWords will appreciate this, but we’ve identified that most people aren’t aware of automated reporting in Google AdWords and it’s a huge time saver.
Open up your Google AdWords account and click to All Campaigns. Where you see the red +CAMPAIGN button, move your eyes to the right and look for the “Automate” drop down menu. Give this menu a click:

This area of Google AdWords unlocks so much potential! One of the easiest areas to get started with is “Send email when..”, which allows you to receive email notifications when various criteria are achieved. For example, you could receive a notification if the bounce rate goes up, X number of conversions are achieved and so the list goes on. We encourage you to spend time in this section as it will save you hours of account management. Not only will it save you hours, but it can also save you a great deal of money which could then be used to channel into performing campaigns.
Now, if you look at the image above you’ll see that there are many other options, such as pausing campaigns based on specific criteria, changing your daily bid and so the list goes on. Imagine being able to pause a campaign when certain criteria are met? Perhaps you have a business that may only handle X number of leads on a daily basis, so when that many leads are achieved the campaign is paused to ensure you’re not paying for nothing – simple example, but think about that for a moment and you’ll see just how flexible this could be and how it will work to your advantage. How about lowering the cost per click / bid based on various criteria.. let’s say your advert has had 50 clicks in a day and the bounce rate is getting rather high, reduce the clicks or pause the campaign to avoid wasting money, then adjust things accordingly to perhaps increase quality score.
Here is an example of pausing an advert if the bounce rate goes higher than 40% on a day by lunch time:

This really is only the tip of the iceberg. PPC Hero wrote a good post on 8 email alerts that you should be using and it’s worth reading through them if for no other reason than inspiration.
Let us know if you use any automated processes and/or scripts to manage your PPC account?