Set up automated rules

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. For example, if you want to boost your keyword bid any time your ad falls off the first page of results, you can set a rule for that. In addition, you can use automated rules to trigger emails, without taking any other action, when specific conditions occur.

Using automated rules can save you time by cutting down the need to monitor campaigns and make frequent, manual changes.

Note: Automated rules aren't supported for Hotel campaigns.

This article shows you an example of how to set up an automated rule.

Note: When scheduling a rule to run at a specific time, it's important to note that standard turnaround time for rules to run is within 2 hours after the conditions are triggered. For instance, if a rule is scheduled for 9 a.m., it may run anytime between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Instructions

Here's an example of how to create a rule to raise your budget for campaigns:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Go to the Campaigns, Ad groups, or Search keywords pages.
3. Click the 3-dot icon above the statistics table.
4. Select Create an automated rule.
5. Select Change budgets from the “Type of rule” drop-down.
6. Choose which campaigns to change budgets for (All enabled campaigns, All enabled and paused campaigns, or Select campaigns).
7. Under the “Action” drop-down select the action you want to trigger for your campaigns. You can choose to increase your budget by a percentage or specific amount. If you’d like to ensure you budget cost doesn’t exceed a certain amount for the billing period, you can set an optional upper budget limit.
8. Choose a condition from the "Choose condition" drop-down.
9. Click Add.
   Note: Repeat steps 6–9 if you’d like to add multiple actions to your automated rule.
10. Define the frequency of your rule.
11. Choose the type of email updates you’d like to receive on issues affecting your rule.
12. Name your rule.
13. Click Preview to ensure you've set up your rule to run the way you want. Previewing is just for verification and doesn't make any permanent changes to your account.
14. When you're done, click Save rule.

Tips and guidelines for using automated rules

General tips

Use limits

• Set minimum and maximum limits for your bids and budgets so they don't get too high or too low. Continuously raising bids can lead to unnecessarily high CPCs, while ongoing decreases could noticeably reduce your traffic.

Use enough data to make an informed decision

• To ensure changes are being made based on enough data, we recommend using a long enough timeframe or adding an additional requirement like "impressions > X" to your rule.

Preview

• Preview your rules before saving them so you understand how they'll affect your campaigns. Depending on your requirements and settings, you could be making significant changes to a large portion of your account, so it's important to double-check.

Be vigilant

• Try implementing a rule with a frequency of "one time" to monitor the actual impact. When you're comfortable with how your rules are working, you can set them up to run on a recurring schedule (for example, daily or weekly).

Configure rules appropriate for your business

• Be aware of intra-day and intra-week trends (for example, peak hour or weekday traffic could differ from non-peak hour and weekend traffic). Also be aware of how far away you are from your goals when setting magnitudes of changes (for example, changing in small increments of 5% when closer to your goal and large increments of 20% otherwise). All these issues can be addressed by using multiple rules in conjunction with one another.

Be smart when scheduling 2 rules that affect the same items

• What happens if you have 2 rules that affect the same items scheduled to run at the same time? Rules don't have a way to prioritize themselves, so even when you have 2 rules set to make concurrent changes to the same entities, both rules will run and make the specified changes to all entities. We recommend that you don't schedule multiple rules at the same time if they affect the same set of data. Instead, if you'd like to have 2 or more rules that make changes to the same part of your campaign, we suggest that you choose different times of the day for the rules to run.

If there are multiple rules on the same entities that are scheduled at the same time, our system will do its best to run them all, but there could be some errors resulting from trying to make conflicting changes at the same time. Setting different times for your rules not only helps avoid these errors, but it also serves as a way for you to prioritize your rules, so that the one scheduled earliest runs first.

Tips for rules that affect keyword bids

Setting up recurring bidding rules that operate on entire accounts or campaigns can be complicated. If they're applicable to your needs, you may want to try automatic bidding and Conversion Optimizer to help you manage your bids and budget. Here are some tips to help you configure automated rules that modify keyword bids and run on a regular basis.

Changing bids based on conversion data

• Measuring a conversion is a longer process relative to measuring a click or impression. A conversion can happen many days after a click, and is only recorded if it happens within your chosen conversion window. Conversions also occur much less often than clicks or impressions. If you create any rules based on conversions, we recommend that you use longer "using data from" time ranges to properly capture your conversions.

Changing bids based on clickthrough rate (CTR)

• Your ad's CTR depends on its position on the page. If you create a rule that lowers your bid if CTR is low, this could cause a negative spiral where the ad declines further down the page and your CTR falls lower accordingly.

Add automated rules for Performance Max campaigns

Through the Asset groups tab

1. In your Google Ads account, select a Performance Max campaign.
2. Click the Campaigns icon .
3. Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
4. Click Asset groups.
5. On the “Asset groups” page, click the table icon .
6. Select at least one asset group and click Edit in the menu at the top of the screen.
7. Click Create an automated rule.
8. Fill out the relevant information on the slideout drawer, including Name, Owner, Action, Apply to (selected asset groups), Conditions, Frequency, and Email results.
9. Click Save rule.

Through bulk actions

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon .
2. Click the Bulk actions drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Rules.
4. Click the plus button and select + Asset group rules.
5. Enter all the necessary details and click Save rule.

Add automated rules for App campaigns

Through the Ad groups tab

1. In your Google Ads account, select a App campaign.
2. Click the Campaigns icon .
3. Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
4. Click Ad groups.
5. Select atleast one Ad group and click Edit above the table.
6. Select Create an automated rule from the drop-down menu.
7. Fill out the relevant information including “Name”, “Action (Apply to, Conditions, Action)”, “Frequency”, and “Email results”.
8. Click Save rule.

Note: When you create an Ad group automated rule, App campaigns for engagement (ACe) is the only app campaign subtype that supports “Change ad group bids” in the drop-down menu under “Action”.

If your campaign subtype is either App campaigns for installs (ACi) or App campaigns for pre-registration (ACPre), and you try to set a specific bid or change the bid by a specific percentage, your automated rule will run but may bring the following results:

• No changes
• Finished with errors

Through bulk actions

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon .
2. Click the Bulk actions drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Rules.
4. Click the plus button and select + Ad group rules.
5. Fill out the relevant information including “Name”, “Action (Apply to, Conditions, Action)”, “Frequency”, and “Email results”.
6. Click Save rule.

Related links

• Common ways to use automated rules
• Manage your automated rules