Manually edit template-generated entities

For any item that a template generates, you can set Search Ads 360 to manually manage the item.

For example, after a Template generates a keyword, you can stop templates from managing the keyword. You do this by changing the keyword's template management status. The next time Search Ads 360 applies templates to your feed data, the keyword remains unchanged even if changes in your feed data would've caused Search Ads 360 to activate, update, or remove the keyword.

On this page

Remove or restore management by template
Edits that automatically stop management by template
Parent and child items
Create items manually

Remove or restore management by template

You can use the Search Ads 360 UI to remove or restore template management of items.

Note: In a future version of Search Ads 360, you’ll be able to remove or restore template management using bulksheets.

Remove management by template

Sign in to your Search Ads 360 account.
Navigate to a sub-manager account.
Select the Campaigns, Ad groups, Ads, Keywords or other options for a page that could contain items generated from a template.
To display a column that identifies whether page instances are "Managed" or "Unmanaged", do the following:
1. Select Columns above the reporting table.
2. Expand the "All columns" panel. Under "Attributes", select the checkbox next to "Template management status".
3. Select Apply.
To remove template management status for a "Managed" item, click the pencil icon next to "Unmanaged" in the column.
Select Save.

Restore management by template

Sign in to your Search Ads 360 account.
Navigate to a sub-manager account.
In the navigation menu on the left, select Templates and then Excluded entities.
Select the checkbox next to each entity you want to restore.
Review the changes in the confirmation window and select Confirm.
1. The status of resumed entities will update on the next evaluation of the template.

Edits that automatically stop management by template

In addition to explicitly stopping items from being managed by templates, the following edits automatically stop management by template.

You can restore template management for any generated item.

Note: Template management will update the settings in the left side of the table if template management is set to "Yes".

Important: If the template management status is set to "Unmanaged", the template won't be able to manage or update the campaigns.

Item	These edits stop template management	These edits don't stop template management and aren't overridden by template management
Campaign	Status settings Name Targeting settings* If you change the name: The campaign template no longer pauses or removes the campaign as feed data changes. The template that generated the campaign won't create a new campaign with the original name. Important: If the template management status is set to "Unmanaged", the template won't be able to manage or update the campaigns. Ad group, ad, keyword, and other templates continue to create and manage items within the campaign (even if you paused or renamed it). Note: It’s required for you to declare for each template you create whether or not your Google Ads campaigns will promote political ads that will run in the EU, since Google no longer permits political ads to run in the EU. After you've set your template declaration, any subsequent changes to the declaration in a managed campaign will change the campaign's status to unmanaged. The initial declaration in a template-managed campaign won’t affect the campaign's management status. If you manually update the location targets of a campaign, you will need to re-declare the campaign.	Budget Start and stop dates Keyword matching Bid strategies URL templates and custom parameters Labels Sitelink extensions Device bid adjustments
Ad group	Status settings Name Targeting settings* If you change the name: The ad group template no longer pauses or removes the ad group as feed data changes. The template that generated the ad group won't create a new ad group with the original name. Ad, keyword, and other templates continue to create and manage items within the ad group (even if you paused or renamed it).	Max CPC URL templates and custom parameters Labels Device bid adjustments
Ad	Status settings Ad copy Destination URL and URL path URL template Search Ads 360 keeps track of the text ad or ad copy that was edited and doesn't generate a new ad. It updates an existing ad, allowing metrics to be carried over. For more details on which advertising platforms support this functionality, refer to this Help Center article.	Custom parameters Device bid adjustments Labels
Keyword	Status settings Landing page URL Changing keyword text or match type removes the old keyword and creates a new one. Search Ads 360 keeps track of the keyword that was edited and doesn't generate a new keyword with the old settings, even if the templates would normally generate it.	Max CPC Final URL template Labels
Negative keyword	Status settings Keyword text or match type	Not applicable
Sitelink	Status settings Sitelink text, description 1, and description 2 Sitelink URL URL template Mobile preferred	Account

* If changes are made to the targeting settings, it would stop template management for the targeting settings and not to the campaigns or ad groups.

Parent and child items

Template management status is independent of parents and children. When a keyword is unmanaged, if its items are no longer there, the keyword isn't removed. However, if the parent ad group's items are no longer there, the ad group is removed, thus effectively removing the keyword. Likewise, when a campaign is unmanaged, this doesn't mean its child ad groups are also unmanaged. If the campaign's items are no longer there, the ad groups are removed since the ad groups are still managed.

While template management status is independent of parents and children, evaluation eligibility due to a paused template status is not. If you pause a parent template, it'll cause the associated child templates to no longer be eligible for evaluation. For example, if you’d like to keep template-generated campaigns unchanged, but would like the child ad groups to still be evaluated and updated by their template, the best course of action would be to leave both the campaign template and the ad group template active, but set the campaigns you don't want to be altered to "Unmanaged".

Learn how to Enable, pause, or remove templates.

Create items manually

You can manually create items such as ads or keywords in template-generated ad groups. Search Ads 360 doesn't attempt to manage those items, but if feed changes call for the items' parent to be removed, the manually created items will be removed along with the parent. Learn how to interact with existing manual campaigns and other items.

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