Manually edit generated campaigns

For any item generated by a template, you can tell Search Ads 360 that you want to manage the item manually. For example, after Search Ads 360 generates a keyword, you can stop inventory management of the keyword. You can then change the keyword's status. The next time Search Ads 360 applies templates to your inventory data, the keyword remains unchanged even if changes in your inventory data would have caused Search Ads 360 to activate, update, or remove the keyword.

Edits that automatically stop inventory management

In addition to explicitly stopping inventory management for an item, the following types of edits automatically stop inventory management:

Item	These edits stop inventory management	These edits do not stop inventory management and are not overridden by inventory management
Campaign	Status Name If you change the name: The campaign template no longer pauses or removes the campaign as inventory data changes. The template that generated the campaign will not create a new campaign with the original name, but other templates may create a campaign by the original name. Ad group, ad, keyword, and other templates continue to create and manage items within the campaign (even if you paused or renamed it).	Budget and budget delivery method Start and stop dates Ad rotation and keyword matching Bid strategies or campaign goal Targeting settings, such as languages, networks, and bid adjustments URL templates and custom parameters Labels Location targets and adpative location targets Settings for applying sitelinks
Ad group	Status Name If you change the name: The ad group template no longer pauses or removes the ad group as inventory data changes. The template that generated the ad group will not create a new ad group with the original name, but other templates may create a ad group by 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).	Default CPC Bid strategy Targeting settings, such as remarketing and device bid adjustments URL templates and custom parameters Labels
Ad	Status Ad copy Destination URL and URL path In some engines, when you update ad copy or ad URLs, the engine deletes the old ad and creates a new one. Metrics aren't carried over to the new ad. This applies to ads that were generated by inventory templates as well: updating ad copy will delete the old ad and create a new one. Search Ads 360 keeps track of the ad that was edited and does not generate a new ad with the old copy, even if the templates would normally generate it.	URL template and custom parameters Device preference Labels
Keyword	Status Landing page URL Param 1, 2, or 3 Changing keyword text or match type 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 does not generate a new keyword with the old settings, even if the templates would normally generate it.	Max CPC URL template and custom parameters Labels
Negative keyword	Status Keyword text or match type	Not applicable
Location target	Status Targeted locations	Not applicable
Google Ads sitelink	Status Sitelink text, description 1, and description 2 Sitelink URL URL template Mobile preferred	Account level extension

 

You can restore inventory management for any generated item.

Note that Inventory Management will update the attributes in the left side of the table if Inventory management enabled is set to Yes.

Parent and child items

When you stop inventory management, the item's parent and children aren't affected. For example, if you stop inventory management for a keyword but changes in your inventory data call for the removal of the ad group that contains the keyword, Search Ads 360 will remove the ad group and the keyword. Likewise, if you stop inventory management for a campaign and changes in your inventory call for the removal of all items in the campaign, you'll end up with an empty campaign.

Create items manually

You can manually create items such as ads or keywords in generated ad groups. Search Ads 360 does not attempt to manage those items, but if inventory changes call for the removal of the items' parent, the manually created items will be removed along with the parent. See how an inventory plan interacts with manual campaigns and other items.

View how many items are removed from inventory management

To see the number of items an inventory plan was unable to generate or update an item because the item already exists and is not under inventory management:

1. Navigate to an advertiser.

   Steps for navigating to an advertiser

   1. Click the navigation bar to display navigation options.

   2. In the "Agency" list, click on the agency that contains the advertiser. You can search for an agency by name or scroll through the list.

   3. In the "Advertiser" list, click on the advertiser.

   4. Click Apply or press the Enter key.

   Search Ads 360 displays the advertiser page, which contains data for all of the advertiser’s engine accounts.

2. In the left navigation panel, click Templates.
3. Click the Inventory plans tab.
4. Click the name of an inventory plan.
5. In the Inventory templates reporting table, the Generated items column contains "blocked" if a template was unable to generate or update an item because the item already exists and is not under inventory management.
   
   In the following example, the "Loafer type" ad group template was blocked from creating 10 ad groups because the ad groups already exist and aren't being managed by the inventory plan:
   

Remove or restore inventory management

You can use the Search Ads 360 UI or bulksheets to remove or restore inventory management.

Use the Search Ads 360 UI to remove or restore inventory management

1. Navigate to an advertiser or lower scope.

   Steps for navigating to an advertiser

   1. Click the navigation bar to display navigation options.

   2. In the "Agency" list, click on the agency that contains the advertiser. You can search for an agency by name or scroll through the list.

   3. In the "Advertiser" list, click on the advertiser.

   4. Click Apply or press the Enter key.

   Search Ads 360 displays the advertiser page, which contains data for all of the advertiser’s engine accounts.

2. In the left navigation panel, click All accounts.

3. Select the Campaigns, Ad groups, Ads, Keywords or other tab that could contain items generated from an inventory template.

4. Optionally create a filter to display only items generated by inventory templates:

   1. Click Filter in the toolbar above the performance summary graph.

   2. From the + Attribute or metric list, select Inventory template. Then select the Has a value checkbox.

   3. Click Apply filters.

   Don't see the "Inventory template" filter?
   Make sure you're on a tab that contains items Search Ads 360 can generate with inventory templates. For example, the filter doesn't appear if you're on the Product groups tab because inventory templates don't generate product groups.

5. Add the Inventory management enabled column to see if an item is currently managed by an inventory plan.

6. In the reporting table, select the checkbox next to the items you want to remove from or restore to inventory management.

7. Above the reporting table, click Edit ▼ and select Change inventory management status.

8. In the Change inventory management status panel, select Disable inventory management to remove the selected items from inventory management, or select Enable inventory management to restore inventory management back to previously generated items.
   
   Learn more about options for scheduling this edit to occur later, to recur periodically, or to revert your change at a specific time.

9. Click Save.
   Above the reporting table, Search Ads 360 reports the progress of the bulk edit.

To cancel an edit that's in progress:

1. Click More details to see the Bulk operations page.
2. In the Results column click Cancel.

After Search Ads 360 cancels the edit, click Download report in the Results column to see which edits were fully processed before cancellation.

Use bulksheets to remove or restore inventory management

If you manually remove an item, you can't use bulksheets to restore inventory management. Instead, use the Search Ads 360 UI to restore inventory management. For example, if you change a generated campaign's status to Removed, use the Search Ads 360 UI to restore inventory management.

1. Navigate to an advertiser or lower scope.

   Steps for navigating to an advertiser

   1. Click the navigation bar to display navigation options.

   2. In the "Agency" list, click on the agency that contains the advertiser. You can search for an agency by name or scroll through the list.

   3. In the "Advertiser" list, click on the advertiser.

   4. Click Apply or press the Enter key.

   Search Ads 360 displays the advertiser page, which contains data for all of the advertiser’s engine accounts.

2. In the left navigation panel, click All accounts.

3. Select the Campaigns, Ad groups, Ads, Keywords or other tab that could contain items generated from an inventory template.

4. Optionally create a filter to display only items generated by inventory templates:

   Don't see the "Inventory template" filter?
   Make sure you're on a tab that contains items Search Ads 360 can generate with inventory templates. For example, the filter doesn't appear if you're on the Product groups tab because inventory templates don't generate product groups.

   1. Click Filter in the toolbar above the performance summary graph.

   2. From the + Attribute or metric list, select Inventory template. Then select the Has a value checkbox.

   3. Click Apply filters.

5. Add the Inventory management enabled column to the table.

6. Click the download icon , which appears above the reporting table and make the following selections in the download panel:

   • Columns: Editable columns (for re-upload).
   • Optionally change or keep the default settings for the other selections.

7. Click Download.

   Search Ads 360 generates the report and either downloads the file to your browser's download directory or sends an email, depending on the delivery option you selected.

   If you selected to download a report and the report is very large, it may take a while for Search Ads 360 to generate the report. You can still use Search Ads 360 while the report is generating. A status bar indicates the progress of the report generation. When it's complete, a Download link appears in the status bar. Click the link to download the report.

8. In the downloaded bulksheet, find the rows containing the campaigns or other items you want to update. Then do the following in each row's Inventory management enabled column:
   • To return the item to inventory management, enter On
   • To stop inventory management, enter Off.
9. Upload the bulksheet to Search Ads 360.

View a history of changes to inventory management

When inventory management is removed or restored for an item, Search Ads 360 adds a row to the item's change history.  In the row that describes the change, the Change details column contains one of the following messages:
Inventory management enabled changed from False to True
or
Inventory management enabled changed from True to False

If inventory management was removed because of some other change you made, the Change type column lists the type of change you made. If you explicitly removed or restored inventory management, the Change type column contains two dashes (--).

For example, in the following excerpt from change history, the first row shows an item that was removed from inventory management because a user paused the item. The second row shows an item that was explicitly removed from inventory management.