There is new interesting feature in the AdWords User Interface, the Automate button, located under the Keywords Tab.

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There are some extremely cool features under this button!

Advertisers can create Rules for the following:

1. Pause Keywords when…
2. Change max. CPC bids when…
3. Raise bids to first page CPC when…
4. Create Rules for Ads

Then all these rules can be managed under the final feature on the drop-down.

Let’s look at each feature!

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Pause Keywords when…

Pause Keywords when…

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This feature allows you to set a rules to have your account pause keywords that are not following certain requirements.

For instance I may want to pause keywords that are not meeting a certain conversion requirement.  The feature would also be handy for large scale changes like pausing all keywords that are under a specific CTR, or if you wanted to find and pause all broad match keywords use the Match Type metric.

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Change max. CPC bids when…

Change max. CPC bids when…

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Set rules to change your max. CPC bids when certain requirements are met.  For instance set a rule on Keyword A to increase the bid 5% when a keyword reaches a position worse than 3.  This feature has lots of possibilities.

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Raise bids to first page CPC when…

Raise bids to First Page CPC when….

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Another helpful feature under the Automate button is the ability to set rules for first page bid estimate bids.  If you were to find that an exact match type keyword performed better on the first page than it’s broad match version you can set the increase for exact match only.

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Create Rules for ads….

Apparently we can also set rules to pause or enable ad text under the Automate button.

.Pause ads when…

Pause ads when…

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and

Enable ads when…

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These features allow you to automatically pause or enable ads that meet certain requirements.  For instance say an ad was not reaching a certain conversion rate it can be automatically paused.

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Manage Rules >>

Manage Rules >>

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Manage your rules and view log files for all the rules you create.

In each section the rules can all have multiple requirements to get create a very specific set of criteria for your rules.

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One thing that I was a little disappointed to see was this messaging.

“Rules aren’t guaranteed to run in some cases, so we recommend regularly monitoring the reules you set up.”

"Rules aren't guaranteed to run in some cases, so we recommend regularly monitoring the reules you set up."

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Google’s “Learn More” help documentation reads:

In rare cases, a rule may not run or may contain errors. You can view the errors in the Logs table by clicking on Automate > Manage rules. Some reasons for errors are:

• Downtime: In some cases, you might have a rule scheduled to run when the system is down. In these cases, your changes can’t be made.
• Timeouts: Timeouts might happen if too many things are being evaluated in a rule (for example, all keywords in a large account). To avoid timeouts, we recommend that you use filters in the rule to narrow the elements affected by a given rule.
• Rule expiration: Once you create a rule, it will expire after one year. We’ll remind you when a rule is about to expire.

These errors will be recorded in the logs.

So there you have it.  This seems like an extremely helpful feature to help advertisers automate some of their work and likely a good place for discovery when reviewing log files to see the actions taken in the account.

Time will tell if this feature is reliable and useful for advertisers.

APPEND:  Search Engine Land posted this article with some very relevant points in opposition of the ‘automate’ feature which I think all advertisers should read.  http://searchengineland.com/googles-new-automated-rules-lets-you-shoot-your-eye-out-58297
Full documentation can be found in the AdWords Help Center.

Comments welcome.

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Article by:  +Kim Clinkunbroomer Clinks Web Service  a  Google AdWords Partner Company Subscribe: RSS Feeds  |  Follow me on Twitter