7 Reasons You Should Be Using Scripts in Google Ads | Marketing

Here’s a question I hear all the time:

I’ve been using AdWords/Google Ads for some time now, and my campaigns are doing great. But how can I get more bang for my buck, and have more fun managing my campaigns?

Well, young Padawan, the answer lies in one word: scripts!

For the uninitiated, scripts are basically pieces of code that help you automate certain Google advertising processes and run more profitable campaigns, while spending less time on tedious tasks.

Now, I know that a lot of folks already sort of have an idea what AdWords or Google Ads scripts do. But, they often write these off without even giving them a shot.

Well, I’m here to tell you that scripts aren’t rocket science. They don’t take a ton of effort to master. In fact, even if you don’t have any technical expertise or coding knowledge, I’d say that the learning curve is pretty manageable.

Plus, I’m not suggesting you write these scripts from scratch – there are tons of free scripts that are available online (just Google them).

Once you’ve found a script that you want to try out, all you need to do is copy and paste them into your ad account. Installing and running AdWords Scripts is so easy, I’ve seen complete newbies do it!

But just in case you’re still not convinced – here are the top seven benefits that scripts can bring to your Google account and your work life…

1. Scripts automate tedious, mind-numbing PPC tasks

Think: sifting through search term reports, filtering endless Excel sheets, clicking around like a ferret on speed trying to find the ad groups that don’t have price extensions, applying guesstimated bid modifiers all over the place, adding your keywords as negatives in your DSA campaigns, negating keywords like crazy in your Shopping campaigns, Fixing Capitalization Mistakes in Your Ad Copy, etc. Oh, and did I mention the everlasting checks of monthly budget spent?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that these tasks are unimportant. They do contribute to the health of your PPC campaigns, but they’re mindless and repetitive.

So instead of wasting your time doing these humdrum routines, automate them with a script!

2. Increase your account performance

In an ideal world, you’d be able to watch your AdWords campaigns like a hawk.

Whenever you spot a keyword that’s cheap and has a higher conversion rate, you’d immediately increase your bid.

When you spot a keyword that’s expensive and not converting well, you’ll get rid of that sucker so that you don’t waste your ad budget.

But this is real life that we’re talking about. You probably have a gazillion things on your to-do list, and you can’t afford to check in on your campaigns and optimize them every single day.

Luckily, scripts are here to save the day!

Using scripts, you can automatically increase bids on cheap high conversion keywords, stop ads from showing for irrelevant search terms, discover bad performing keywords, and even trigger ads that mention the rain when weather conditions are wet. The list goes on and on.

3. Make fewer mistakes

People make mistakes all the time. I do, you do – unfortunately, that can’t be helped.

What you can do, though, is to catch those mistakes and fix them before they snowball. How? By using Google Ads scripts!

With scripts, you can send less (paid!) traffic to broken links, receive an alert if someone on your team mistakenly paused whole campaigns, monitor Google’s latest AI “improvements,” automatically pause your campaigns if your monthly budget runs out, and even receive an SMS if billing issues occur.

At the end of the day, these scripts keep your campaigns running like a lean, mean, well-oiled machine.

4. Make adjustments while you sleep

This is productivity at its peak.

Products ran out of stock? Website is down? You don’t need to stumble out of bed, bleary-eyed, to pause your ad groups or campaigns.

Your AdWords Script to disable these ads will immediately make the changes for you!

5. Spend less time on reporting and analyzing, more on strategy

Look, we all know that we should be spending less time on operational tasks, and more time on high-level, strategic decisions.

But here’s the problem: to make these decisions, you need to have access to data.

Cleaning, reporting, and analyzing all that data? It takes a ton of time.

Again, scripts are a game-changer in this arena.

This script, for example, automatically creates heat maps from your data so you can answer questions like “How does my performance vary by hour of the week?” in a split second.

6. Impress your colleagues and the boss

The next two benefits are for all the marketing executives out there who are struggling to climb the corporate ladder.

AdWords Scripts allow you to share broken links and newly discovered keywords with your colleagues, help your non-techie PPC teammates build campaigns and ad groups from a Google Sheet, and even show your boss graphs on how you beat the competition over time.

Manually building ad groups in Google Ads is tough.

In time, everyone in your company will see you as the expert on all things PPC related. And this helps you to…

7. Improve your career opportunities

Being able to use Google Ads Scripts is a great skill set to have.

This helps you stand out from the rest of your colleagues, and it makes you immensely valuable to your employers.

If you want to get a raise, move to a different firm, or even start freelancing as a PPC specialist, being well-versed in scripts will also open up these doors for you.

Trust me on this: once you level up your PPC skills with scripts, the sky’s the limit!

So now you know why you should get started with AdWords scripts. Scripts are like an extra pair of hands. Once you get a feel for what is possible (and that’s a LOT!), you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them.

About the author

Nils Rooijmans is founder and CEO of Water Cooler Topics, a fully remote PPC agency and PPC automation provider. He’s been actively involved in the search arena since the late nineties, both in technology and marketing. Follow him on Twitter: @ThatSearchGuyNL