Automation – is the biggest pain of every contextual advertising specialist. There are a lot of services that can simplify this task, but all of them have their advantages and disadvantages.

In the end, all the same, we still have a huge amount of routine work, which takes a lot of hours.

Of course, one selection will not cover everything, but it will give a general idea of ​​how you can do your work faster and save time.

In the first part of this article, I’ll share 10 recommendations for using Google Ads, Yandex Direct and Facebook Ads tools and services.

1. Rules

Automated rules will allow you to perform optimizations with customizable regularity.

Google Ads has a wide range of options for creating conditions and actions.

To do this, go to the settings menu – “rules”.

Here you can set rules for different levels to enable/disable, raise / lower rates or budget, notifications under different conditions.

It sets the regularity and schedule for changes, as well as the accounting period for activating these changes. This eliminates the need for daily manual adjustment of bids, gives you the opportunity to work out more campaigns and accounts per day.

But the rules, as well as the changes made, need to be monitored, and conditions are set very carefully.

There is a similar opportunity on Facebook Ads, although with less functionality, but in general, these rules will be able to help in managing your accounts.

The most important thing is to track changes and make adjustments, especially immediately after creation, so that everything works correctly.

Such optimization helps not only to save the time of a specialist but also to minimize errors associated with the human factor.

This year it has become possible to use the conditions associated with new indicators of competition in Google Ads. This allowed us to more accurately set the necessary conditions.

In Yandex Direct, unfortunately, this functionality is not implemented. But there are third-party services to solve this problem.

2. Scripts

We already have the article on the use of scripts. Scripts, like the rules, make changes to advertising campaigns with a certain regularity.

Settings here can be set more flexibly by writing the necessary changes using JavaScript code.

To use the script, you need to select the corresponding item in the settings menu, select the script creation item, add the script code and execute it.

To write scripts you need to have certain skills for web-developers. To understand their creation, you can visit the Google portal.

Or you can use a collection of ready-made scripts. There are a lot of them at the moment: from automatic budget notifications to adjustment of rates, based on weather conditions.

Here are some of these collections:

https://www.searchengines.ru/100_use_scripts_1.html
https://www.searchengines.ru/100_use_scripts_2.html
https://web-analytics.me/adwords_scripts

However, when using ready-made scripts you need to be very careful. Anyone can write a script, so it doesn’t mean that the script works correctly.

Would be better to check which changes will occur as a result of using the script. To do this, you can launch a preview of the script work before execution, and also, clearly follow the instructions of the developer.

If you have a developer, you can manage and make bulk changes directly through the system server. It will be useful to read and learn the API guidelines to do everything correctly:

3. Modifier feeds and modifiers in general

Modifiers and templates are the ability to make dynamically change the displayed ad text, substituting relevant information into it.

Google Ads has “keyword” modifiers, “countdown” modifiers, and “if” statements.

To use the “keyword” at any place in the ad text, you need to insert the following characters:

{KeyWord: default text}

The default text is what will be displayed if, as a result of text substitution, the allowed character limit is exceeded.

When using this modifier, the keyword that caused the ad to be shown will automatically be inserted into the text. Here, too, you can use different capitalization:

keyword – all words are lowercase;
Keyword – the first word with a capital, the rest – lowercase;
KeyWord – each word will start with a capital letter.

COUNTDOWN and GLOBAL_COUNTDOWN are the countdown modifiers in the ad. When using this modifier, the ad automatically displays the number of days/hours that remained before any event. 

The “if” function is the set of conditions for displaying different text to different audiences. Targeting by device and by audience created in the account is supported. 

The modifier can be registered manually, or call the create menu when editing any text ad. It is enough to put a curly bracket () in the input field, and the dynamic substitution menu will be displayed.

In addition to these modifiers, it is possible to create a feed where you can set absolutely any values ​​that you want to dynamically substitute in ads. For example model, color. Text, date, number, price is supported.

You will need to prepare targeting, attributes, upload the feed to the commercial data of Google Ads, and then add modifiers to the ad text. 

In Yandex Direct, the functionality is worse, but it is possible to substitute a keyword phrase into the text. This is implemented using templates. To add, it is enough to conclude a word, instead of which you need to substitute a phrase, with the “#” symbol on both sides. 

Facebook has such an opportunity when promoting products from the catalog. You can add directory parameters to your ad. You just need to call the corresponding menu.

4. Alerts

If you do not have time to check all the statistics and enter the account in time, you can set up alerts in case something goes wrong.

In Google Ads, you can set up alerts using rules. Moreover, this can be configured not only through the settings but also from viewing statistics.

Also, there is a feature to schedule reports:

In Yandex Direct, you can set alerts when creating a campaign. However, the functionality is limited, only a notice of the balance is available.

However, automatic reporting is available in Yandex Metrica. So, you can customize reports on a schedule.

To do this, when viewing the report, select the menu in the upper right corner, specify the regularity and e-mail to send.

You can also set up alerts in Google Analytics.

In Facebook, alerts are configured using rules.

5. Campaign Groups

This feature is available in Google Ads. It allows you to track performance by groups of selected campaigns.

Basically, it will help if you to get a large account, divided into several segments in different campaigns. To create a group, select this menu:

Next, go to the campaign groups and go to the creation.

There are some limitations to managing campaign groups. 

6. Dynamic labels

With markup, you can add dynamic source data to some tracking parameters.

For example, instead of prescribing:

“Utm_campaign = Shkaf”, you can “utm_campaign = {{campaign.name}}”

Such tags are in all systems:

Dynamic parameters for Facebook Ads
Google Ads dynamic options
 Dynamic parameters Yandex Direct

7. Template Gallery

Google has the ability to publish and save various user configurations. This can help a lot, for example, when creating audiences or goals.

It will be very convenient to use the available options from the gallery.

8. Google Web Designer

Previously, Google Ads was a service for creating banners. After closing it last year, Google recommends using its counterpart – Google Web Designer.

The advantage over other visual editors is the availability of Google Ads format templates.

9. Excel add-ins Facebook Ads and Google Analytics

Automate reporting is possible not only in the interfaces of the services, but also using special add-ins.

For example, in Facebook Ads, you can create report templates, upload them to Excel and process data already in a convenient format. To start using it, you need to select export to excel:

Next, allow editing and confirm the security of the add-in.

Next, you need to open the navigation panel:

Analytics has a similar setting for Google spreadsheets.

To start, you need to install the Google Analytics add-on.

Next, you can go to the report configuration. Here you can create, run reports, and also, set up an automatic upload schedule.

10. Formula words

The Google Ads Editor has the ability to massively substitute the group name, campaign, account, and other elements in the ad text.

For example, if you want to show relevant ads to the audience, and at the same time, do not use the keyword modifier, you can massively add the group name to the ad. This is implemented using the text replacement tool. Detailed instructions on the link.

The Google Ads Editor has the ability to massively substitute the group name, campaign, account, and other elements in the ad text.

For example, if you want to show relevant ads to the audience, and at the same time, do not use the keyword modifier, you can massively add the group name to the ad. This is implemented using the text replacement tool. Detailed instructions on the link.