For small business owners ready to dip their feet in the deep pool of digital advertising, there is often a mixed bag of emotions associated with Google Ads. On one hand, it has been proven to be a powerful tool capable of delivering astounding results — but on the other hand, most novices dread the complexity and learning curve that comes with trying to manage their own campaigns.
It can honestly feel daunting and overwhelming for many; after all, these entrepreneurs should be spending more time tending to the actual running of their businesses — not handling learning how to wade through online ads!
But thankfully, there’s help available, and that’s through automation.
How to Automate Google Ads and What are the Benefits of Doing It?
There can be so many moving parts in your Google Ads campaign: audience targeting, bidding strategies, ad copy…the list goes on. Thankfully, modern technology has made it possible to automate much of the process — and unburden busy business owners from having to spend so much time on ads that they would rather invest in other aspects of their business.
Automating Google Ads lets those running a small business spend less time allocating resources unnecessarily and more time focusing on what’s important for their operation to succeed. Automation provides relief, accuracy, and efficiency — all benefits any business owner can appreciate!
Automating Google Advertising Using Built-In Features
As someone who has been active in the world of digital analytics and advertising, I can confidently say that there’s a real benefit to automating your search ads with Google Ads. Using features such as Automated Bidding, Automated Rules, and Google Ads Scripts, you can get your campaigns humming along with greater efficiency and accuracy than ever before. Not to mention less time actually managing campaigns and more time freed up for coming up with new business strategies.
But since we mentioned that we’d only talk about Google Ads Automation that does not involve coding, we will skip the part about Google Ads Scripts. Let’s instead talk about how the other two can be done.
(Author’s Note: We’ll be saying the word “conversions” a lot from here on end. Conversion simply means a desired customer action. For example, if you want customers to call the number you provide in your Google Ads, a conversion happens when a customer calls the number because of the ad.)
Automated/Smart Bidding
With the world of Google Ads out there, choosing the right bidding strategy can feel downright daunting. After all, you could open one door and find yourself in blissful ad success or open the wrong one and stumble straight into an eternity of struggles.
Thankfully, Google has got you covered with several automated bidding options that fit different objectives you may have. These include Maximize Clicks, Maximize Conversions, Enhanced Cost per Click, Target CPA, and Target ROAS.
Keep in mind, though, that setting up ad campaigns still needs to be done manually with the Smart Bidding feature. Only the bidding part is automated.
a. Maximize Clicks
With Maximize Clicks, you don’t need to worry about creating specific bids or managing your CPC bids; just set your daily budget and let Google Ads work its magic. And if push comes to shove and more control is needed, you can always use bidding limits to keep your spending where you want it. In short—Maximize Clicks mean maximum clickthroughs with minimum effort.
b. Maximize Conversion
This bidding option helps you maximize your campaign’s total conversions within your budget — like a Jedi Master of digital marketing! It evaluates your historical performance info along with contextual signals in real-time to get the optimum bid. Basically, it finds conversions that are (hopefully) valuable while helping you not overspend.
However, it needs to run your campaigns for a “learning period,” which means it will spend your budget with varying costs per conversion before it finds the best bid after the learning period. If you don’t have enough budget for the testing period, you should then try other automation options.
c. Enhanced CPC (ECPC)
Think of this as a smarter, more efficient manual CPC bidding system. ECPC evaluates every bid opportunity and adjusts your cost-per-click respectively. If a click looks likely to lead to a conversion, ECPC will encourage it by raising your bids while lowering them when the opposite is true.
Not only that, but you can even set ECPC to optimize for conversions, meaning your bids will be adjusted with the goal of getting more conversions.
Where’s the manual part here? Well, you have to set the initial CPC bid, and Google Ads will take it from there.
d. Target CPA
With Target CPA, you simply set your average cost target for each desired event — whether it be sales, leads, or calls — and let Google Ads take care of everything else. When someone searches for a service or product you provide based on your keywords, Google Ads joins the bidding process and is quickly tailored to maximize conversions based on what it “thinks” the value of this conversion may be and evaluating it against your target CPA amount.
However, there is some prep work you should consider — you’ll need to set up conversion tracking and review your budget settings before diving in. Make sure to be comfortable with potentially spending up to TWICE your average daily budget when using this bidding feature. But don’t worry — it’ll still be within what you have allocated for the month.
Also, since you’ll be placing an average cost per target, you should already know how much a customer action (conversion) is worth to you.
e. Target ROAS
If you’re familiar with the Target CPA bidding option, then you have a head start on understanding Google Ads’ Target ROAS. Think of it like this: while Target CPA charges you per conversion, when using Target ROAS, you’ll be aiming to achieve a certain return on ad spend (ROAS).
To make sure that everything is working as you intended when using this feature, Google requires your campaign to have at least 15 conversions over the past 30 days. Without that, it’ll go through a very expensive learning phase.
Automated Rules
Have you ever wished your Google Ads account could perform standard steps that just follow a few simple rules? If so, then Automated Rules might be the answer to all your problems!
This fantastic feature can make all the necessary adjustments to your ads, budget, bids, and more — on auto-pilot. For example, you might use an automated rule if you want to pause bidding on a certain keyword that is costing you five times your CPA.
No more spending a lot of time on manual monitoring or constant tinkering with bids; Automated Rules can take care of that for you and save precious time in the process.
Setting up Automated Rules in Google Ads is simple and easy! First, you’ll head to the Campaign pages, Ad groups pages, or Keywords pages and select the kebab icon (3-dots icon) located above the stats table.
From there, choose Create an Automated Rule. Next, you can decide whether you want to auto-adjust bids, control cost & budget, schedule ads, and edit ads or keywords by selecting from the drop-down. You can customize your rule further by choosing a condition from the “Choose condition” drop-down.
When that’s all set, it’s important to note that you’ll be able to define the frequency of your rule as well as choose what email updates you’d like to receive about any issues. Then simply name your Rule for future reference.
While these automation features can make your advertising life easier, it still leaves a lot on your plate.
5 Third-Party Tools that Can Automate Google Ads for You (without Coding!)
You might think that with all the automation options in Google Ads, you can set up and manage campaigns painlessly. Unfortunately, having an automated system doesn’t mean you don’t have to do anything!
Yes, you still need to go into your Google Ads account and set up campaigns manually, which means more time spent learning how to do that and, of course, actually doing it. What more for optimization?
And if you’re looking for a way to automate those processes even further and save time, coding knowledge is required to use Google Ads Scripts.
But there’s another solution — advanced automation tools that help make creating and managing your ads effortless and simple, with no coding experience needed! Just imagine how much time you’ll save by having all the functions of Google Ads automated with the click of a button!
Let’s list down the top automation tools available right now:
1. Braxy
If you’re running a small business, you know ads can be time-consuming to set up and expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing. But that’s no longer the case with Braxy — the powerful Google Ads Automation Tool that recently opened its doors to the public! Braxy can automate everything, from account setup, to campaign creation, up to ad optimization. You can say goodbye to manual ad creation and maintenance!
Setting up an account is uncomplicated through Braxy’s AI, and you can target local audiences with precision, allowing ads to land in front of exactly the people who are looking for your products and services. This means more customers in less time for you! Based on the information you provide the platform during account setup, the AI can create ads, research keywords to target, target the right audience, and more with minimal intervention.
Furthermore, the platform evaluates its own performance and continually improves the ads until you reach the optimum price for conversions. What makes this even better is that Braxy provides reports that are easy to digest — no more digging for hours through complicated data.
If you’re looking to simplify your processes while also saving money AND increasing your customer base, Braxy is the best tool for you. You only pay a single monthly fee of $250 to utilize this AI engine. You can advertise as much as you want and the fees won’t change. Book a demo today to see Braxy in action!
2. RevealBot
Say hello to RevealBot — the automation tool that’ll help you manage Google Ads campaigns with ease. With hundreds of templates for metrics and actions, you can build automations tailored to your desired goals.
Need to quickly set up multiple ads? No problem! Upload images and videos in bulk, and this bot can automatically get those ad sets and ads ready for you. However, it won’t create the ad creatives for you; you have to think of these yourself and just use the tool to bulk-upload them. To top it off, RevealBot will evaluate ads to make sure they’re within regulations before submitting them to Google (to avoid rejections).
By setting up automated rules, you can snooze underperforming ads, rotate them out for new ones, or scale successful ones — all for the price of $99 a month. However, this plan is limited to $10,000 ad spend per month. If you go over this amount, you’ll be billed for overages. The overages charge depends on how much you have gone over the plan limit.
3. Opteo
It’s time to shake up your digital marketing game with Opteo – the PPC automation tool working hard to help you save money and boost growth. This nifty PPC management tool automates mundane PPC tasks and empowers advertisers to craft higher-quality campaigns through actionable insights.
We should highlight, though, that it first provides recommendations — it’s up to you whether you want to apply these suggestions or not.
Applying them is pretty easy, though. With just a few clicks, you can manage all kinds of keywords, improve ad creatives, optimize bids and exclude bad traffic to get bang for your advertising buck! Plus, you’ll also be able to detect errors in campaigns, monitor ad performance, and explore segmentation data easily.
Best of all, Opteo provides Google Ad reports and its own Opteo Scorecard system, so you’ll always have an idea of how your account is doing at the highest level of optimization.
Don’t forget that you still need to implement these recommendations for your ad campaigns to improve. This means you’ll have to set up ad campaigns manually at the beginning; the tool will help you with the improvements later on.
This PPC automation tool is meant for agencies handling multiple clients, but small businesses can benefit from it, too, since it helps improve your ad campaigns. You can opt for the lowest plan of $99 per month (Basic Plan) for up to $50,000 monthly ad spend, but without Google Ads reports. If you feel that you need those reports to better analyze how your advertising strategies are working for you, then you can go for the $199 per month plan (Professional Plan).
4. AdWisely
If you’re running an e-commerce or online store for your small business, you should consider Adwisely. This tool offers maximum efficiency when running a full funnel of ad campaigns on the world’s most popular and powerful advertising platforms, such as Google Ads.
Creating a campaign is made simpler than ever, with a selection of ready-made templates and the capability to launch and optimize ads in only a few clicks. For those looking for highly effective campaigns, AdWisely guarantees high ROAS, and it can even retarget store visitors with personalized ads based on their interests.
Prospecting for new customers can also be achieved; AdWisely utilizes data from more than five thousand online stores it scans and studies to acquire similar customers whose behavior is comparable to your current buyers.
The biggest downside to Adwisely is the price. The cheapest Basic Plan costs $99 per month, but with a monthly ad spend limit of $1,000 — a very small amount when you’re advertising on Google Ads. This plan will also allow you just one automated campaign!
For unlimited automated campaigns, you can go for the mid-tier Standard Plan, priced at $249 per month. The ad spends limit is $3,000 for this plan. If you go over your ad spend limit, you will be charged a hefty fee of 10% of the overages.
5. AdZooma
AdZooma is another PPC automation tool that helps take the manual labor out of managing your Google Ads and successfully optimizing your campaigns.
With AdZooma, you get your pick of premade and customizable automation templates that automate essential functions like pausing non-converting keywords, monitoring ads with low click-through rates, and improving poor-performing keywords.
If a campaign has a low conversion rate but still has an inflated spend, simply pause the non-performers directly within AdZooma. Not only that but you’ll also be alerted when your budget underspends — no more worrying if you’re not reaching as many customers as possible.
You can make managing Google Ads a breeze with AdZooma, but you still need to have a basic understanding of how you want to optimize your campaigns when setting up automation. After all, you need to set up the rules, and the rules come from you. You need to have some level of experience in optimization for this tool to work well.
The best part about AdZooma is that it offers a free package called Essentials. You can use this plan to tinker around and learn more about automation while applying it to your campaigns. Once you’ve finally got the gist of using it and you find that you need more features such as landing page analysis, bid adjustments, more automation templates, and even the assistance of a dedicated account manager, then you should go for the paid Plus Plan. This plan is priced at $99 per month.
Key Takeaways
It’s become increasingly clear that automation is essential to stay ahead in digital marketing today. Google Ads offers some impressive built-in automation features that can save you a great deal of time in creating and optimizing ads as your business grows.
For greater control, a range of third-party tools is available that provides enhanced flexibility and access to advanced features. Leveraging these tools can relieve manual efforts and encourage businesses to stay diligent and on top of their campaigns’ progress.
Mastering the art of automation takes practice: start with the most urgent tasks that are consuming a lot of your time, then move on to more complex areas as you get familiar with using these third-party platforms. Good luck!