Bid Strategy Monitoring Script
When it comes to bidding strategies, Google has a bunch to choose from and it’s not a straightforward decision to make. Hesitating between manual and automated? Not sure about taking the plunge into Smart Bidding? Completely in the dark?
There’s plenty of advice and case studies out there, and every advertiser has a different story. What’s important is that when it comes to choosing the best bidding strategy for your campaigns, its a matter of on-going testing and monitoring performance for yourself.
That’s why we made a script to help you do exactly that!
What’s included?
How does the script work?
The script lets you monitor the performance of an array of bidding strategies in your campaigns based on predefined metrics.
It can analyze a number of automated and manual bidding strategies, including Manual CPC, Manual CPV, Manual CPM, Target search page location, Maximize clicks, Maximize Conversion Value and Target Outranking Share.
And if you’re still unsure about using Smart Bidding, the script can also look at Target CPA, Target ROAS and Maximize Conversions.
Since their launch, Smart Bidding strategies have had mixed results and an even more mixed reception. No one can deny that they’ve kept improving, but they’re no one-size-fits-all solution either. That’s where this script comes in.
Once you’ve outlined which campaigns and bid strategies to look at, it outputs a report on the following metrics: CPC, Clicks, Conversions, Cost, CTR, Impressions and Top Impression rate. And before you ask: yes, you can tweak these metrics. If you’d like to add any, have a look here.
How do I use it?
First, make a copy of the spreadsheet linked below.
Then, you need to input the account ID and the campaigns you want to monitor (based on name filters), the bidding strategy to analyse (pro tip: leave the cell blank to include all of them), and the metrics you would like to report on.
Once you’ve done that, copy and paste the script below into a new script in Google Ads (Tools > Bulk Actions > Scripts). Before you run it, edit the SPREADSHEET_URL variable with the URL of your spreadsheet.
If you want, you can also choose to make the script ignore or include paused campaigns by changing the ignorePausedCampaigns variable to true or false, respectively.
Once that’s set up, you’re ready to run the script and see the magic happen!