Google Ads Scripts Guide: Introduction to PPC Automation

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Automation can produce extremely important benefits in terms of performance, as in many other areas. Taking predetermined actions programmatically, being able to perform time-consuming bulk operations with software snippets, being able to manage accounts at a frequency and precision that cannot be done by human hands during the optimization process, being able to produce quick insights from multi-line and high-cardinality data tables, and reusability are our most basic outputs. In fact, automation in PPC management is not a new concept at all. It is possible to talk about an application area that extends from third-party bid management tools to the use of Ads Scripts, which is the subject of this article. When we look at the Google Ads ecosystem, we can talk about a few different tools that automation & bulk operations correspond to. The rule-based action tool Rules, the bulk operation tool Adwords Editor, JavaScript-based Ads Scripts and, as a much more advanced option, the Ads API allow us to create a workflow that takes Google Ads campaigns from the beginner and intermediate level to the advanced level management. Among these tools, I would like to provide an overview of Ads Scripts, which is extremely powerful in terms of its capabilities, accessible in all Ads accounts, and has a very low barrier to entry, along with sample applications.

What is Google Ads Script?
Ads Scripts , previously known as Adwords Scripts before Google Marketing Tools took on its new identity, can be summarized as an automation and bulk processing tool that allows us to take programmatic business owner database actions in Google Ads accounts . Thanks to Ads Scripts, we can communicate with the Ads API using simple software that we will develop using the JavaScript language, and we can automatically perform many of the adjustments we can make in the Ads interface. In other words, we can carry out almost all of the operations in an account manager's workflow, from the campaign setup and management phase to optimization, measurement and reporting processes, through Ads Scripts. In order to provide a more detailed view, we can examine the Ads Scripts features under the following headings, without following the order of importance:




Simple JavaScript Interface: Ads Scripts does not require any programming skills beyond a basic knowledge of JavaScript. Of course, this is a point directly related to how complex the script you want to write will be, but we can safely say that it offers a very low barrier to entry for marketers.
Documentation: As is true for other Google products, my personal opinion is that Ads Scripts has a very easy-to-follow documentation . If you are familiar with the Apps Script API, which I will talk about in the next section, and if you like to learn by reading documentation, it will not be difficult to find what you are looking for among these guides.
Apps Script Engine: Ads Scripts actually works on the Apps Script engine , which allows us to talk to many Google applications . This feature allows us to access many other Google products such as Google Sheets and Gmail App within Ads Scripts. For example; It is possible to make changes to our Ads account according to the information in a Google Sheets table or to export a report we created with the help of Ads Scripts as an e-mail. You can visit this link for more information about Apps Script . Other Google services that we can communicate with via Ads Scripts are listed in the left menu on this page .
Communication with 3rd Party Sources: Again, as a feature provided by the Apps Script engine, we can make HTTP requests within Ads Scripts and access external sources. Thanks to this feature, we can check the status codes of our landing pages or update our ad customizer flow with information we receive from an external source.
Google Infrastructure: Ads Scripts is run entirely on Google servers. Therefore, we are free from many stages that require additional costs for the development process. The disadvantage of this situation is that we can only access Ads Scripts from the Google Ads interface.

Community: When we consider the volume of Google Ads in the performance marketing ecosystem, it is not hard to guess that Ads Scripts are used very widely. This means a very large community. You can access examples developed by Google for free, as well as many scripts shared as open source with simple Google searches. You can also use addresses such as Brainlabs , Optmyzr , Freeadwordsscripts.com according to your needs. In addition, I can always recommend that you keep the relevant Google forum at hand for your support requests.
Timers: We can schedule an Ads script we have developed to run repeatedly. With the rule of running every hour as the highest frequency setting, it is possible to run multiple times during the day for dynamic needs.