The ultimate guide to Google Ads scripts

Whilst there’s a lot of options available to a modern marketer for automating elements of your PPC campaign in Google Ads, sometimes the default settings just don’t do the trick. Perhaps you’ve got a custom action that you’d like to track, that is niche and hyper-specific to your campaign. Introducing Google Ads scripts.

Google Ads scripts allow you to automate and manage your campaigns through JavaScript code. They help manage campaigns more efficiently through automating large scale and specific customisable solutions without manual intervention. Whether you’re tracking budgets, making data-driven decisions, or handling repetitive tasks, there’s usually a script available to help share the workload.

In this guide, we’ll explore everything that Google Ads scripts have to offer, and how you can make the most of this highly versatile and powerful feature.

Ready to level up? Read on for more.

• Why use Google Ads scripts?
• How Google Ads scripts work
• Tasks you can automate with scripts
• Setting up your first Google Ads script
• Tips for running your first script
• The future of automation in Google Ads

Why use Google Ads scripts?

So what exactly are the benefits of scripts, when so many tasks can easily be completed within the existing Google Ads platform already? Here are a few of their greatest hits.

Time-saving: Scripts automate repetitive tasks, reducing manual workload.

Error reduction: It can be a way to minimise human errors in bid adjustments, budget tracking, and reporting.

Improved efficiency: Once implemented and refined, you can easily enable complicated bulk changes across multiple campaigns.

Customisation: One of the best features of a script is how completely niche and specific it can be to your campaign. It allows tailored automation to meet specific business needs.

Enhanced reporting: If paired with the right analytics, scripts provide useful automated insights into campaign performance.

Scalability: Again, the flexibility of scripts is what makes them so useful. There are scripts for the smallest campaigns, to the largest multi-account levels of management.

How Google Ads scripts work

Google Ads scripts are written in JavaScript and run directly within your Google Ads interface, making the workflow seamless for any marketer.

They interact with Google Ads data through APIs, allowing you to automate various account management tasks in your campaigns. Once you’ve made a script or copied one over from an existing template, you can schedule each script to activate at specific times, or within specific intervals, including hourly, daily, or weekly.

To function effectively, scripts require the necessary permissions to access and modify account data. They’re used to trigger certain actions like bid adjustments or report generation, and are also useful for gathering data, or A/B testing various strategies.

Tasks you can automate with scripts

Let’s take a look at some of the most useful things you can program a script to do for your campaign:

Budget tracking

• Monitor daily, weekly, or monthly ad spend.
• Send alerts when nearing budget limits.
• Adjust campaign budgets dynamically to optimise spending.
• Prevent overspending by pausing campaigns automatically.

Bid adjustments

• Increase or decrease bids based on performance data.
• Adjust bids for keywords, devices, locations, and times of day.
• Implement rule-based bidding strategies for efficiency.
• Ensure budget is allocated to high-performing areas.

Ad performance monitoring

• Identify underperforming ads based on CTR, conversion rate, or ROI.
• Compare ad variations to determine the most effective copy.
• Send performance alerts to advertisers.
• Automatically update or pause ads based on performance thresholds.

Automating reports

• Generate and email reports on key campaign metrics.
• Summarise conversion rates, impressions, and click-through rates.
• Provide visual insights by integrating with Google Sheets.
• Eliminate the need for manual reporting and analysis.

Pause and reactivation of underperforming ads

• Automatically pause ads with low engagement.
• Reactivate ads when performance improves.
• Ensure ad spend is directed towards effective campaigns.
• Reduce wasted budget on non-performing ads.

Setting up your first Google Ads script

It’s generally best to leave the actual writing of your script to a professional developer, as they can put all the specific conditions and niche requirements to suit your unique campaign and use case.

Here’s an overview to familiarise you with where to find scripts, and some best practices to consider when running your first tests.

Accessing Google Ads scripts

1. Navigate to Google Ads > Tools and Settings > Scripts.
2. Click + to create a new script.

Writing and implementing scripts

1. Use JavaScript to define your automation rules.
2. Copy and paste pre-built scripts or write custom code.
3. Test any and all scripts before executing live changes.
4. Set appropriate authorisation permissions to protect the script from any unwanted changes.

Running and scheduling scripts

1. Run your script manually for testing.
2. Schedule scripts for automatic execution at chosen intervals if needed.
3. Monitor logs and reports to track your script performance over time.

Tips for running your first script

There are a few pitfalls to be aware of, and some key tips that you can benefit from as a first-time script user.

Best practices
Start with pre-built templates: Modify existing scripts before creating new ones from scratch. This saves time and simplifies your early tests.

Test in preview mode: Run scripts in preview mode to detect potential issues before anything goes live. This just saves headaches and increases the reliability of the final script.

Use error handling: Implement try/catch blocks to prevent script failures and securely handle error conditions. This is one to save for your developer to dig into.

Monitor script execution: Regularly review logs for errors or unexpected behaviour. Just because you think a script has been written for a specific task, doesn’t mean they’ll actually run that smoothly by default.

Document changes: Keep records of script modifications and their impact. Developers can keep some logs within the code itself, but you’ll want these changes to be documented in a format that everyone can easily access, to stay up to date with the latest amendments. 

Limit script complexity: Use multiple simple scripts instead of one complex script for easier debugging. It pays to keep things simple!

Stay updated: Remember that Google may update APIs, requiring script adjustments.

Troubleshooting common issues
There are a few common errors that you may run into with your scripts. The specifics will be unique to your campaign and script, but here are a few pointers on what to check initially to help sort out any problems.

Script not running: Check your authorisation settings and API limits.

Execution time errors: Improve your script’s efficiency to stay within Google's execution time limits.

Data retrieval failures: Ensure you have the correct API calls and account access levels.

Unexpected results: Test your scripts in small batches before full implementation. This helps highlight problematic areas in a way that is easily identifiable.

The future of automation in Google Ads

So what does the future hold for automation, in an era of scripts and AI? There’s already an increasing reliance on AI and machine learning: Google’s automation tools are evolving to provide smarter campaign management that you can benefit from.

We predict there will be more seamless connections with analytics tools and CRM systems, as integrations with external platforms become commonplace. There’s also the potential for deeper automation with custom machine learning models as the level of experience in writing scripts becomes more developed across the industry.

Finally, we believe that combining automation with manual strategy will create the best ads. Whilst automation features may seem like you’re giving up a portion of control over your ads, as AI and automation become more normalised, so too will the education of how to manually manage your automations for the best outcome. A blend of your control, management and insight, paired with the efficiency and wealth of data that comes from working with AI and machine learning, really is the best of both worlds.

In conclusion

Google Ads scripts are a game-changer if you’re looking to streamline and enhance your campaign management. Understanding how scripts work, testing options thoroughly and leading with an air of experimentation is the best approach to creating innovative and reliable scripts that will deliver consistently strong results for your campaign.

With the future of PPC looking to be increasingly AI led and automated, now is the time to get familiar with the future of digital marketing. It’s time to get ahead in this competitive digital landscape.