Automation

What is the Automation page?

The page holds the account's automation board: which kinds of change Adintel may take on by itself, how far each may go, and what it works out each morning. For now nothing on the board changes your account. Adintel works out the changes it would make and why, and sends none of them to Google Ads, whatever the settings. Before any kind acts on its own, you will be asked to agree.

The board belongs to the account, so everyone with access to the account sees the same board.

What happens when I switch on Work out what Adintel would do?

Work out what Adintel would do is off until someone switches it on. Once it is on, Adintel starts each morning at about 08:45 UTC, after the suggestions in Actions are refreshed. It goes through each kind that is not Off and records the changes it would have made, and why each would or would not have been made. When the switch is off, Adintel works nothing out for the account, and the board's settings are kept for when it is switched on again.

Only accounts someone monitors are worked out; on an account no one monitors, the page says so. Beside the switch, At most sets how many automatic changes a day the account may take, from 1 to 10.

What are the six kinds?

Lowest risk first, each taking only what one of Adintel's rules already proposes:

1. Dismissing Google's recommendations that the Recommendations page lists under Adintel says dismiss. Nothing that serves changes, and Google gives no way to bring a dismissed recommendation back.
2. Pausing the auto-apply types Adintel rates highest or high risk. Undo turns a type back on.
3. Adding the negatives triage proposes: an exact negative for each search term triage sorts into Negatives, in each campaign the term appeared in.
4. Pausing the keywords Actions suggests pausing.
5. Making the bid cuts Actions suggests, only where the account's goal is a cost per conversion. On an account without one, the page says this kind never acts there.
6. Moving daily budget between campaigns as Actions' budget moves suggest. The account's total daily budget never rises.

Pausing an ad, adding a search term as a keyword and changing a target are not on the board: they stay your own decisions.

What do Off, Semi and Full mean?

Each kind is Off, Semi or Full. All kinds at once sets every kind together; when the kinds are set differently, it reads Custom. Semi and Full would both act by themselves. They differ in what earns a kind its turn.

• Off: Adintel works nothing out for this kind.
• Semi: the kind would act once the decisions made on it on this account have earned it (below).
• Full: the kind would act on its own record: at least 10 changes of the same sort on this account judged at 14 days by Did it work, more of them worked than not, whoever made them. The same sort means keyword pauses and re-enables, bid changes, budget changes, or negatives. Dismissals and auto-apply pauses change nothing that serves, so nothing judges them: their Full reads Not offered, and choosing Full under All kinds at once sets those two to Semi.

Each kind shows Earned or Not yet beside Semi and Full, how far along it is and what it needs, whatever its setting.

What earns Semi?

The decisions made on what the kind's rule proposed, on this account, by you and anyone else with access:

• Dismissals: at least 10 decisions on recommendations Adintel said to dismiss, 90% or more of them dismissals.
• Auto-apply pauses: only your word. Setting the kind to Semi is that word.
• Triage negatives: the bar that opens Approve in bulk on the triage page. At least 50 decisions on negatives from the same version of the sorting and the same confidence group, 95% or more of them agreeing with the card.
• Keyword pauses, bid cuts and budget moves: the last 10 decisions on that kind in Actions were all applied as suggested. A skip, or an amount changed with Adjust, starts the count again.

What did it work out this morning?

Under each kind that is not Off, a line says when it was last worked out and what it found: how many changes would have been made, how many were held back, and how many wait for the kind's setting to be earned. When the rule proposed nothing, the line says there was nothing to do. See what it would have done lists each change with what held it back or what it still needs, and the rule's own reason. A change the rule no longer proposes drops off the list.

None of these changes were made. "Would have been made" means every rule below let it through and the kind's setting has been earned.

What holds a change back?

Any of these holds a change back, in every setting, and a held change names the rule that held it. What every kind keeps to lists them on the page.

• At most 10 automatic changes a day on the account, fewer if you set fewer, and one change to the same keyword, budget or setting in 14 days. Past the day's limit, the rest wait.
• Never a change that raises the account's daily spend: no higher bid, and no more total daily budget.
• No keyword pause, bid cut or budget move from days whose conversions may still come in. No negative, keyword pause, bid cut or budget move while conversion tracking looks broken, or in a Performance Max campaign the audit finds under Google's line of 15 conversions in 30 days.
• Nothing that has changed since the rule proposed it: a recommendation Google withdrew, a type already off, a keyword no longer enabled, a bid or budget changed since, or a suggestion whose reason Adintel finds gone that morning.
• If Google refuses the account's connection, every kind waits until it is reconnected.

How does it stay out of other people's way?

• Nothing a person or Google changed in the last 7 days on a keyword, a budget or a negative, and nothing that would undo a person's change from the last 30 days, such as pausing an auto-apply type turned on in that time.
• Negatives, keyword pauses, bid cuts and budget moves wait for 7 days after another tool, a script or an automated rule last changed the account.
• A whole account anomaly at High or Critical in the last 7 days, for a fall in conversions, conversion value or ROAS or a rise in cost per conversion, holds negatives, keyword pauses, bid cuts and budget moves too. They wait until someone acknowledges it, resolves it or marks it a false positive on the Anomalies page, or opens the briefing that carried it.

Which terms are never touched?

Never a competitor's term. Never a term the account protects: one kept or added in triage, by a person or by the sorting, one with a conversion in the last 60 days, an existing keyword, or one of the brand names and must-win terms in Business context. Never a term in a set of variants you ruled differently. And never a pause on a keyword holding one of your brand names or must-win terms, or matching what the business sells.

What are the limits, and when does a kind stop?

Each kind has Limits: how many changes a day it may make, and for bid cuts and budget moves the largest change, at most 30% of a bid and at most 20% of the giving campaign's budget. Budget moves can also have a cap per move and per day, in the account's currency. A limit can be set lower than its maximum, never higher. A change larger than a limit is held back, never made smaller.

Once a kind makes changes on its own, it stops when two of its changes in a row fail to send, when a person undoes one of them, or when at least three have been judged and more did not work than worked.

How do I leave a campaign alone?

Under Campaigns left alone, choose a campaign, such as a brand campaign, a test or one your client runs, and Leave it alone. Automation never changes it, whatever the settings: anything that touches it is held back before any other rule is read.

Who can change the board?

The account's owner, the person whose own Google login the account comes through, can change anything on it within the limits above, since every automatic change will be made with their login. A teammate with editor access can only make the board do less: switch it off, turn a kind down or off, tighten a limit, or leave a campaign alone. Most choices that would do more are greyed out for them, and a limit they type looser is refused when they save. The page names the owner. A viewer reads the board (team seats).

Changes wait under Unsaved changes at the foot of the page. Save them, with a note of why if you like, or Discard them. If someone else saved the board after you opened it, your save is refused rather than mixed with theirs. Reload the board shows it as it is now, and your unsaved changes are dropped.

Where are changes to the board recorded?

Changes to this board lists the latest saves: who, when, what changed and the note. Each save is also on the account's Timeline, marked as made in Adintel. A change to the board is not a change to the account: it never appears in the briefing, in Did it work, in Made by Adintel or in a client report.