If you are a paid search manager who does not have a background in coding, AdWords Scripts might seem daunting and unapproachable. All those lines of code might seem cryptic and confusing. However, believe it or not, the learning curve is quite low to get started. You do not need to be a skilled programmer.
In fact, Google recommends that you just have an entry-level familiarity with JavaScript to get started. If you want to learn the basics of JavaScript, the Codecademy has a great course that you can take online for free. I would also recommend reading Eloquent JavaScript to get a good grasp on the fundamentals of JavaScript.
If you do not have time or simply are not interested in learning code, but want to utilize AdWords scripts, the Internet is full of free scripts which you can easily copy and paste. Obviously, the biggest drawback to not knowing JavaScript is that you won’t be able to customize or tweak any of the existing code. However, you should be able to find at least a handful of scripts that may be useful for your specific account.
Steps To Creating Scripts
Getting Started
In order to get started, click on the “Automate” button in the campaigns tab and find “Create and manage scripts.”
On the next page you’ll find a list of all your scripts and a red button labeled “+ Script,” which you can click to create a brand new script.
Next, you’ll see a box where you can copy and paste the script you want to use. Remember to delete any code in the box before pasting. If you have not used AdWords Scripts before, you will have to click the “Authorize now” button in order to preview.
Once your script has been added and saved, you can schedule it to run.
1. Automated Bid Adjustments
Doing manual bid adjustments may take up to half an hour of your time if you are applying several filters and making bulk changes in the account. If you do frequent bid adjustments, it might be in your best interest to find a script that can do the job in less than a minute.
There are many scripts readily available online that you can use without having to write a single line of code. Here is one that allows you to increase bids on cheap conversion keywords.
2. Bid by Weather
This is perhaps one of the coolest scripts I’ve come across. If your client or company is selling a product or service that is directly affected by the weather, this script will definitely help you obtain incremental sales. The AdWords bid by weather script uses your geo-location and weather forecasts to make the proper bid adjustments.
3. 404 Error Detectors
A well maintained website is constantly changing and evolving. Overtime, new content gets added, while old content is taken down. In the process, links are broken and fixed. Live ads can potentially be directed to a 404 page, which leads to wasteful spending.
For an advertiser, it is very difficult to keep up with this constant change. With the link checker script, you can instantly check all your ads and keywords to make sure that the URLs do not lead to “Page not found” or any other type of error. You can schedule the check daily or even hourly.
4. Account Anomaly Detector
The Account Anomaly Detector script alerts you whenever the AdWords account behaves differently from its historical data. The script takes into consideration data presented so far today and compares it with the historical data from the same day of the week. This script allows you to adjust the number of weeks it’ll look back in order to compare. You allow the script to run hourly.