What it does:
This script suggests placement exclusions for bad placements where your PMax ads showed.
If new placement exclusions are suggested the placement exclusions are reported via email.
The email contains a link to a Google Doc spreadsheet documenting all the placement exclusions suggestions.
Why you care:
PMax is notorious for showing your ads on placements that are not safe for your brand and/or only deliver fraudulent clicks and leads.
Now go ahead, and install the script (it only takes 5 mins!).
Run the script weekly (I prefer Monday mornings)
And sleep comfortably knowing that all money-wasting and brand-hurting PMax-placements will pop up in your inbox when they appear.
Today, I had to fix some URL tracking parameters for one of my clients.
Manually fixing UTM parameters to contain the campaign name is Groundhog Day of drudgery. Copy-pasting campaign names in the tracking template or URL suffix is extremely time-consuming and a guaranteed recipe for disaster when you forget to add them to newly created campaigns.
So, why not… Just Script It?
Here’s the script I used to solve my miseries…
What it does:
This Google Ads script provides methods to automate the inclusion of UTM parameters like source, medium, and your campaign name in the Final URL Suffix and ValueTrack parameters.
Why you’d care:
GA4 can report clicks from Google Ads, and attribute them to the right campaigns IF you have linked GA4 to Google Ads and auto-tagging enabled, AND the user has given consent to do so.
Auto-tagging and GA4 rely on the gclid identifier for tracking, but privacy restrictions and user consent requirements may prevent its processing. When this happens, the campaign attributed to such a session may be labeled as (not set) or occasionally as (organic). Some browsers may remove the gclid parameter in enhanced privacy modes. This can disrupt data collection, leaving gaps in your campaign performance insights.
Adding the right UTM parameters to clicks from your Google Ads account prevents this from happening, and (partly) recovers lost data.
Why I like it:
The script automates the repetitive task of adding UTM parameters to all campaigns, saving you time and effort. It applies a consistent structure across campaigns, eliminating the risk of human error in manual tagging.
The script works across multiple campaign types, including standard Search, Display, Shopping, Performance Max, and (potentially in the future) Demand Gen.
It is straightforward to implement in your Google Ads account, requiring minimal setup. Once configured, it runs without needing ongoing manual intervention.
Are you tired of endlessly sifting through your search term reports?
With Google pushing broad match like a fitness coach demanding “just one more rep”,
and match types becoming more fuzzy than my memory of high school Greek,
we are all forced to monitor our search terms like a hawk, 24/7,
and negate all those completely irrelevant keyword matches that Google throws at us.
Not doing so inevitably brings unnecessary costs and low-quality clicks.
BUT, the amount of time needed to spend on Negative Keywords these days, just to block irrelevant searches is simply ridiculous.
It can easily take HOURS per week!
Before you know it, you’re turning into a full-time bouncer for irrelevant search traffic.
Not my ideal job (especially since I hardly reach 5’8″ / 1.76m);
I needed something that could punch above my own weight to fight all that off-target traffic.
So, how about we automate this monotony marathon of discovering search terms that waste our budget?
That’s exactly what I thought when I created this script:
What it does: This Google Ads script creates a nicely formatted email that reports the performance of your campaigns. It includes funny emojis to quickly help you discriminate between good performing campaigns and bad performers.
