How an Ads change is applied

Every change RankGrep Ads makes starts as a finding and becomes a proposal: the exact change, held until it is approved. This article follows one from start to finish.

1. A finding becomes a proposal

After every import (nightly, or Import now on the Overview), RankGrep turns each finding it can act on into a proposal. Before you see it, the change is sent to Google as a dry run: Google checks it exactly as it would a real change and answers, but changes nothing. A proposal Google would refuse is never put in front of you; it is recorded as Refused by Google with Google's reason, and tried again the next day.

A finding is not proposed again while a proposal for it is waiting, for 14 days after it was applied (while Google and the figures catch up), or for 30 days after you dismissed it. A change you undid can be proposed again at the next import.

Two kinds of change are prepared first. An ad to write is written from your page and checked against Google's rules (How RankGrep Ads writes ads), and an ad pointing at a redirect is followed to its real address. If preparing fails, the proposal says Not proposed with the reason and is tried again the next day. Observations, such as paying for a search you already rank for, are information only.

2. Approving, or letting it run alone

While RankGrep Ads is being proven on real accounts, changes can be switched off for the whole service. The Findings, History and Autonomy pages then say so at the top: your account is still read and changes are still proposed and checked with Google, but approving sends nothing, Undo is paused, and nothing runs on its own. In dry run mode, approving asks Google to check the change exactly as it would apply it and reports the answer, without changing your account. Changes can also be switched on for Google Ads test accounts only: a test account can then be changed and undone as normal, while every real account stays read-only, as above.

Proposals waiting for you are on the Findings page, and the Overview says how many there are. Each shows what it would change in a sentence, and the button names the change: Approve: add negative, Approve: R 380 a day.

• A budget asks once more, with the new daily amount and the most it could add to a month's spend.
• Pausing a campaign asks once more, because its ads stop showing.
• Dismiss keeps it off the list for 30 days.

The kinds you set to Do it on the Autonomy page are applied at the import without waiting, up to the daily limit you set there. Anything that spends money (budgets, bids, campaign on or off, where ads show) is never applied without a person. That is checked when the proposal is made and again at the moment it would be applied, whatever the settings say.

3. Applying, and confirming it landed

Approving sends the change to Google Ads. RankGrep then reads the account back to confirm it: the keyword is paused, the negative exists, the budget is the new amount. Only then is it shown as Applied and confirmed in Google Ads. If Google accepted the change but the account does not show it yet, it says so, and the next import confirms it.

If Google refuses the change when it is applied, the proposal says Google refused it with the reason, and Try again is offered. Two clicks, or a click at the same moment as the nightly run, cannot send a change twice.

Applied changes are recorded under the person who approved them, or as made by RankGrep under your Autonomy settings.

4. Watching it, and noticing it changed back

For 30 days after a change is applied, every import reads it back again. If someone changes it back in Google Ads (raises the bid you lowered, re-enables the keyword you paused, puts the budget back) the change is marked Changed back, with what it is now, on both the Findings and History pages. RankGrep does not fight it: the next proposal for that situation waits out the usual 14 days.

5. Undo

History lists every change: what it was, who decided it, when, and whether Google Ads still shows it. A change still in place has an Undo button, also on its finding. Undo sends the exact opposite change, worked out when the change was applied: a negative it added is removed, a paused keyword or ad is enabled again, a budget goes back to its old amount. RankGrep then reads the account back to confirm.

A change someone already reversed in Google Ads has nothing left to undo, and says so.

6. Two weeks later: did it work?

Fourteen days after a change is applied, and one more for Google's figures to settle, RankGrep judges it and shows the verdict on History and on the finding: Worked, Mixed result, No clear change, or Made it worse.

It compares the campaign the change touched over the 14 days before and the 14 days after, against the rest of the account over the same days. If the whole account spent 20% less that fortnight, a campaign that also spent 20% less has not saved anything. Each change is judged on what it was for:

• Changes that cut spend (negatives, pausing keywords, ads or a campaign) worked if spend fell against the trend while conversions held. Cutting spend and conversions together is not a saving, and a drop in conversions of more than a fifth counts as making it worse.
• Changes that aim to grow (a budget, new keywords, a new ad) worked if conversions rose against the trend without each one costing much more.

A campaign with too little activity before the change (fewer than 5 conversions and 100 clicks) is not judged; the verdict says so. Nor is a change undone or changed back before its two weeks were up.

What a bad verdict changes. When a change made things worse, the same kind of change in that campaign stops running on its own for 60 days. Even if your Autonomy settings say Do it, the next one waits for you, and its description says why.

Asking the AI Assistant

AI Assistant in the Ads sidebar, and the same assistant in the SEO dashboard, can read the linked Google Ads account: spend and conversions, pacing, campaigns, findings, and what RankGrep changed and whether it worked. It answers from the same figures these pages show, and can bring both sides together, such as an ad whose landing page has SEO problems. Conversations are kept per website and shared between the two apps, so a question asked in Ads can be followed up in the SEO dashboard. It cannot approve, apply or undo anything; those stay buttons on the Findings and History pages.