‘Tis the season to look for time savers! Whether you plan to spend the holidays with friends, family, or just relaxing – it’s easiest to take advantage of the time off if you first get organized and plan out areas where you can become more efficient. To help you, our team huddled and put together some of our top tips for saving time so that you can enjoy a few days off without sacrificing campaign performance!
Robert Brady
Plan Ahead
Every day I take 5-10 minutes to plan my day, creating a prioritized to-do list. I look at my calendar, my email & review a client list so that I don’t miss anything. This way I know I’m spending my time on the most critical items and avoid wasting time during the day trying to figure out what to do next.
Prioritize
Do the ugly task first – There is always that one task on your list that fills you with dread. You know it’s going to be hard/draining/awful. Knock it out first thing when you’ve got the most energy. Once that is gone I feel like a weight is lifted from my shoulders and I’m able to rock it the rest of the day.
Use Automated Rules to Pause and Reactivate Campaigns
Want to pause campaigns during a couple specific days during the holidays? Don’t let that ruin your festivities, create a rule to pause on a certain date and reactivate on a later date. Check the box to get an email and then you’ll be able to see right on your phone that it’s been taken care of…auto-magically!
Michelle Morgan
Have Non-Promo Ad Copy Labeled
Many people set up their promotional ad copy, label it, and automate it to go live and pause. But you’re got to make sure you’ve got regular, non-promo active when the others come down. Throw a label on all ads you want to reactivate after your promos are over and set them to automate too.
Get Regular Reports by Email
During the holidays, performance can be a delicate balance, but you don’t always want to hawk over your computer while trying to hang out with family. Automate performance reports to email you every morning (or hour if your super high volume/concerned with performance). You’ll be able to check performance and get piece of mind via your mobile device without having to leave the company of your family.
Amy Bishop
Use Automated Rules for Tedious Tasks
While I don’t believe in using automation to fully manage campaigns, there are some tasks that can be quickly and simply handled with automated rules. For instance, I like to go through my campaigns to look at keywords that have been spending without converting for the past 30+ days and pause them, which is something that is easily handled with automated rules. Among many other things, automated rules can also be used for simple adjustments such as:
- Bumping bids up above the first page bid
- Basic bid adjustments according to a specific objective
- Pausing and reactivating keywords, ad groups, ads, or campaigns
You’ll still need to check in on your performance but using a little automation can save a lot of time on tasks.
Take Advantage of Scripts
Scripts can be really handy for complex reporting and tasks. Although Scripts may seem a little intimidating at first, many people don’t realize there is a whole forum dedicated to questions and answers about scripts. AdWords also provides some sample scripts for free, here.
Pro tip: when you set up a new script, make sure to preview your scripts to ensure that there aren’t any errors before you save.
Make the Most of Excel
Excel tricks and formulas can make a huge impact on productivity. I dedicated a whole blog post to increasing efficiency with Excel yesterday – check it out if you haven’t already!
What are your tips for saving time and working efficiently?
