Around here we use Kenshoo every day for account management and while they do have some fancy reports and schnazy bid policies, I’ve recently discovered Scheduled Actions and it’s changed my life. Unfortunately, the process to set up Scheduled Actions is a bit hidden so I wanted to unveil this valuable treasure to you fellow Kenshoo users so it can change your life too!
The Set Up
First, a breakdown of how to set up Scheduled Actions, then I’ll give you some of my favorite ones. Head to the Management tab in your top search bar, then choose Advanced Search. I know right now you’re thinking “you mean choose Scheduled Actions right below Advanced Search” but you’d be wrong! A click there will take you to a list of Scheduled Actions you have already set up in the account, but you can’t create a new action there you can only choose to add an action you’ve already set up for the profile.
Once in Advanced Search, choose the parameters you want, then hit Preview at the bottom. This is where the magic happens. Create a name for this action and hit Save:
Once you save, you’ll be given the option to schedule the action:
From there you can choose when to run the action, what to do with the results and if and when to get an email about it.
A couple notes:
- If you click ‘Advanced’ next to your email address you’ll get some send options. I usually choose ‘with errors’ so I can just be alerted if something goes wrong.
- If you choose to Automatically Upload to Channels, all pending changes in the profile will be uploaded when the action runs, not just the changes that are part of the scheduled action. Additionally, the changes will upload regardless of your setting in the profile’s Upload Schedule. You’ll find this under Management, in the top search bar, then Profile Settings, then Advanced:
Now your Scheduled Action is all set! You can head to Management (at the top), then Scheduled Actions to see the list of actions you have in that profile. You’ll see some basic info such as the element that action affects (ad groups, keywords, etc.), the action recurrence, when it’s scheduled to run again, and when it last ran with the number of results and the number of errors.
If you’re familiar with Advanced Search then you’re probably starting to realize how awesome this is and how the possibilities are almost endless! Here are just a few action options.
Offer Ads
Running some Memorial Day specials? Choose Ads as your action element in Advanced Search, then specify the designating copy under Ad Attributes > Ad Text > Including (such as ‘Memorial Day’). Next you can either choose Approve at the bottom to create an action that will launch the ad copy or you can choose Pause at the bottom to pause the ad copy. Just create two separate actions if you want to do both. You’ll choose your launch and/or pause dates when you actually add the scheduled action – just set the correct date and time, then choose ‘As scheduled’ under ‘Run action.’
Inefficient Keywords
You probably spend a good amount of time reviewing keywords for efficiency and reducing bids for or pausing terms that aren’t working well. Now, you can simply choose keywords as your action element in Advanced Search, set a spend level based on your goals and choose zero conversions, or set a cost per conversion amount if you want the action to address high CPA terms, set an appropriate date range, then choose either Pause or Modify at the bottom. When choosing Modify you can increase or decrease the bid by an amount or percentage. If you have custom metrics set up, you can create similar actions to adjust bids for or pause high cost/no sale or high cost per sale keywords.
Bid Changes
Just choose keywords as your action element, set your parameters based on account goals, select a date range, then choose Modify at the bottom to increase or decrease the bid by an amount or percentage. You could set this to run on a weekly or monthly timeframe based on volume and goals.
Test Campaigns
If you’re running a test campaign with a designated budget, you can simply choose that campaign, set the spend threshold, choose an all time date range, then choose Pause at the bottom to pause the campaign once it reaches its designated spend amount.
So get to scheduling! By automating these types of account changes, you’ll save yourself valuable time that can now be spent on bigger-picture strategy items for your accounts.
Have you already been utilizing Kenshoo’s scheduled actions? Let us know the actions you’ve found useful in the comments below!
