Google Ads Scripts Automation: 5 Scripts to Save You Time

If you are logging in every morning to check if your landing pages are 404ing or if your budget is pacing correctly, you are operating like a 2010 advertiser.

Google Ads Scripts (JavaScript) allows you to automate the repetitive, high-risk monitoring tasks that humans are bad at. You do not need to be a developer to use them. You just need to know how to Copy and Paste.

In this guide, we provide the code for our top 5 "Agency-Standard" scripts: The Link Checker, The Budget Pacing Governor, The Quality Score Tracker, The Negative Conflict Alert, and The Anomaly Detector.

The Financial Impact of Automation

Manual checking is expensive.

• Cost of a human checking URLs daily: $500/month (time cost).
• Cost of a broken URL running for 48 hours: $2,000 (wasted spend).
• Cost of a Script: $0.

The Automation ROI Formula:

$$ \text{ROI} = \frac{(\text{Hours Saved} \times \text{Hourly Rate}) + \text{Wasted Spend Prevented}}{\text{Setup Time}} $$

Spending 15 minutes setting up a script today can save $10,000 in wasted clicks over a year.

Theory: How Scripts Work

Google Ads Scripts run on Google’s servers. They can read data from your account, make changes (if you allow them), and send emails.

Key Limits:

• 30 minutes execution time limit.
• 250,000 entities processed per run.
• They usually run "Hourly" or "Daily."

Execution: The Top 5 Scripts

To install these:

1. Go to Tools and Settings → Bulk Actions → Scripts.
2. Click + New Script.
3. Delete the placeholder code.
4. Paste the code below.
5. Authorize (Click the yellow bar).
6. Preview first, then Save.

1. The Link Checker (404 Detector)

This is mandatory. It crawls your ads and keywords, visits the URL, and emails you if it finds a 404, 500, or "Out of Stock" page.

Why it works: It saves you from sending traffic to a broken page after a site migration.

Link to Official Google Source Code

2. The Budget Pacing Governor

Google Ads allows campaigns to spend up to 2x their daily budget. This script ensures your monthly spend lands exactly on target.

Logic:

• It looks at "Cost So Far" + "Days Remaining."
• It calculates the "Required Daily Spend" to hit the monthly cap.
• It adjusts your daily budgets automatically every night.

Impact: No more "going dark" on the 28th of the month because you ran out of money.

3. The Negative Keyword Conflict Alert

Did you accidentally add "shoes" as a negative keyword in your Shoe campaign? This script checks your Search Query reports against your Negative Keyword lists. If it finds a negative keyword that is blocking a converting search term or an active keyword, it emails you.

Why it works: This is the "Human Error" catcher.

4. The Quality Score Tracker

Quality Score is hidden at the keyword level. You can't see "Account Level QS" in the UI. This script records the impression-weighted Quality Score of your account daily and logs it to a Google Sheet.

The Tracking Matrix: | Date | Account QS | Expected CTR | Ad Relevance | Landing Page Exp | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Jan 1 | 6.5 | 5.0 | 7.0 | 4.5 | | Jan 2 | 6.7 | 5.2 | 7.0 | 4.6 |

Impact: You can finally correlate your optimization work (e.g., rewriting ads) with an actual metric improvement over time.

5. The Anomaly Detector

This script uses statistical significance. It looks at your "Normal" performance for a Tuesday at 10 AM.

• If Impressions drop by 50% (Site down? Tag broken?) -> Email Alert.
• If CPA spikes by 300% (Competitor aggression?) -> Email Alert.
• If Spend is 0 (Credit card failed?) -> Email Alert.

Link to Official Google Source Code

Advanced Strategy: The "N-Gram" Analysis Script

This is for the data nerds. The N-Gram script breaks down your Search Terms into 1-word, 2-word, and 3-word phrases.

Example Report:

• Phrase: "Free"

• Cost: $4,000

• Conversions: 0

• Action: Add "Free" as negative.

• Phrase: "Price"

• Cost: $500

• CPA: $20

• Action: This is a high-intent term. Ensure it's in your ad copy.

This script reveals patterns that are invisible when looking at thousands of raw search queries.

Case Study: The "Out of Stock" Disaster

Client: Furniture Retailer Budget: $100k/month

The Incident: Their developer updated the website, changing the URL structure for the "Best Sellers" collection.

• Ads continued running to the old URLs (which now redirected to the Homepage, technically a 200 OK code, but irrelevant).
• Conversion Rate dropped from 3% to 0.5%.
• Wasted Spend: $15,000 over 5 days.

The Fix: We installed a custom Link Checker script that looked for specific text on the page ("404" or "Page Not Found") rather than just HTTP headers. We also installed the Anomaly Detector, which would have flagged the conversion rate drop within 4 hours.

Pitfalls to Avoid

1. The "Preview" Mistake

Always click Preview before Run. If your script has a bug that sets all bids to $100 instead of $1.00, Preview will show you the changelog without executing it.

2. Timeouts

Scripts have a Time Limit. If you have 500,000 keywords, a single script cannot check them all. Solution: Use "Labels" to process only active campaigns, or use parallel execution (MCC scripts).

3. Abandonware

Scripts break when Google updates its API (e.g., the shift from "AdWordsApp" to "AdsApp"). Check your script logs weekly. If you see red errors, you are flying blind.

Summary

Automation is not about replacing the human; it's about removing the robot work so the human can be strategic.

Your Action Plan:

1. Install the Link Checker today. (Non-negotiable).
2. Install the Anomaly Detector to sleep better at night.
3. Set up the Quality Score Tracker to prove your value.
4. Schedule a monthly "Script Review" to ensure APIs are still connecting.

Stop doing math in your head. Let the JavaScript do it.