Recommended automations
Hero Marketer recommends five automations, each a card in Settings → Automations. An alert triggers two of them. The other three watch a metric rule of their own. All five are disabled by default. Turn any one on from its card. See Turn on an automation for what happens the first time you enable it, including the preview you have to read before you confirm.
Each section below is self contained: trigger, exactly what the automation does, its safety caps, and what protects you from a bad change.
Block wasting search terms
Triggers on: the search terms wasting budget alert. Severity: low risk.
When the monitoring system flags a search term as wasting budget, this automation adds that term as an exact match negative keyword on the ad group that produced the waste. The fix lands before your next login, not after. The blast radius is one negative keyword on one ad group, and a revert is a single Google Ads call that removes the negative.
Default caps.
- Up to 20 negative keywords added per UTC day across the account.
- Wait 14 days before the automation adds the same search term again.
- The ad group must be at least 60 days old. A newer ad group does not accumulate enough conversion history to be sure that zero conversions mean waste, not attribution lag.
Brand protection. Hero Marketer never touches a search term that contains your product name or a brand token you added, even if the term meets the waste criteria. See Turn on an automation to manage brand tokens.
Alert dependency. This automation only acts when the search terms wasting budget alert fires. If you turn that alert type off in alert preferences, the automation does not run. Its settings card then shows a warning that the trigger alert is off. You can adjust the caps above on the card.
Lift the budget on profitable campaigns being capped
Triggers on: the profitable campaign capped by budget alert. Severity: use with care.
When the monitoring system flags a profitable campaign that loses impression share to its own daily budget cap, this automation raises the daily budget by a small percentage. The campaign is already profitable. The cap is the bottleneck. It does not touch the campaign's bid strategy, Target CPA, or Target ROAS. The blast radius is one campaign's daily budget, and a revert restores the original amount with one Google Ads call.
Default caps.
- A single raise of up to 25% of the current daily budget per execution.
- At most 50% cumulative budget growth on one campaign over any 7 days.
- Wait 7 days before the automation raises the same campaign again.
Smart Bidding exclusion. This automation does not run on a campaign that uses Target CPA or Target ROAS bidding. Smart bidding adapts bids to the available budget. A budget raise alone, with no target change, lets the strategy spend back toward the same efficiency and defeats the purpose. For those campaigns, Ease CPA targets and Ease ROAS targets are the scaling path instead.
Alert dependency. This automation only acts when the profitable campaign capped by budget alert fires. If you turn that alert type off in alert preferences, the automation does not run. Its settings card then shows a warning that the trigger alert is off. You can adjust the caps above on the card.
Pause pure waste keywords
Triggers on: its own metric rule, a keyword that spent more than $50 over the last 7 days with zero conversions in that window. Severity: use with care.
This automation pauses a keyword that continues to spend and never converts. The condition must persist across 3 consecutive checks before it acts, so a single noisy day does not trigger a pause. The blast radius is one keyword, and a revert re enables it in a single Google Ads call.
Caps and guards (fixed in this version).
- Wait 14 days before the automation acts on the same keyword again.
- At most 3 keyword pauses per UTC day across the account.
- The campaign must be at least 60 days old, so delayed conversions have time to report before the automation pauses a keyword.
Brand protection. The automation never pauses brand keywords. Hero Marketer excludes any keyword that contains your product name or a brand token you added. An accidentally paused brand keyword is the classic automation mistake this guard exists to prevent.
This is a grammar automation: you enable or disable it, but the $50 threshold, the 7 days of data, and the caps are fixed in this version. If you want a different dollar threshold, compose a custom automation on the wasted spend signal.
Ease CPA targets on overperformers
Triggers on: its own metric rule, a campaign whose cost per conversion holds below 0.7× its average over the previous 28 days. Severity: use with care.
When a campaign continues to beat its CPA target, this automation raises the Target CPA by 10% so Smart Bidding has room to scale the campaign. The condition must persist across 2 consecutive checks before it acts. Only campaigns that already use a Target CPA bid strategy qualify. The change is to the target only, never the strategy. A revert restores the prior target.
Caps and guards (fixed in this version).
- Target CPA raised by 10% per execution.
- Wait 14 days before the automation changes the same campaign again. This respects the learning period for Google's bid strategy.
- At most 2 target changes per UTC day across the account.
- The campaign must already be on a Target CPA strategy, or the automation skips it.
This is a grammar automation: you enable or disable it, and the 10% step, the 0.7× threshold, and the caps are fixed in this version. The composer limits each target change to 15%. For a different step or threshold, compose a custom automation on the cost per conversion signal.
Ease ROAS targets on overperformers
Triggers on: its own metric rule, a campaign whose return on ad spend holds above 1.3× its average over the previous 28 days. Severity: use with care.
When a campaign continues to beat its ROAS target, this automation lowers the Target ROAS by 10% so Smart Bidding has room to scale the campaign. The condition must persist across 2 consecutive checks before it acts. Only campaigns that already use a Target ROAS bid strategy qualify. The change is to the target only, never the strategy. A revert restores the prior target.
Caps and guards (fixed in this version).
- Target ROAS lowered by 10% per execution.
- Wait 14 days before the automation changes the same campaign again. This respects the learning period for Google's bid strategy.
- At most 2 target changes per UTC day across the account.
- The campaign must already be on a Target ROAS strategy, or the automation skips it.
This is a grammar automation: you enable or disable it, and the 10% step, the 1.3× threshold, and the caps are fixed in this version. For a different step or threshold, compose a custom automation on the return on ad spend signal.