Pause or edit a live campaign
Most edits to a live campaign happen inside Hero Marketer. The All campaigns page pauses and enables campaigns directly. Hero AI makes most other changes in chat, for example to keywords, negative keywords, the daily budget, bidding, and ad copy. Hero AI always shows the change on an approval card before it touches your account. Some changes still need Google Ads directly.
Where each change happens
| Change | Where |
|---|---|
| Pause or enable a campaign | App UI (All campaigns page) or Hero AI |
| Pause or enable an ad group | Hero AI |
| Pause or enable an individual ad | Hero AI |
| Pause or enable an individual keyword | Hero AI |
| Add or remove targeted keywords | Hero AI |
| Add or remove negative keywords (campaign or ad group level) | Hero AI |
| Change the daily budget | Hero AI |
| Adjust Target CPA or Target ROAS | Hero AI |
| Switch bidding strategy | Hero AI |
| Apply a new or updated responsive search ad | Hero AI (Ad Copy Agent) |
| Redraft the landing page copy | Hero AI (Landing Page Agent) |
| Add negatives, pause keywords, raise budgets, or ease targets on a schedule | Automations that you turn on |
| Build a new Search, Performance Max, Demand Gen, or retargeting campaign | Campaign wizard (Create campaign) |
| Change max CPC bids on existing keywords or ad groups | Google Ads |
| Location, device, ad schedule, network, and language settings | Google Ads |
| Performance Max asset groups, assets, and audience signals | Google Ads |
| Sitelinks and other extensions | Google Ads |
| Change a shared budget | Google Ads |
| Create ad groups, restructure ad groups, split or merge campaigns | Google Ads |
| Conversion tracking setup or fixes | Google Ads |
| Billing and payment details | Google Ads |
| Account settings (auto tagging, account-level negative keyword lists) | Google Ads |
| Permanently delete a campaign | Google Ads |
Pause or enable directly in the app
To pause or enable a campaign in the app:
- Click Campaigns in the sidebar. Or click View all campaigns under the dashboard table.
- Find the campaign on the All campaigns page.
- Open the row menu.
- Click Pause campaign or Enable campaign.
The change is immediate. There is no confirmation step. The status badge updates when Google Ads confirms the change, usually within a few seconds. Pause and enable on this page are free.
A pause or enable on this page does not show in Automation history, so it has no Revert. To undo it, use the other menu item. The row menu also has Open in Google Ads. A removed campaign shows No actions available.
The All campaigns page shares its date range and campaign filters with the dashboard. If you do not see the campaign you want, check the status and campaign name filters first. Filter by Removed to also see deleted campaigns.
Pause and enable are the only campaign changes on the All campaigns page. For other changes, ask Hero AI.
Edit through Hero AI
Tell Hero AI what to change, in plain English: "Pause the alternative to jira campaign," or "Set the daily budget on Brand Search to $80." Hero AI shows the change on a Needs your approval card with the exact values. Click Approve and apply to run the change in your Google Ads account. Hero AI changes nothing until you click Approve and apply.
Changes Hero AI runs directly against your account:
- Status at any level. Pause or enable a campaign, an ad group, an individual ad, or an individual keyword.
- Targeted keywords. Add new keywords (with match type and optional CPC bid) or remove existing ones from an ad group. Hero AI cannot change the max CPC bid of an existing keyword or ad group.
- Negative keywords. Add or remove negatives at the campaign or ad group level.
- Daily budget. Change the campaign's daily budget.
- Bidding. Switch the bidding strategy, for example from Maximize Clicks to Target CPA once you have enough conversion data. Or change the Target CPA or Target ROAS of the current strategy. These are the only bidding changes that Hero AI can make.
- Ad copy. Hero AI can create a new responsive search ad or update an existing ad with the text of the Ad Copy Agent. Hero AI creates a new ad as paused. To start it, ask Hero AI to enable the ad. An updated ad stays live.
Two agents extend the chat for longer flows:
- Ad Copy Agent drafts 15 headlines and 4 descriptions for an ad group. Read them, then approve the change to apply them.
- Landing Page Agent drafts the copy for a full landing page: sections, headlines, body text, and CTAs. Use it when the experience after the click is the problem. You can paste the output into Google Docs or your design tool. It is not a deployed page.
Hero AI refuses some changes:
- Shared budgets. Hero AI does not change a shared budget, because the change moves every campaign that uses the budget. Hero AI tells you how many campaigns share the budget. To change it, give the campaign its own budget in Google Ads. Or change the shared budget in Google Ads.
- Very large values. One change cannot set a daily budget above 10,000, a Target CPA above 10,000, a Target ROAS above 10,000%, or a CPC bid above 1,000. These numbers are in the currency of your Google Ads account. Make a larger change in Google Ads.
Some applied changes show an Undo button in the chat. Undo is available for negative keyword adds, budget changes, keyword pauses, Target CPA and Target ROAS changes, bidding strategy switches, and ad copy. Other changes have no Undo: status changes of campaigns, ad groups, and ads, keyword enables, keyword adds and removals, and negative keyword removals. To reverse one of those, ask Hero AI for the opposite change, or edit it in Google Ads. For the full action reference, see Actions Hero AI can take.
Changes that automations make
Automations can also make some changes for you. After you turn one on, an automation can add negative keywords, pause keywords, raise or lower budgets, or change Target CPA and Target ROAS. Automations run once a day, at 06:00 in the account's time zone, within daily caps. You can revert each action in Automation history. See What automations do.
What still needs Google Ads
Some changes still happen in Google Ads directly, because Hero AI cannot make them:
- Bids. Max CPC bids on existing keywords and ad groups. Hero AI sets a CPC bid only when it adds a new keyword.
- Targeting settings. Location, device, ad schedule, network, and language settings.
- Performance Max. Asset groups and assets. Hero AI reads them, but it cannot edit them.
- Sitelinks and other extensions. Add, edit, or remove them in Google Ads.
- Shared budgets. Hero AI refuses a budget change when more than one campaign uses the budget.
- Structure. Create new ad groups, reorganize ad groups, split one campaign into several, or merge campaigns.
- Conversion tracking. Add new conversion actions, debug tag firing, or change attribution.
- Billing. Payment methods, tax info, and account billing.
- Account settings. Auto tagging, and negative keyword lists that apply across the account.
- Permanent delete. Hero Marketer pauses campaigns. Permanent removal happens in Google Ads.
Hero Marketer reads your account from Google Ads. So the dashboard shows the changes that you make in Google Ads the next time it loads data.
What to change and when
A few guidelines hold regardless of where the edit happens:
- First two weeks. Do not change anything. Let Google's algorithm learn. Premature edits reset learning.
- Weeks two to four. Add negative keywords from the search terms report. Do not touch budget or copy unless a clear policy issue surfaces.
- Month two onward. Once you have enough data, evaluate the campaign. Do clicks convert? Is CPA in your target range? If not, decide whether to adjust the campaign or build a new one with sharper targeting. It is often faster to build new than to adjust the old campaign.
When to start over and not patch
Sometimes a campaign is not working, and a patch will not fix it. Signs it is time to build a fresh campaign and pause the old one:
- CTR below 1% after a few hundred impressions. The keywords or copy do not match search intent.
- Conversion rate below 0.5%. The landing page may not match the ad's promise.
- CPA two to three times your target, with no clear path to lower it. The cluster may be too competitive.
You build a new campaign only in the campaign wizard. The AI steps of the wizard use credits, and publishing is free. See Choose what to target to start one.