Rule Engine - FAQs
Geetanjali Tyagi avatar
Written by Geetanjali Tyagi
Updated over a week ago

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How should I use ROAS in the Rule Engine?

When selecting ROAS as a metric, the system considers it as a Constant Value (not as a percentage). 

For E.g. If the cost is $100 and the total conversion value is $500, Google Ads would report Conv Value / Cost to be 5. This is multiplied by 100 to get the ROAS which in this case will be 500%. 

How do I duplicate a strategy? 

If you want to create a duplicate of the strategy in the same account, go to the all Strategies main page, and under "Actions", press "Duplicate".

However, if you were looking to use the strategy across accounts, you would have to convert it into a Global Strategy, making it available across all your accounts without the need to copy it onto each one manually. 

You can convert a strategy to a global strategy on the strategy pages, by modifying it through the right-side actions and using the same action button to revert it back to an account-specific strategy as well. 

How to restrict bids changed in Rule Engine?

You can restrict the maximum bid to go up to a limited number using formulas, a number (like USD 10), a metric (like Top Position CPC), or an expression.

For example, you can limit the maximum bid to not be higher than 125% of the current bid.

Optimizing Automated Bidding and Portfolio Strategies

Automated Bidding and Portfolio strategies are fully automated by Google Ads, and no 3rd party tool will be able to edit them, as Google aggregates the performance data for everything in the portfolio and uses that to determine bids.

The workaround we've created for this, based on the restriction Google has, is changing the target at the ad group level, using the Target CPA or Target ROAS strategy in the Rule Engine. 

These strategies, however, only work with standard strategies.

Optimizing Target CPA or Target ROAS at the Campaign Level

You can tweak Target CPA or Target ROAS at the campaign level using the Rule Engine. These are the changes that can be applied:

  1. Target ROAS for smart shopping

  2. Target ROAS for standard shopping campaigns

  3. Target ROAS for search campaigns

  4. Target CPA for search campaigns

Note: Please make sure that while making the rules, the correct advertising channel/sub-channel is chosen, otherwise the tROAS changes will be applied to all the campaigns in one go.

For Microsoft Ads

Due to Microsoft Ads API restrictions, if a campaign has no performance data, it will not show up in the Rule Engine reports, when applying such action. 

Please note that once applied, the changes may take from 20 minutes up to an hour to appear in our reports.

For Amazon Ads

We don't support the suggested bid and suggested bid range in the Amazon Rule Engine because of restrictions in the Amazon API.

I see: "Automation for this strategy is scheduled to be run and can't be updated. Please contact our support team for further information."

When the automation is due to run soon (at the time you are trying to edit it), the system will display this message to avoid errors in running the automation.

Segments that don't return 0 impressions data

Google Ads API does not return 0 impressions data for segments such as networks and devices. This means that when these segments are added to the strategy's conditions, 0 impression data is automatically filtered.


For example: if a condition is added for network is equal to search and then another one is added for Impressions == 0, Rule Engine won't be able to show suggestions.

How is the Quality Score metric at the ad group level in Rule Engine calculated?

This is a weighted Quality Score calculated based on individual keyword Quality Scores and the number of impressions the keywords in an ad group received.

Quality Score is dependent upon 3 components: Landing Page Quality, Expected CTR, and Ad Relevance. These 3 sub-components don't get a numerical value in Google, so we calculate and assign values to these components, which makes it possible to calculate the scores at the ad group level.

Note: Rule Engine will only show a numerical value for this calculated metric in suggestions for ad groups running currently on the Search network and having a Cost greater than 0.

Why should I optimize the Quality Score at the Ad Group level?

In your Google Ads account, you can only see Quality Score at the keyword level, and It becomes difficult to scrutinize each and every keyword and decide which part of the account needs to be optimized first. This is why the ad group-level Quality Score you see in Rule Engine is so useful.

It is a good indicator of the collective health of keywords and gives you an idea of which ad groups need to be optimized on a priority. You can use this metric to generate a report of ad groups with low Quality Score and choose to label/pause them.

What is the Quality Score (hist.) at the ad group level in Rule Engine?

This attribute shows the last known score in the selected date range for the ad group. For example, if the last known score for your ad group is 5 on Jan 12, 2023, and the date range you are looking at is Jan 1 - Jan 20, 2023, Rule Engine will show 5 as the Quality Score (hist.).

Why can I not see Rule Engine Search Term suggestions for Amazon Ad campaigns with Automatic Targeting?

In Amazon Ad campaigns with Automatic Targeting, users do not have the option to manually add keywords; instead, keywords are generated automatically.

When running a Rule Engine strategy for the Search Term scope, you may have set up the action to add a search term as a keyword. In automatic targeting campaigns, it is not possible to add these keywords manually. Therefore, the system will not display suggestions for these types of campaigns. But you can still view the search terms matched to your ads by setting the action 'Include in report'.

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