Automations

Add search terms as keywords

Turn search terms that already convert into keywords in the ad group that showed them.

Your search terms report is a list of what people actually typed. Some of those searches already convert, but are not keywords yet, so you have less control over them than you could have. This automation finds them and adds them as keywords in the ad group that showed them.

How it decides

Each run reads the search terms report over your chosen date range, then keeps only the terms that meet every check you have set:

• Minimum impressions, clicks, conversions and spend are the volume checks. They stop the automation acting on a term that happened to convert once.
• Minimum click-through rate checks that the term is relevant.
• Performance check picks how results are judged: ROAS, CPA or no check at all. Only the target for the one you pick is shown. A minimum ROAS is a floor, and a maximum CPA (cost per acquisition) is a ceiling: a term that converts but costs too much is not added.

Any check set to 0 is skipped. Because a term has to meet all the ones you set, adding more checks makes the automation stricter, not looser.

Requiring at least one conversion plus a sensible impression count is the usual starting point. It keeps the automation to terms with evidence behind them.

What it skips

Three kinds of term are left alone, so the automation cannot make your account messier:

• Terms that are already keywords anywhere in the account.
• Terms identical to the keyword that matched them. There is nothing to add.
• Duplicates across ad groups. The same search can be served by several ad groups. Adding it to each would create keywords competing with each other for the same search, so the first ad group seen keeps it.

Match types

Match types decides how each new keyword is created. Pick as many as you want from the dropdown; selecting more than one creates the term in each, so a term added as exact and phrase becomes two keywords.

Exact and phrase together is the usual choice: exact gives you control of the precise search, phrase catches close variants of it. Broad is rarely what you want here, since the point of the automation is to act on searches you have already seen convert.

Settings

Filters restricts the automation to campaigns carrying a campaign label. Leave it empty to include every campaign.

Date range sets how many days of search term history each run reads. A longer window finds more terms and takes longer to react to a change in demand.

Thresholds holds the volume checks, the click-through rate and the performance check. Minimum click-through rate and Minimum ROAS are percentages, so a minimum ROAS of 300% means the term has to have brought in three times what it spent.

Actions holds the match types.

Suggested approach

Every run adds keywords in Google Ads, a run by hand included. Keywords are easy to add and tedious to unpick, so start with strict checks and loosen them once the first runs add what you expect.

If a run adds far more keywords than you expected, raise the volume checks rather than shortening the date range. A shorter window makes the automation act on less evidence, which is the opposite of what you want.

Changes are grouped by ad group and match type. Large groups are split into batches, because Google Ads limits how many keywords one change can carry. Seeing one ad group appear as several changes is normal.