How Do I Create Or Edit New Keyword Rules?

Adtomic’s keyword promotion rules offer powerful and time saving tools to organize and get control in your account so that you can implement your broader account strategies. The Campaign Builder is a great place to start with promotion rules, but if you want to edit the Campaign Builder rules, create your own custom keyword promotion structures, or change the trigger thresholds you’ll need to know how to edit your rules.

To access the rules editor in Adtomic, navigate to the Ad Manager.

Then, find the list you want to create a rule in, and scroll all the way to the right to find the rules column. An existing rule on the campaign will be indicated by the number next to the cog (the number identifies how many rules exist). To edit one of these rules or to create a new rule, click on the cog icon:

In the following window, you’ll be able to see any existing rules, if there are any suggestions this rule has generated, and create a new rule by clicking on the “+ Add Rule” button. You can edit an existing rule by clicking on the pencil icon next to the rule name:

The interface for creating a new rule and editing an existing one are nearly identical, and all the following features are available in both:

1. Naming your rule. Best practice is to label the rule clearly after its function, e.g. “Proven to High Performance - 5 sales” and include the date you are creating or updating the rule. This will allow you to review results from the rule from a specific date forward.

2. Search Term Criteria.  Although not reflected within the video, this step is a great way to isolate specific search terms. Under ‘Search Term Criteria’ enter in a list of keywords to include or exclude.

   If you wish to include search terms, click “Contains”

   If you wish to exclude a search term, click “Does NOT” contain

   Toggle “Automate” on if you wish to automatically apply suggestions this Rule will create. Leave “off” to manually apply recommendations this Rule will create on the Suggestions page. 

3. Selecting a rule type. There are two rule settings here. Find converting search terms will promote search terms based on an order threshold (and optional ACoS threshold) following the keyword outputs and you set later in the rule. By default, these keyword outputs trigger on a single order, but you can adjust this threshold in the Advanced Options. Find poor performing search terms will suggest search terms for negation that have no sales but have reached a click threshold where you could have reasonably expected one (or you can set a custom click/spend threshold). Don’t forget to check out the Advanced Options to set your custom thresholds here for either rule setting.
4. Add Additional Ad Groups. In this step, you can bring in any destination ad groups you want the rules to source data from or create keywords in. If you’re sourcing search terms with sales from one ad group, you’ll need to bring in any additional ad groups that you want to create the keywords in after the trigger from step two is met. If you’re new to promotion rules, we highly recommend the search term isolation structure that comes bundled in the campaign builder - it’s a great place to start. From there, you can come up with some incredible sophisticated keyword promotion structures based on the needs of your account.
5. Inputs Ad groups that you include in step 3 will be listed here. The rules engine will aggregate search term performance across all the ad groups that have the box titled “Look for targets in these ad groups” checked to meet the thresholds/triggers you set in step 2.
6. Outputs These are the keywords you want to make once your chosen thresholds or triggers (again, set in step two) are met. Don’t forget to keep your search terms isolated.

Don’t forget to click the “Create Rule” button once you’ve selected all your rule settings.

Congratulations, you’ve set up your brand new rule. If you’ve got automation for the rule turned off, the keywords in the rule will be shown in your suggestions. Once you’re sure the rule is doing what you intend, we highly recommend coming back to this rules editor and toggling the “Automate” tab so that those suggested keywords will get created automatically.  

Would you like to learn how to create Negative Keyword Rules? Check out this tutorial for more information.