Google AdWords™ For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Setting Alerts

The steps in “Building a Customized Maintenance Schedule” most likely will take you more time to read than to actually do, so there really shouldn't be any excuse not to add it to your calendar. But sometimes you'll need to intervene in your account on an emergency basis, and you'd rather not wait until the next scheduled maintenance session to discover the problem.

Set up alerts to get notified about serious performance or account problems, such as significant changes in traffic (up or down) or in costs:

1. Navigate to the Campaigns tab of your online AdWords Dashboard.
2. Click the Alerts button, just above the data table.
3. Select Create a Custom Alert from the drop-down list and explore the options.

   For example, you can ask Google to e-mail you when your spend reaches a certain percentage of your daily budget, when your number of clicks increases or decreases by a percentage you specify, or when your number of conversions plummets.

Don't rely on alerts for ordinary account maintenance; instead, set up a follow a schedule, and save alerts for situations when out-of-the-ordinary measures are called for.