Using AdWords Scripts in your account is an amazing way to help manage the PPC craziness, but sometimes you need help beyond what a script can provide.
Here at Hanapin we utilize AdWords Scripts in almost every account we have, why? Because they’re awesome! They free up loads of time, are easy for both our novice and expert account managers to employ, automate boring AdWords tasks, and let you remain a control freak. However, over the course of writing and using over 25 scripts in our accounts we’ve discovered some limitations with scripts that may hinder you from hitting your goals, particularly in your larger AdWords accounts.
Because of these limitations scripts designed to scan for Broken URLs in AdWords Ads simply don’t cut it and cost you thousands if not tens of thousands in wasted ad spend each month when they fail or miss broken URLs.
Many account managers utilize scripts found on freeadwordsscripts.com to solve this problem with a great deal of success. AdWords even provides a script of their own for you to use – link checker. If you can use these scripts to solve your problem, great! That’s what it’s all about, finding the thing that solves your problem and eases your pain.
The downside is if you’re an agency with a few large e-commerce clients, an in-house team managing an unwieldy e-commerce site, or your company simply has loads of ads and you’re using scripts to address this problem you’re likely missing a ton of broken URL’s because of one or more of the following script limitations.
- Scripts break for unknown reasons – AdWords provides error messages when a script fails, but more often than not your left clueless as to why a script fails to complete.
- 30 Minute Run Time – AdWords scripts can execute for a maximum of 30 minutes, after which the script run will be canceled. If all your ads URL’s were not scanned you’re out of luck.
- 50,000 Entities – a single script iterator will return at most 50,000 entities (keywords, ads, ad groups, or campaigns). Most keywords have a dedicated URL so if you have more than 50,000 keywords a script won’t scan your entire account. One way around this is to run a script twice or more, but there are other limits such as…
- 20,000 URLs – are the max number of URLs you can ping each day within an account. Even if you don’t have a dedicated keyword per URL you’re still limited by the fetch limit. Most script runs won’t ping more than 1500-1800 URLs in a 30min. run.
- Uneasiness with AdWords Scripts – while this isn’t an issue with scripts per se it does prevent many account managers from using a Broken Link Script in their accounts. You Scriptomaniacs out there would be amazed how many of your PPC companions we talk to don’t like using scripts and never will.
So how do you get around all these limitations to find every broken URL link in your account? You utilize tools such as Destination URL Checker backed by experienced PPC Hero account managers that don’t have the above limitations.
Use Hanapin’s Destination URL Checker to scan your entire AdWords account with zero limitations.
If your ad is sending traffic to an error page you have a broken ad, not just a broken link.
