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Daily

Catch campaigns that overspend

You get an email when a campaign spent far more yesterday than it usually does.

Runs
Daily
Apps
Google Ads
AI
Not needed
Access
read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every morning, email me any Google Ads campaign whose spend yesterday was more than 50% above its 7-day average.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

On a Thursday afternoon a marketer raises a campaign's bid strategy to chase more leads, and by Friday it has spent $600 against a normal $150. Google Ads allows daily spend to run up to twice the set budget on a given day, so nothing technically broke. The overspend is only noticed on Monday during the weekly review, when the damage is done and the monthly budget is short.

Each day, ClickRuntime queries Google Ads for campaign spend by date over the last eight days. It compares yesterday with the average of the seven days before and sends an alert when a campaign spent far more than usual. If everything is in range, you hear nothing.

It is especially useful for accounts with several people editing campaigns, since any of them can change a bid strategy without telling the others.

What you get out of it

  • Overspend caught after one day

    The alert fires the morning after a spike, so a runaway campaign costs you a single day rather than a whole weekend. For a small advertiser, that is the difference between a bad day and a blown month.

  • Monthly budgets stay predictable

    Finance can plan around a monthly ad budget only if daily swings are noticed. Quick alerts let you pull spend back before the total drifts, which protects cash for the rest of the month.

  • Bad edits are traced to dates

    The alert names the campaign and the day, which you can match against change history. That makes it quick to find which bid or budget change caused the jump and who needs to reverse it.

  • Silence when things are normal

    You only get a message when something is off, so alerts keep their meaning. People pay attention to a rare, specific notice in a way they never do with a daily report.

  • Protection while you are away

    On holiday or at a conference, nobody is watching the account. A spend alert gives a backstop, so a problem can be handled by a colleague with the details already in hand.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every day, ClickRuntime pulls the last eight days of spend for each Google Ads campaign.

  2. It compares yesterday's spend with that campaign's usual daily spend.

  3. If a campaign spent far more than usual, you get an email naming it, with yesterday's spend next to its daily average. On normal days nothing is sent.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google Ads

What you get

RunsDaily
Catch campaigns that overspendtoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · Google Ads spend spikeGeneric – Search: $642.00 yesterday vs $275.40/day average

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
  • Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Google Ads steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
daily_spend_budget_alert.pyexample
from collections import defaultdict
from datetime import date, timedelta
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, notify

CUSTOMER_ID = "1234567890"

def gaql(query):
    headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('google', 'ads')}",
               "developer-token": credentials.secret("GOOGLE_ADS_DEVELOPER_TOKEN")}
    batches = http.post(f"https://googleads.googleapis.com/v21/customers/{CUSTOMER_ID}/googleAds:searchStream",
                        headers=headers, json={"query": query}).json()
    return [row for b in batches for row in b.get("results", [])]


@on_trigger
def run(event):
    start, end = date.today() - timedelta(days=8), date.today() - timedelta(days=1)
    rows = gaql("SELECT campaign.name, segments.date, metrics.cost_micros FROM campaign "
                f"WHERE segments.date BETWEEN '{start}' AND '{end}'")
    spend = defaultdict(dict)
    for r in rows:
        spend[r["campaign"]["name"]][r["segments"]["date"]] = int(r["metrics"].get("costMicros", 0)) / 1e6
    alerts = []
    for name, days in spend.items():
        y = days.pop(str(end), 0)
        avg = sum(days.values()) / max(len(days), 1)
        if avg and y > avg * 1.5:
            alerts.append(f"{name}: ${y:,.2f} yesterday vs ${avg:,.2f}/day average")
    if alerts:
        notify.email_me("Google Ads spend spike", "\n".join(alerts))
    return {"alerts": len(alerts)}

FAQ

Common questions

How far above normal triggers an alert?
The default compares yesterday with the seven-day average, and you choose how far above counts as far above. A common setting is 50 percent over, but accounts with lumpy spending, such as event ads, may need a higher threshold to avoid false alarms.
Does it alert on spend that is lower than usual?
It can, though the default is overspend only. Underspend often means ads were disapproved or a budget ran out, so some people ask for alerts in both directions. Low-spend campaigns with tiny averages can be noisy, so a minimum amount helps.
Where does the alert show up?
The alert is sent as a message to the destination configured for it, and each message names the campaign, yesterday's spend and the usual daily figure. That gives whoever receives it enough to act without opening Google Ads first.
What permissions does it need?
read. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (daily). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Catch campaigns that overspend” from your assistant

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