6 ways to automate Google Ads

The secret to a successful paid campaign is delivering the right message to the right audience—at the right time. Google Ads is a powerful presence in the paid media landscape, and with the right strategy, the pay-per-click (PPC) giant can help you drive meaningful traffic and conversions. 

But capturing leads is just the beginning. You need to take swift action—whether that means following up with potential customers, notifying your team about new leads, or updating your CRM with their details. 

Enter: automation. With just a few Zaps—what we call our automated workflows—you can keep all the moving pieces in the Google Ads management process up to date and running smoothly automatically.

Table of contents

Connect Google Ads with Google Sheets 

Spreadsheets are a great way to store, organize, and analyze large amounts of information. When handling hundreds or thousands of leads at a time, your sales team can benefit from keeping prospect data in a spreadsheet that’s always up to date.

But manually copying and pasting customer information between Google Ads and Google Sheets just isn’t a practical long-term solution. Not only does it waste your time, but it’ll also fall on the back burner as soon as you get busy. And there’s a major risk of typos and human error.

Instead, Zapier can keep your spreadsheet in sync with Google Ads data automatically. This Zap creates a new row in Google Sheets anytime a new lead is generated in Google Ads.

Or, if you often manually add new leads to a spreadsheet, use this Zap to automatically duplicate that contact’s details into a Google Ads custom list.

Track offline conversions

Your Google Ads strategy is only as good as your sales data. Without a comprehensive idea of your audience’s demographics, interests, and behavior, you could be throwing ad campaign money out the window.

But many of your conversions happen offline—or through channels other than a straightforward Google ad click. It’s important to report your successful leads back to Google, but manually recording each one just isn’t practical.

These workflows automatically send new deals from your CRM tool (whether it’s Salesforce, Pipedrive, or Hubspot) directly to Google Ads. You can use the filter and delay steps to customize your automation. For instance, you may only want to send Hubspot contact updates to Google Ads if a specific field (such as the “Lifecycle Stage”) is changed.

Send notifications for new leads

You and your team need to be aware of new leads so you can follow up in a timely manner. But unless your team is glued to your Google Ads dashboard, it’s tough to stay on top of new leads.

If you want to keep stakeholders and sales staff in the loop about important notifications in Google Ads, automation is the simple solution. These Zaps automatically generate a custom email or Slack message for each new lead. That way, your team has the information they need to strike while the iron is hot and maximize sales opportunities.

Add leads to your CRM and marketing apps

Paid advertising works best in tandem with your email marketing and sales strategy. While Google Ads gather top-of-funnel engagement and drive traffic to your site, your email list helps you nurture those visitors. 

If someone clicks on a Google Ad and makes a purchase, you won’t want to let them fall through the cracks. These Zaps send every new lead form entry from Google Ads directly to your CRM or email marketing tool of choice. From there, you can follow up or add them to an automated customer journey to ensure your brand stays top-of-mind. 

Add contacts to Google Ads

On the other hand, you can increase ROI on ad spend by ensuring the right people are seeing your ad content. Anytime you add a new lead to Mailchimp, HubSpot, or Shopify, use one of these integrations to send that same information to Google Ads. That way, those new leads are more likely to see your ads—which increases sales without any extra effort on your part.

Use webhooks with Google Ads 

Zapier lets you connect Google Ads with thousands of popular apps. But even if you can’t find the tool you’re looking for in Zapier’s App Directory, you still have options. Webhooks let you send data between Google Ads and an app that doesn’t (yet) natively integrate with Zapier.

Webhooks send data automatically from one app to another. For example, maybe you’d like to record offline conversions in Google Ads whenever you make a sale in your eCommerce platform. Or maybe you want to send new lead form entries from Google Ads to your obscure CRM tool. These Zaps can get it done.

Boost your sales funnel by automating Google Ads

Google Ads is a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal—and automation lets you use the platform to its fullest potential. Easily track offline conversions, manage notifications and spreadsheets, and sync Google Ads to your CRM or email marketing tool. 

While moving information between tools can be a huge time suck, Zapier takes care of the busy work for you. That way, the time you save automating Google Ads can be spent better elsewhere—like nurturing prospects.

This is just the start of what you can do with Google Ads and Zapier. What will you automate first?

This article was originally published in January 2020, with previous contributions by Ana Gotter and Nicole Replogle. It was most recently updated in October 2024 by Elena Alston.