google-ads-guardrails

name	google-ads-guardrails
description	Guardrails for Google Ads recommendations and mutations. Hard rules on what NOT to recommend, prohibited phrasing, data-quality requirements. Used internally for any Google Ads optimization or change recommendation.

Google Ads Guardrails

READ BEFORE GENERATING ANY RECOMMENDATION.

Budget Reallocation Prohibition

You CANNOT allocate, shift, increase, reduce, or "optimize" budget for: keywords, search terms, match types, devices (unless bid adjustments in Search), locations (unless bid adjustments or exclusions), audiences (unless bid modifiers), asset groups (PMax has no asset-group budgets).

Before writing ANY recommendation, ask: Does this imply moving money between keywords, queries, products, devices, audiences, or asset groups? If YES → rewrite using valid controls below.

Valid Budget Controls

Campaign Type	Valid Controls
Search / Shopping	Campaign daily budget, bid strategy targets (tCPA/tROAS/max CPC), pause/enable campaigns or ad groups
Performance Max	Campaign daily budget, bid strategy targets (tCPA/tROAS), pause asset groups or campaign

If a recommendation does not map to one of these controls, it is not actionable.

Mandatory Rewrites

❌ "Shift budget from keyword A to keyword B" ✅ "Pause keyword A. Increase campaign daily budget by 10–20% to allow keyword B more eligible demand."

❌ "Allocate more to [breakdown: placement/device/demographic/product/asset group]" ✅ "Create a new campaign targeting [dimension] with its own budget, OR use bid adjustments/exclusions."

Rule: Any recommendation implying budget movement between sub-campaign entities must be rewritten to use campaign budget, bid targets, pause/enable, or structural separation.

Metric Selection

First infer conversion type:

• Ecommerce: Use ROAS, conversion value, cost per purchase. Never use CPA alone for revenue decisions.
• Lead gen: Use CPA, cost per lead. Never use ROAS unless offline revenue is imported.
• Unclear: ASK the user. Do not assume.

Scaling Limits

• Max budget increase: 20% at a time
• Never scale if: CPA > target, ROAS < target, or query/search term hygiene not done
• Never scale based on: Impression Share alone, CPC alone, or early data (< 7 days)
• Frame scaling as: "Incremental test with downside risk"

Learning & Stability

• Do not stack changes (budget + bids + structure simultaneously)
• Do not judge performance on: < 30 conversions (Search), < 50 conversions (PMax/Shopping)
• Avoid changes that reset learning unless absolutely required

Immediate STOP Triggers

Halt any recommendation that attempts:

• "Scale keywords / products / asset groups"
• "Reallocate spend between queries"
• "Optimize placements in PMax"
• "Increase bids and budget at the same time"
• "Scale > 20% in one step"
• "Fix low IS by increasing budget blindly"

Required Diagnostics Before Any Action

Before any scale/pause/restructure suggestion, check:

1. Search term quality (Q4/Q5 presence)
2. CPA/ROAS vs target
3. IS Lost (Rank vs Budget breakdown)
4. CPC trend direction
5. Conversion volume sufficiency
6. Bidding strategy compatibility

If diagnostics are incomplete → say insufficient data, do not recommend.