The Ads Ad Alerts page shows a list of all the Ads alerts defined for your account. For each ad alert, you see the ad alert name, the filter used, the metric being monitored, and the minimum sample required to trigger the alert. You also see the date of the most recent event for the ad alert and an Action menu.
Creating Ad Alerts
To add an ad alert, click the Create Alert button on the Alerts page, complete the New Alert form, and click Save. In order to simplify the process of creating an alert, some of the settings you're unlikely to change are located on an Advanced Settings tab. Advanced settings depend on the metric you choose – there are different default values for each metric, each of which are calculated to provide the optimal balance between the minimum size of the sample and frequency of notifications.
To create an alert:
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Enter a name for the alert.
Make the ad alert name as descriptive as possible. The name appears in all of the Alerts pages and in ad alert emails, so a descriptive name will help you and the email recipients distinguish between various alerts. You can always edit the alert name if needed. The alert name must be between 3 and 256 characters. Try not to go too crazy with names, though, because they will be truncated when displayed.
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Choose a filter and an ad metric.
You use a combination of filters and metrics to zero in on specific areas of concern. You can choose any of the quality metrics described above and any MetricLens filter for your account. The filter determines the traffic segment to monitor for this alert.
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Chose a condition type (< or >) and enter a condition value.
The condition type can be greater than or less than. The value is the threshold that triggers the alert. The units are based on the metric you choose.
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Enter a list of email address for the people to be notified when the alert is triggered.
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Change the state if you don't want the alert to be active immediately.
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If you need to change any of the advanced settings, click Advanced Settings. Learn more about Advanced Settings.
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Click Save.
Note: Before you start here are a couple of things to consider:
It's a good idea to know what the placement patterns of your ads and ad creatives in order to set meaningful thresholds and samples.
There's a trade-off when you set a threshold. If you set a higher threshold, the alert will be triggered less often and notification emails will not go out as often. The downside to having a higher threshold is that the condition will become more severe before the alert is triggered and you're notified. It might take some tweaking to find the right balance for your organization.
Enabling or Disabling Alerts
By enabling and disabling ad alerts you control which ad alerts are active at any point in time. This is in addition to the cool down period you set for each alert when you create (or edit) it. You might, for example, set up a series of ad alerts for upcoming events and then enable them when they're needed. Or, you could decide that you want to take a vacation from a particular ad alert.
The advantage of disabling an ad alert over deleting it is that deleting removes all data associated with the alert. Disabling an ad alert merely stops it from firing. Any data associated with the disabled alert is subject to the normal data retention limits. In practical terms, you can go back and look at the events for a disabled ad alert, but not for one that has been deleted.
In the Ad Alerts page, you can use the links at the top of the page to display all alerts, only ad alerts that are enabled, or just disabled ad alerts.
To enable or disable ad alerts:
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Click the Action control for the ad alert you want to enable or disable.
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Click Enable or Disable.
The status for the alert changes immediately and the totals are updated the next time you refresh the page.
Editing an Ad Alert
There's a fine art to creating the perfect ad alert: one that tells you what you need to know without burying you in needless noise. Sometimes you get it right the first time; other times you need to adjust some the ad alert settings, such as condition value, after you see how an ad alert is performing. You can change the name for an ad alert, the condition value, the minimum sample, the cool down period, the priority, and the JSON attachment setting. You can't change the metric, diagnostic filter, or condition. Instead, you must create a new ad alert that has the desired metric, filter, and condition.
To edit an alert:
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Click the Action control for the ad alert and choose Edit.
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Make the necessary changes. If necessary, click Advanced Settings, make your changes, and click Update.
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Click Save.
Deleting Ad Alerts
If you no longer need one or more ad alerts, you can delete them from your account. All data associated with the ad alert, including incidents and diagnostics, are also deleted. There's no way to recover this information once you delete the ad alert.
To delete ad alerts:
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Click the Action control for the ad alert you want to delete.
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Click Delete and confirm that you want to delete the ad alert.
Viewing Ad Alert Diagnostics
Each ad alert produces an event when it fires. The best place to examine events is the Ads Diagnostics page, where you can drill down into event data to see information about the conditions that were in effect when the event occurred.
On the Ads Alerts page you can also expand the view to see the five most recent events or click to see a list of all events that occurred within the last 31 days. Pagination controls at the bottom of the page let you see more of the list. Each event has a link that takes you to the corresponding Ads Diagnostics page. You can also get to the diagnostics page for an event from the Manage Alerts page from the link in the notification email.
Yet another way to reach the Ads Diagnostics page is from the main Ads navigation (Ads > Diagnostics).
If an ad alert has fired, the Diagnostics page shows the name of the ad alert, the date and time it fired, and the triggering value. Additional information varies by metric. Ads alert diagnostics are managed and perform similarly to standard diagnostics. See Viewing Alert Diagnostics for detailed information about Diagnostics.
To view alert diagnostics for a selected date range and filter, choose Ads > Diagnostics. Choose the date range and filter.
To view the diagnostics page for a specific alert event, open the alert on the Ads Alerts page and click the timestamp link for an ad alert incident. Or, you can use the link that appears in the ad alert email.