Standing approvals

A standing approval is the workspace owner's permission for Piste to apply one kind of Google Ads fix itself: exact-match negative keywords for searches that spent money and never sold. Piste offers one only after people have applied four of those fixes in a row, and only the owner can switch it on. Every other change still waits for a person.

What does a standing approval cover?Copy Anchor Link

A standing approval covers one kind of ad change, and all of these must be true:

• It adds negative keywords to a Google Ads campaign.
• Every keyword is exact match.
• It's the fix Ad spend watch's search terms check computed for that campaign, for searches that spent and never sold, with exactly the keywords the check chose.
• An automation run raised it, not a conversation, and not a dry run.
• It fits the limits below.

A change that doesn't fit stays a card for a person to decide, and the card says why, starting "Not applied without asking:".

What are the limits?Copy Anchor Link

Once on, a standing approval applies a change only within these limits:

• At most 30 negative keywords in one change.
• The searches they block cost at most a monthly amount in total, on their last 90 days' average.
• That monthly amount counts everything applied under the standing approval in any 30 days.

An account in any other currency isn't offered a standing approval.

What does it never cover?Copy Anchor Link

• Budgets, pauses, networks or location targeting.
• Meta.
• Phrase or broad negative keywords, or negatives on an ad group.
• Removing negative keywords, or any undo. An undo is always a person's.
• A change Piste proposed in a conversation, or one the AI model suggested rather than the check.
• A dry run.

When is a standing approval offered?Copy Anchor Link

Ad spend watch offers one when the last 4 of these fixes on the account were all applied by people, with Undo pressed on none of them, and:

• the first and last of the four were decided at least 7 days apart;
• the newest was decided within the last 30 days.

The offer is a card under Ad spend watch's post in Slack, titled: Apply "negative keywords for searches that spent and never sold" fixes on Google Ads without asking? It explains the limits and says that only the workspace owner can choose. Standing approval cards aren't in Needs you.

How do I switch on a standing approval?Copy Anchor Link

To say no, press Keep asking me. Piste keeps asking about each fix, and doesn't offer the standing approval again for 90 days.

If someone other than the owner presses one of these buttons, Piste tells them only the workspace owner can choose, and nothing changes.

What happens once it's on?Copy Anchor Link

Ad spend watch still proposes each fix as before. When a proposal fits the standing approval entirely, Piste applies it straight away, through the same steps as a person's press: it reads the campaign again, writes once, and records what it replaced.

• The change's card says "Applied without asking, under the standing approval" with the owner's name and the date it was set.
• The card has Undo, and Stop doing these without asking, which only the owner can use.
• The decision log records it as "Applied under a standing approval", not as anyone's click.

How do I switch it off?Copy Anchor Link

The owner can switch it off in either of these ways:

Pressing Undo on any change it applied also switches it off, whoever presses it. Once it's off, the card shows Switch it back on, and Piste asks about each fix again.

When does it switch itself off?Copy Anchor Link

A standing approval switches itself off, and Piste asks about each fix again, when:

The owner can switch it back on from the card, as long as the same Google Ads account is still connected.

At a glanceCopy Anchor Link

RelatedCopy Anchor Link

• Ad changes: every change Piste can propose on Google Ads and Meta.
• Google Ads and Meta: connecting an ad account.
• Approvals: what Piste does on its own, and what needs a person.