---
name: google-ads-optimization-and-governance
description: Audits a connected Google Ads account, classifies every search term, proposes negatives, bid, budget and structure changes as an approval package, and executes only what a named approver signed off. Use when the user asks to optimize Google Ads, review search terms, cut wasted spend, audit an account, or build a campaign plan.
metadata:
  version: "1.1.2"
---

# google-ads-optimization-and-governance

> **Client-neutral reusable package.** No client names, tenant or workspace identifiers, account or
> resource IDs, customer records, credentials, or internal paths. All examples are synthetic.

| | |
|---|---|
| Live catalog name | Google Ads Optimization and Governance |
| Live category | Advertising & Commerce |
| Catalog entry | 1 |
| Internal capability ID | `CAP-PM-01` |
| Provider | Google Ads |
| Availability | Candidate; validate in the active Workspace |
| Deliverable type | `client_ready_guided_skill` |
| Validation status | Candidate; local package validation only |
| Version | 1.1.0 |


## OLLIE Runtime integration

Use this capability under the active OLLIE Operator. Read live Workspace Context and tenant
bindings for the required inputs below; this public package supplies no client facts or authority.
Consume `ask-ollie-authority-core` for authority, `outloop-access-fallback` for recovery and
resource verification, `email-lifecycle-core` for recipients, approvals and stored-copy delivery
verification, and the bootstrapper Runtime Contract for ownership, scheduling and completion.
These owners govern execution; this Skill does not implement a competing runtime.

Select the relevant expertise below for the requested outcome. Runtime governs combining Skills,
partial use and completing missing steps with other authorized capabilities. This Skill's domain
scope does not limit the Operator's wider authorized task. Preserve domain safety restrictions.
Verify findings against source evidence and read back any resulting artifact or authorized change.

## Business outcome

Wasted spend is found and removed on a weekly cycle, and every account change carries a named human approval and a verified read-back.

## Operating modes

Read · Analyze · Draft · Write with approval

## Prerequisites — what must be true before this runs

- Workspace Context (organization, client, goals, approval policy)
- An approved Google Ads grant
- A confirmed conversion action and measurement basis

## Required inputs

| Input | Source |
|---|---|
| Approved advertising account identifier | Workspace configuration |
| Conversion goal and the primary conversion action | Workspace Context — performance marketing |
| Target CPA / CPL / ROAS and monthly budget ceiling | Workspace Context — performance marketing |
| Brand and competitor term list | Workspace Context — brand |
| Protected terms that must never be blocked | Required — the safety list |
| Named approver and approval channel | Configuration |

## Classification is the safety mechanism

Every search term is classified before anything is proposed:

| Class | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Keep | Converting or on-intent. Never blocked |
| Negative — safe | Clearly irrelevant. Proposed with evidence |
| Review | Ambiguous. Proposed as a question, never as an action |
| Do not block | Matches a protected term or appears inside an active positive keyword |
| Routing | Belongs in a different ad group or campaign |
| Own brand | Never blocked without an explicit instruction |

**Never bulk-add negatives without classification.** A negative that collides with an active positive
keyword, or with a protected term, is a defect — run the substring and conflict checks before proposing.

## Conversion-basis rule

Establish the measurement basis before proposing any bid change. If the account's conversion values
are unreliable — a flat placeholder value, a demoted primary action, or a pixel that reports no value —
then **cost-per-result is the only valid basis** and value-based bidding must not be proposed. State the
basis you used in the package.

## Governance companion — the health audit

A defensive read-only audit belongs alongside the optimization cycle and should run after every
execution: recent-negative damage, protected-term collisions, conversion-signal integrity, bid-strategy
drift, budget anomaly, junk-term ratio, geo leakage, and shared-negative-list attachment gaps. It makes
no changes; it raises findings.

## Action classification

| Action class | This workflow |
|---|---|
| Read | Campaigns, ad groups, keywords, search terms, budgets, bid strategies, conversion actions, geo settings |
| Analyze | Waste classification, junk-term ratio, negative-conflict detection, bid-strategy drift, tracking integrity, structure gaps |
| Draft | A per-campaign approval package: proposed negatives with evidence, bid and budget moves, routing, structure |
| Write with approval | Applies only the approved items, dry-run first, then read-back verification |
| Destructive | Campaign or ad-group removal is **out of scope**. Pausing is available and gated |

## Approval and delivery

The Operator applies Authority Core and the active Workspace approval policy to any requested
mutation. Email Lifecycle owns recipient classification, sending and stored-copy verification.
The action table defines this capability's domain scope; it grants no permission by itself.

## Expected output

A per-campaign approval package — term, match type, scope, reason, spend, clicks, conversions, cost per result and risk for every proposed change — followed, after approval, by an execution report with a read-back line per applied change.

## Synthetic placeholders used in this package

These are illustrative only. Real values come from the client's own workspace configuration and are
never written back into this package.

| Placeholder | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `ADS_ACCOUNT_PLACEHOLDER` | Approved advertising account |
| `APPROVER_PLACEHOLDER` | Named approver |
| `TARGET_CPA_PLACEHOLDER` | Configured cost-per-result target |

## Additional operational methods

Read [focused operational guidance](references/change-conflicts.md) for google ads optimization and governance decisions that require deeper reconciliation.