Control campaigns from a shared Google Sheet — enable/pause, change budgets, and an ALL CAMPAIGNS emergency stop — with results written back as an audit log. No Google Ads access needed for the sheet's editors.
by Frederick Vallaeys (sheet-control concept), Chiliad (implementation)·chiliad.io
One table of every campaign's bidding strategy with the two flags that matter: Manual CPC campaigns with enough volume for Smart Bidding, and target-based campaigns too data-starved to learn.
Finds the reallocation hiding in plain sight: efficient campaigns losing volume to budget caps, idle budgets that could fund them, and full budgets funding poor CPAs.
Runs campaigns only inside their date windows — Black Friday starts at 00:00 without anyone staying up, sales end exactly on time, weekend campaigns run only on weekends.
Compares yesterday's average CPC per campaign against its 30-day baseline and alerts on spikes — the earliest visible symptom of a new competitor, broad-match drift, or a bid change gone wrong.
Compares actual spend against your daily budget settings over 1, 7 and 28 days and alerts by email + Google Sheet when Google overdelivers beyond your thresholds.
Compares actual daily spend against the expected pace based on time of day. Logs over- and under-pacing campaigns and can auto-pause overspenders to protect your budget.
Google Sheet Remote Control turns a shared spreadsheet into a campaign control panel: one row per campaign with an action column (ENABLE/PAUSE) and an optional new daily budget. A special ALL CAMPAIGNS row with PAUSE is the emergency stop for the whole account. The script applies requested changes on each run and writes the result with a timestamp back into the sheet — so the same document is the control panel and the audit log. Clients and teammates get operational control without touching Google Ads.
| Variable | Default |
|---|---|
SPREADSHEET_URL | (empty) |
SHEET_NAME | Control |
PREVIEW_MODE | true |
EMAIL_ADDRESS | (empty) |
=== Sheet Remote Control (LIVE) === Brand — Exact: budget 80.00 -> 120.00 Generic — Broad: paused EMERGENCY STOP: paused 14 campaign(s) Email sent to you@example.com
This script CHANGES campaign state from external input — that's the point, and the risk. Keep the sheet's edit access tight, keep PREVIEW_MODE on until a dry run looks right, and remember the emergency stop pauses everything (re-enable manually or via the sheet afterward). Campaign matching is by exact name.