How to fix a Google Ads script that times out

Google Ads stops a script after 30 minutes. The run ends with a message that it exceeded the maximum execution time, and whatever it had not reached is skipped — usually the same campaigns or accounts every time, because scripts tend to work in the same order.

Find what is slow

Add timestamps to the log around the main steps:

var start = new Date();
// ... a step ...
Logger.log("Step took " + (new Date() - start) / 1000 + "s");

Typically one step accounts for nearly all of the time.

The usual causes and fixes

• Fetching statistics entity by entity. Looping through keywords and calling for each one's stats is slow. Replace the loop with one AdsApp.search() query that returns the metrics for all rows.
• Processing everything. Add conditions to the query: enabled entities only, with impressions in the period, above a minimum cost.
• Writing to a spreadsheet row by row. Collect rows in an array and write them once with setValues.
• Changing entities one at a time. Use bulk operations where they exist.
• Calling external URLs in sequence. Fetch in batches with UrlFetchApp.fetchAll.
• Too many accounts in sequence. At manager level, process accounts in parallel instead of one after another.

When the work is simply too big

Split it across runs. Process a slice per run — a set of campaigns, or accounts not yet labelled as done — and continue on the next run. An hourly schedule then works through the whole set over a day.

Catching it early

Run time usually creeps up as an account grows. chiliad shows the average and maximum duration of a script's runs on its History tab and warns when they approach the limit, so you can fix the slow step before runs start being cut off.