How to see what your agency’s or AI tool’s changes did to your Google Ads

Open change history

Change history lists the changes made to your Google Ads account over the past 2 years: what changed, when, and which login made the change.

In Google Ads, open the Campaigns menu and choose Change history (About change history). For one campaign, select it first and then open change history (Review your account history).

If you can’t find it, search Google Ads Help for “change history”.

Save the changes as a file

Pick the dates you want to review and save the table as a CSV file, so you keep your own copy.

Set the dates in the upper right corner. Google Ads tables download from the download icon above the table, which offers Excel CSV among other formats (Create, save, and schedule reports); look for the same icon above the change history table.

Billevera’s free check needs these columns: Date & time; User; Changes. A Tool or Client type column, if your file has one, helps tell a person from automation.

Download spend by day

Download a campaign report that shows the cost of each campaign on each day.

Use the same dates. Split the report by day so a jump in spend shows on the day it happened. The free check needs: Campaign ID or Campaign; Day; Cost.

Look for budget raises

Filter change history to budget changes. For each raise, note who made it, how big it was and whether you agreed to it.

Change history can be filtered by the type of change, such as budget adjustments (About change history).

Write down your own limits first: the most per day, the most per month, and how big a raise needs your OK. Then each raise is either inside them or worth a look.

Look for bid and bid strategy changes

Look for raised bids and changed bid strategies, then check spend by day before and after each one.

A bid change can show up in spend a day or more later, so read the days after it, not only the day itself.

Look for new campaigns and changes you don’t recognise

List campaigns that were created or turned back on, new places or audiences they target, and any change you don’t remember agreeing to.

Ask the agency or the tool’s maker about each one. A good answer names the reason and the result it expected.

Check who made each change

Read the User column. A person’s change shows their email address. A change made through the Google Ads API, for example by an outside tool, may show the API or the tool’s name.

That is Google’s own description (About change history).

Google can also apply some recommendations automatically, if that is turned on. To see which ones it applied, open Recommendations, then Auto-apply settings, then the History tab (Manage auto-apply recommendations).

Give each tool and agency its own login

If two tools, or an agency and a tool, share one login, change history can’t tell you which one made a change. Give each its own login with the least access it needs.

Google’s own advice is not to have people share the same username and password, and to grant the minimum access each user needs (Secure your Google Ads account). Read only access lets someone view campaigns without editing them (About access levels).

Ask your agency which login its AI tool uses, so you can tell its changes from a person’s.

Run the free check, if you like

Billevera’s free check reads your change history and spend files in your browser and marks each change Allowed, Not allowed, Can’t tell or Not checked against your own rules.

You name the AI tool, list the logins it uses as they appear in the User column, and answer five questions: daily cap, monthly cap, the raise that needs your OK, off-limits campaigns, and where it may run. A shared or unknown login is Can’t tell, never Allowed. Your files are not uploaded.

The waste section (campaigns worth a look) covers Amazon Ads today. Google comes later.