The Challenge
A U.S.-based financial institution was grappling with a highly manual and time-consuming advertising workflow. Their corporate marketing team was responsible for maintaining hundreds of Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) in Google Ads—each tied to time-sensitive property promotions like move-in specials, rent discounts, or waived fees.
To keep ads accurate, specialists relied on a shared Google Sheet updated manually by their different branches/locations. Every month, this process required over 15 hours of repetitive work by the advertising team, plus more than 10 hours from each branch just to maintain the spreadsheet. As the number of managed properties grew, the process became increasingly unsustainable and error-prone.
The Objective
Develop a scalable, reliable automation system that:
- Enabled future growth without additional operational overhead.
- Removed the need for human intervention in ad updates.
- Ensured real-time accuracy of promotional messaging.
- Freed up valuable time for both the corporate advertising team and its clients.
The Solution
To solve the problem, we began by conducting discovery sessions with the client to fully understand their existing process and the capabilities of the property management software powering their different locations’ listings.
From there, we:
- Leveraged Google Ads’ API to dynamically update specific components of each Responsive Search Ad—automating edits that previously required hundreds of manual copy-paste actions.
- Integrated directly with the property management platform’s API to access real-time data on promotions and property status.
- Designed and implemented a smart algorithm that could identify what needed to be updated, and when, based on changes in the property data.
The rollout followed a deliberate, phased approach:
- Initial implementation and testing with a single property.
- Quality assurance checks to ensure accuracy and formatting.
- Gradual expansion to more properties, increasing the frequency and complexity of the updates over time.
- The entire system ran automatically each night using scheduled cron jobs on secure Linux servers.
The Results
- 25+ hours saved each month: The digital advertising team regained 15+ hours monthly, while clients no longer needed to spend 10+ hours updating spreadsheets.
- Increased client satisfaction by eliminating tedious back-and-forth communication and delivering more accurate, real-time ad updates.
- Improved scalability: The system was architected from the beginning to support a growing number of properties, ensuring continued efficiency even as the agency scaled its client base.
Key Takeaway
When automating across a high volume of entities like real estate properties, scalability isn’t a feature—it’s a necessity. Building that foresight into the initial code design and logic allowed for seamless expansion and long-term value for both the agency and their clients.