What is AutoPilot? / Enabling AutoPilot

What is AutoPilot? 

AutoPilot is one of Shape’s most powerful tools. AutoPilot gives advertisers more control over their advertising spend by allowing them to automate budget tracking and management.  

AutoPilot adjusts campaign statuses to help you achieve your target PPC budget without overspending and at the right pace.

AutoPilot tracks campaign PPC spend against a budget target. AutoPilot automatically adjusts your campaign statuses depending on the amount of available PPC budget and the AutoPilot mode you selected.

 

What are AutoPilot Modes?

Shape offers three modes of AutoPilot:

• AutoPilot Pause Only
• AutoPilot Pause/Enable
• AutoPilot Daily Pause/Enable

These modes control the level of permission AutoPilot has to change your campaign statuses and when.

 AutoPilot Pause Only - In this mode, AutoPilot Pause Only tracks PPC campaign spend against your budget target. When your campaigns hit their spend goal, they’re paused automatically. In this mode, your campaigns will never be reactivated unless you do so in Shape manually.

AutoPilot Pause/Enable - In this mode, AutoPilot Pause/Enable tracks PPC campaign spend against your budget target. When your campaigns hit their spend goal, they’re paused automatically until the next budget cycle begins (or the budget target is increased mid-cycle).

AutoPilot Daily Pause/Enable - AutoPilot Daily Pause/Enable was built to assist with daily budget pacing. AutoPilot Daily calculates the ideal daily spend your campaigns will need to achieve each day to hit your overall budget target. If your campaigns spend above that daily threshold, AutoPilot Daily will pause your campaigns. They’re reactivated the next day and the cycle repeats. If your campaigns don’t hit their ideal daily threshold, AutoPilot Daily will allocate that unused spend to the following day.

Enabling AutoPilot

When you enable AutoPilot, you select an AutoPilot status and a mode. An AutoPilot Mode tells Shape exactly how much control you want AutoPilot to have to change your campaign statuses. An AutoPilot status tells Shape which budgets and campaigns Shape has permission to change statuses for.

When enabling AutoPilot, you first enable AutoPilot at the budget level. After enabling AutoPilot, you select the AutoPilot mode you want to apply and determine what campaigns to apply it to.

There are several places AutoPilot can be enabled. Outlined below are the multiple places AutoPilot can be enabled for a Budget or Campaign.

Option 1: Creating a New Budget

1. To create a new Budget from scratch, follow the steps outlined in the Budget Designer. This will guide you through everything from naming your budget and setting your budget cap to enabling automation features such as AutoPilot.  

2. When you reach the Automation section, enable AutoPilot by clicking “Enabled” or “Disabled” in the far right-hand corner of the screen.

• This will prompt you to select an AutoPilot Mode: AutoPilot Pause Only, AutoPilot Pause/Enable, or AutoPilot Daily Paused/Enable. 
• Select a mode. 
• Hit "Next" to move on to the final step of the Budget creation process.

3. After you've named your Budget and "Create" it, the "Configure AutoPilot" screen will appear.

AutoPilot will automatically be enabled on all of the campaigns you’re adding to the Budget unless you toggle AutoPilot off for select campaigns. 

4. Turn AutoPilot off or on altogether for all campaigns using the cards under the "Campaign AutoPilot Settings" header. Or, toggle each campaign on or off individually using the table below the "Save Configuration" button.

Campaigns in the Budget that do not have AutoPilot enabled will continue to spend after all campaigns in the Budget have hit their Budget cap.

1. Navigate to the Budget page and select the "Budget Settings" (pencil) icon in the toolbar.

2. Navigate to the Automation section on the left-hand navigation menu. Enable/disable AutoPilot by selecting “Enabled” or “Paused”.

3. Select the AutoPilot mode you wish to enable. Click “Save Changes.”

4. A column will now be available in the Decision Grid called "AutoPilot." You should see all the campaigns you activated in the previous step with an AutoPilot status of enabled.

You can adjust any campaigns you want AutoPilot enabled/disabled. To do so, use the checkboxes to select which campaigns you want to toggle, click the edit (pencil) icon, and navigate to the automation tab.

The plane icon will turn different colors on the campaign level, depending on the status: green when enabled, red when disabled, or yellow when on standby. 

 

Option 3: Adding or Removing Campaigns from a Budget

1. You can add or remove campaigns to an existing budget at any time by selecting the "Add & Remove Campaigns" button. 

2. Select the campaigns you want to add to or remove from your Budget and click "Submit Changes." 

• To add campaigns to a Budget, select the account and campaigns you want to add from the right-hand "All Accounts" area. Hover over the campaign name and hit the + button when it appears to add the campaign.
• To remove campaigns from a Budget, hover over the campaign name in the "Added Campaigns" area.  Hit the - button when it appears to remove the campaign.

3. After adding a new campaign or campaigns to a Budget (with AutoPilot enabled), you will be prompted to select if you'd like AutoPilot enabled. You will only be prompted to select if you want AutoPilot enabled for the most recent campaigns you added to the Budget. 

4. Select the campaigns you want AutoPilot enabled for and select "Save."

 

How Do I Know if AutoPilot is Enabled?

Once enabled, you'll see the AutoPilot icon in multiple places that indicate it is enabled. On your main dashboard view, next to your Budget, you'll see the plane icon.

You'll also see the AutoPilot icon displayed on the Client Views on the decision grid.

Finally, you'll also see the Budget pages. The icons near the top left side of the Budget page indicate that AutoPilot is enabled and in which mode. 

To confirm which campaigns in the Budget have AutoPilot enabled at the campaign level, navigate down the page to the decision grid, where you will see the AutoPilot column.

 

Interpreting AutoPilot Status & Mode

Finally, as noted above, the AutoPilot column will alert you which Budgets and campaigns have AutoPilot enabled, the current status, and the current mode. Our AutoPilot legend provides a helpful guide to inform you of the Budget- or campaign-level status.

Legend 

Budget-Level

AutoPilot (Budget-Level)

 AutoPilot Disabled: Campaigns in this budget cannot be put on AutoPilot. This applies to all campaigns in the budget.

 AutoPilot Enabled: Campaigns in this budget can now be put into AutoPilot. If AutoPilot is enabled, you must utilize one of the modes below: 

  AutoPilot Pause Only Enabled: AutoPilot is enabled at the budget level in Pause Only mode. 

  AutoPilot Pause/Enabled: AutoPilot is enabled at the budget level in Pause/Enable mode.

 AutoPilot Daily Pause/Enable: AutoPilot is enabled at the budget level in Daily Pause/Enable mode

 

*The mode applied at the budget level will be the default mode applied to all new campaigns added to that budget. However, the modes can be altered at the campaign level and multiple modes can exist in one budget.

AutoPilot (Campaign-Level)