Google Ads Change History Alerts: Scripts vs Slack (2026)

Updated July 2026.

Google Ads change history alerts notify you when someone — a client, a freelancer, a colleague, or Google's own automation — changes your account. Google Ads doesn't offer them natively: change history is a log you have to remember to open. In 2026 you have two real options: an email-based Google Ads Script, or a monitoring tool like The Ad Spend that delivers who-what-when change alerts straight to Slack.

Why Google Ads won't tell you when someone changes your account

The change history log itself is decent. It lives in the Campaigns menu, records changes made in the UI, through automated rules, the Google Ads API, and Google Ads Editor, and lets you filter by user, tool, campaign, and change type. It keeps two years of history, and you can undo most changes made within the last 30 days.

What it will not do is tell you anything happened. There is no notification setting, no digest, no webhook. If a client pauses a campaign at 11 PM on Friday, change history records it faithfully — and you find out Monday morning, after the weekend budget went wherever it went. The answer was sitting in a log nobody opened. We cover how to dig through that log after the fact in who changed my Google Ads account; this post is about never needing to.

Option 1: change notifications by email, via a Google Ads Script

The best-known script is Nils Rooijmans' free Change History Alerts. It works like this: on a daily schedule, it queries yesterday's changes from the change history, filters out a hardcoded list of recognized users, writes everything else to a Google Sheet, and emails you the change count with a link to the sheet. Add the user “Bulk Actions” to the ignore list and it stops flagging Google's automated rules.

Its limits are structural, not bugs:

• Email only. The alert lands in your inbox next to everything else labeled urgent. There is no Slack thread, no way for a teammate to see it was handled.
• Up to a day late. The free version checks yesterday's changes on a daily schedule. A Friday-night change surfaces Saturday at the earliest — Monday if you don't read alert email on weekends.
• Per-account setup. The free script runs in a single account with its own spreadsheet, email list, and schedule. The MCC version with bulk-upload and API exclusions is available by contacting the author.
• 30-day memory. Scripts read the Google Ads API's change_event resource, which only supports queries within the past 30 days, capped at 10,000 rows per request. Your alert history is a Google Sheet; the queryable source expires monthly.
• You maintain it. Spreadsheet URLs, ignore lists, schedule health, script updates when the API version changes — it's your job now.

None of this is a knock on the script. It exists because Google shipped a log without an alarm, and it has rightly become a standard install for PPC pros. But it is a workaround, and workarounds have a ceiling. For the broader case against script plumbing, see Google Ads Slack alerts without scripts.

Option 2: get notified in Slack, with who, what, and when

The Ad Spend checks connected accounts roughly every six hours and posts to Slack when something changed: who made the change, exactly what changed (old value to new value), and when. No script to install, no spreadsheet to babysit, no ignore-list file to edit — and the same monitoring covers Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit accounts alongside Google Ads.

Every change is also written to a permanent, version-controlled record. Google keeps two years of change history and the API keeps 30 days; The Ad Spend's audit trail keeps everything from the day you connect, indefinitely. When someone asks in March what happened last August, the answer exists.

How to monitor Google Ads changes without writing a script

1. Connect your Google Ads account through Google's own OAuth login — no API keys, no developer token, no code.
2. Let the initial sync pull in a few months of account history.
3. Connect Slack and choose a channel for alerts (setup guide).
4. Change alerts arrive as they're detected, with the user, the change, and the timestamp. Ask follow-ups in plain English right in the thread: “what changed in the Brand campaign this week?”

If a change needs undoing, suggested fixes go through a governed approve-then-execute workflow — nothing runs until a human approves it in the app or in Slack, and every action is logged. See how The Ad Spend works, or start with the free tier's performance and budget pacing alerts.

FAQ

Does Google Ads have built-in change alerts?

No. Google Ads records changes in its change history log — accessible from the Campaigns menu — but offers no notification when a change is made. You must either check the log manually, run a Google Ads Script that emails you, or use a third-party monitoring tool.

What is the best free Google Ads change alert script?

Nils Rooijmans' Change History Alerts script is the widely used free option. It runs daily, checks yesterday's changes against a list of recognized users, and emails you a count plus a Google Sheet of unrecognized changes. It is email-only and single-account in its free version.

How far back does Google Ads change history go?

The Google Ads interface keeps two years of change history. The API's change_event resource — what scripts use — only supports the past 30 days, with a 10,000-row limit per query. Independent tools like The Ad Spend keep a permanent record from the day you connect.

Can I get alerted when Google's automated rules change my account?

Yes. In the script route, automated rule changes appear under the user “Bulk Actions,” which you can choose to alert on or ignore. The Ad Spend logs the source of every change — user, rule, API, or editor tool — so you can see exactly what automation did and when.