When you have automated the ad creation in a Snapchat campaign based on feed data, you can make changes to the automated ads in a few different ways.

Publishing strategies

When you enable automation for a blueprint, a new card is available called Advanced publishing rules. It will allow you to select one of the two possible publishing strategies. It tells what automation should do when the values of an an asset , like an ad, differs from what the blueprint or feed  says that the value should be. For example, a blueprint says that all ads from the blueprint should be paused, but the ad itself is currently active. This can happen when edits have been made to the ad outside of automation, for example through Snapchat Ads Manager, the Smartly.io reporting view, or with Predictive Budget Allocation (PBA).

Keep values changed outside of feed

"Keep values changed outside of feed" is the default value for any new blueprint. If automation notices a difference between the feed / blueprint and the asset, then it will leave the ad's value as it is. This setting is required if you want to update the ad from outside of the feed, for example:

• Update assets in Snapchat Ads Manager.
• Change statuses in the reporting view.
• Perform bulk actions in reporting.
• Utilize Predictive Budget Allocation (PBA) for automated ad sets.

By manually updating a field in an asset, you can inform the automation not to modify that specific field in the asset going forward. Any changes you make to that field in the feed will no longer be reflected in the asset. Other fields will continue to be automated. By switching to the "override changes" strategy, automation will resume for overridden fields.

Override values changed outside of feed

"Override values changed outside of feed" makes sure that the values of the assets is always the same as what the feed and blueprint says. If you have for example paused an ad in Snapchat Ads Manager, then automation will undo this change the next time the feed is processed, and turn the ad to active again. 

This setting makes sure that the assets are consistent with what is in the feed.

This applies also to non-automated fields in an blueprint. For example, when you have an ad blueprint set to always paused status.

Make changes to automated ads

Make changes to Snapchat automated ads in the following ways:

• Update the data in the data source connected to the feed.
  • Based on the new, changed, or removed feed items, Smartly.io automatically updates and publishes the corresponding ads, and creates new ads or archives old ones as needed.
  • See more below on what happens when data in the feed is changed.
• Change the automation settings of the ad template. You can, for example, change the feed references in the input fields, or change the feed filtering and grouping settings.
  • On the Campaigns page, when you edit any of the ads that were created by automation, the form opens the ad template for editing. Any changes that you make to the ad template affect all ads that automation creates from it.
  • See how to edit ads and see information on the automation settings.
  • Remember to publish for the changes to take effect. See how to review and publish a Snapchat campaign.

What happens when data changes in the feed?

When the data in the feed changes, the changes take effect in the ads when the feed is next refreshed in Smartly.io. This happens either based on the update schedule defined for the automation feed or when a user manually refreshes it.

When the feed is refreshed in Smartly.io, Smartly.io automatically updates the ads as follows:

• If a new row is added in the feed, a new ad is created.
• If a row is modified, the existing ad is archived and a new ad is created with the updated information.
• If a row is removed, the corresponding ad is deleted.

View change history of automated ads

You can view all the published changes made to Snapchat automated ads in the processing log. When you're using automation, it's important that you can check what kind of changes were made by users in the ad template and what changes were made by automation. The processing history also shows if there were publishing errors.

The processing history doesn't include changes made directly to the ads in Snapchat Ads Manager.

To view the processing log:

1. On the top navigation bar, click Campaigns.
2. On the Campaigns page, select the Snapchat platform tab or any Snapchat report.
3. On the campaign list, hover over the ad name and click the icon that appears. The processing log opens, showing a list of update events. All the automated ads created from the same ad template share the same log.
   
   
   • The Outcome column shows how many ads were created, edited, or deleted. The column also shows any errors in creating ads due to feed problems.
   • You can filter events on the list: use the Show options above the list.
   • To see more details about an event, hover over the event and click the icon that appears in the Outcome column. A review dialog opens, showing you all the individual ads. Each ad has information on the processing event that created, updated, or deleted the ad. When there were errors in publishing the ad, you can see which ads had errors and the reasons for the errors.