skill-131-change-history-monitoring

Skill 131: Change History Monitoring

Purpose

Monitor all account changes to identify who made what changes, track auto-applied recommendations, and flag unusual activity. Essential for accountability, troubleshooting performance shifts, and maintaining control over account automation.

Data Requirements

Data Source: Custom GAQL Required

Change history data requires the change_event resource which is not in standard exports.

GAQL Query:

SELECT
  change_event.change_date_time,
  change_event.change_resource_type,
  change_event.resource_change_operation,
  change_event.changed_fields,
  change_event.client_type,
  change_event.user_email
FROM change_event
WHERE change_event.change_date_time DURING LAST_14_DAYS
LIMIT 1000

Run via /google-ads:get-custom with query name change_history.

Analysis Steps

1. Fetch change history: Run GAQL query for recent account changes
2. Categorize by source: Group changes by user, API, automated rules, Google internal
3. Identify critical changes: Flag budget, bidding, and status changes
4. Track auto-applied changes: Filter for GOOGLE_ADS_RECOMMENDATIONS_SUBSCRIPTION (auto-applied) and GOOGLE_ADS_RECOMMENDATIONS (manually accepted)
5. Detect anomalies: Flag unusual volumes or off-hours activity

Thresholds

Condition	Severity
Budget change without documentation	Critical
Bidding strategy changed unexpectedly	Critical
Auto-applied changes not reviewed	Warning
>50 changes in 1 hour (unusual volume)	Warning
Changes from unknown API source	Info

Output

Short format (default):

## Change History Audit

**Account:** [Name] | **Period:** Last 14 days | **Total Changes:** [X]

### Change Summary by Source
| Source | Changes |
|--------|---------|
| Manual (UI) | [X] |
| Automated Rules | [X] |
| Auto-Applied (Google) | [X] |
| API/Scripts | [X] |

### Critical Changes to Review
- **[Date]**: Budget changed from $[X] to $[Y] by [User]
- **[Date]**: Bidding strategy changed on [Campaign] by [User]

### Auto-Applied Changes
- [X] recommendations auto-applied → Review for appropriateness

### Anomalies Detected
- **[Date]**: [X] changes in 1 hour from [Source]