Find and replace: change a word or brand name everywhere in your ads

Find & Replace changes a word or phrase in every ad at once, instead of editing each headline by hand. Open it with the magnifier icon at the top right of the editor, or press Ctrl F (Cmd F on a Mac) while the editor is open.

Open Find & Replace

1. Open the preview in the editor.
2. Click the magnifier icon at the top right, beside Assets. Its tooltip reads Find & replace (⌘F). Or press Ctrl F, or Cmd F on a Mac. In the editor this opens Find & Replace instead of your browser's own find.
3. The Find & Replace panel opens with the cursor in the Find... box.

Press Esc, or click the close icon at the top right of the panel, to close it.

Find a word

Type in Find.... The box shows which match you are on and how many there are, such as 2/7. It shows 0 in red when nothing matches.

• Click the down arrow, or press Enter, for the next match. Click the up arrow, or press Shift Enter, for the previous one. The editor jumps to that ad and highlights the field.
• Click List to see every match. Each line names the field, such as Headline 3, Long Headline 1, Description 2, Primary Text or Primary Text 2, Final URL, or Display Path 1, with the words around the match. Click a line to jump to it.
• Aa is Match Case. Turn it on to match capital letters exactly.
• W is Whole Word. Turn it on so that "car" does not match "cards".

Choose where it looks

Scope sets which ads are searched:

• Ad Group, the ad group on screen. This is where it starts.
• Campaign, every ad group in the campaign on screen.
• Entire Preview, every campaign in the preview.

Replace one match or all of them

Type the new text in Replace with....

• Replace changes the current match only. The shortcut is Ctrl Enter. A message names the field it changed, such as Replaced in Headline 3.
• All replaces every match in the scope. The shortcut is Ctrl Shift Enter. A Replace All? box shows how many occurrences will change, the old and new text, and the scope. Click Replace All to confirm, or Cancel. A message then says how many were replaced, such as Replaced 4 occurrences.

Replace and All stay grey until there is a match and something typed in Replace with.... The hint line at the bottom of the panel lists the keys: Enter Next, Shift+Enter Prev, and for editors Ctrl+Enter Replace.

What do Nothing to replace and That row is locked mean?

• Nothing to replace means there is no current match. Type in Find... first, or check Scope, Aa and W.
• That ad is no longer available means the ad with the match was deleted or moved while the panel was open. Search again.
• That row is locked means the line belongs to a row you cannot change, so Replace leaves it as it is. When every match is in such a row, All says Nothing was replaced, followed by a note that those rows are locked.

What it searches

Find & Replace searches the ad copy in the editor: headlines, long headlines, descriptions, primary text, the final URL, and both display paths. It does not search keywords, or sitelinks, callouts, and other assets. Change those in the asset library.

Why I can find but not replace

The Replace with... row only shows for people who can edit the preview. A viewer can search but cannot replace.