If you’ve ever run a Google Ads campaign for your business, you’ve probably seen their recommendations pop up for improving your ads. Maybe a Google rep has called you directly, offering free advice on how to optimise your account. But should you trust those suggestions?
The answer is: not always. While some recommendations can improve your campaign’s effectiveness, others can derail your entire strategy, especially if you follow them blindly.
In this guide, we’ll examine the risks of following Google Ads recommendations, and provide our tips for making the most of this advertising platform for your business.
What are Google Ads Recommendations?
Google Ads recommendations are AI-generated suggestions designed to improve your campaign’s performance and raise your Optimisation Score. These suggestions appear in your account dashboard and may cover everything from bidding and keywords to ad copy and budgets.
Types of recommendations include:
- Budget increases
- Adding new keywords
- Broad match keyword suggestions
- Enabling automated bidding strategies
- Ad copy and asset improvements
- Fixing disapproved ads
- Applying ad extensions
Although the stated goal is to help advertisers improve results, the actual goal is often to maximise Google’s ad revenue, sometimes at your expense.
Why Should I Think Twice Before Applying Recommendations?
To a busy business owner, the idea of automatically applying Google’s ads recommendations may sound appealing. But there are several reasons why you should stop and think first.
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Recommendations are AI Generated: Google’s recommendations are AI generated, meaning they lack human nuance. It doesn’t know your business’ brand voice, your products or services, or the nature of your industry.
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Recommendations Lack Context: Google’s suggestions can lack context. For example, Google might suggest broad match keywords or budget increases based on generic benchmarks that don’t apply to your business.
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Recommendations Aren’t Tied to Your Business Goals: Google’s recommendations are designed to improve your ad account’s activity, not necessarily your bottom line. Although this means you might get more clicks, if they aren’t converting into customers, then it’s not benefitting your business.
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Recommendations Can Blow your Budget: One of the most common recommendations is to increase your daily budget. Without a strategy behind that spend, you could be throwing money at unqualified traffic.
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Following Recommendations Gives you Less Control: Many recommendations promote automation, such as in bidding, audience targeting, or ad delivery. While automation can save time, it also reduces your control and makes it harder to fine-tune campaigns based on data and real-world context.
Should I Follow Advice from a Google Rep?
Although it may be tempting to follow the free advice from a Google Rep, remember they have their own agenda to achieve.
They’re likely busy calling hundreds of account owners each week, and won’t have time to adequately understand your product or service in enough detail to successfully optimise your ads.
Unless you have a very high spend, you’ll likely find their advice is not useful, and can lead to irrelevant clicks and wasted spend.
Potential Outcomes of Blindly Following Recommendations
Applying suggestions without thinking about it first can lead to several negative outcomes. For example:
- Increased advertising costs, especially if you enable budget increases or broad match keywords.
- Decreased conversion rates, as broader targeting can lead to less qualified traffic.
- Higher costs per conversion if your ads are served to less relevant audiences.
- Inefficient bidding strategies like automated bidding can quickly lead to wasted spend.
Which Recommendations Shouldn't Always Be Followed?
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Budget Increases: Google often recommends increasing your daily budget to capture more traffic. However, without a clear strategy and performance benchmarks, this is a fast way to burn through your ad spend.
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Switching to Broad Match Keywords: While broad match can expand reach, it often attracts irrelevant clicks. Unless paired with strong negative keywords and conversion data, it can be risky.
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Automated Bidding Without a Strategy: Automated bidding has potential, but only when you have enough data. Turning it on too early or without understanding your goals can ruin your cost per acquisition.
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Adding New Keywords: Keyword suggestions are often too general or irrelevant. Always review each one to ensure alignment with your actual services and search intent.
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Unnecessary Ad Extensions: Extensions like price, promotion, or call extensions may not be suitable for every business. If they're irrelevant or poorly executed, they can dilute your message.
Which Recommendations Can be Helpful?
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Adding Assets to Ads: Additional headlines and descriptions give Google’s machine learning more material to test. This can lead to stronger ad variations and higher click-through rates.
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Including Keywords in Headlines: This can improve Quality Score and relevancy, but only when it feels natural and supports your brand messaging.
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Fixing Disapproved Assets: This is definitely a good idea. Disapproved ads can limit your reach, and fixing them ensures your campaigns remain live and compliant.
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Optimising Ad Rotation: Setting your ad rotation to optimise for best-performing ads is generally safe, especially if you don’t have time for manual A/B testing.
How to Manage Google's Recommendations Effectively
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Turn Off Auto-Apply: By default, Google may auto-apply recommendations. Go to your Recommendations tab, click the gear icon, and disable this feature to retain control.
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Assess Carefully: Evaluate each suggestion based on your campaign goals. Ask: Does this align with my strategy? Will it improve conversions, not just clicks? What’s the worst-case scenario?
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Work with a PPC Specialist: An experienced PPC specialist, like Margin Media in Brisbane, can help assess which changes will benefit your business and which are best ignored. They’ll also ensure recommendations are tested methodically, not applied blindly.
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Check your Landing Page: Even the best campaign tweaks won’t deliver results if your website underperforms. Make sure your page loads quickly, has clear messaging, and guides visitors toward a single action. Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) techniques, such as refining calls to action, simplifying forms, and reducing distractions, can significantly improve the return from your ad spend.
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Test Before Committing: Make sure to A/B test new keywords, match types, or bidding strategies before rolling them out across all campaigns.
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Prioritise Performance Over Optimisation Score: Google’s Optimisation Score is not a measure of campaign success. Focus on what really matters, such as return on ad spend, conversion rates, cost per acquisition, and qualified leads.
Case Study: Google Ads Recommendations
Geoff came to us to fix his Google Ads. After trusting Google Reps and applying their recommendations, he had seen his campaigns drop in leads, and increase in costs and wasted ad spend. Instead of generating business, his ads were draining his budget.
We stepped in, audited the account, and quickly uncovered the missteps that were dragging down performance. Through correcting targeting, removing ineffective settings, and restructuring his campaigns, we brought his ads back on track.
The result? Without increasing his budget, Geoff went from overspending on poor results to consistently generating quality leads again, almost immediately.
Here’s what Geoff had to say about his experience with us:
“I approached Margin Media to assist with an issue associated with our marketing campaign. Zach and the team were able to quickly and efficiently identify the problem and fix it within budget (with immediate positive results). Their communication and understanding of our business needs was exceptional. Good to have them on our side.”
Need Help with your Google Ads?
Talk to us. At Margin Media, our Google ad management team of dedicated PPC specialists can help you optimise and scale your campaigns for maximum impact.
Book your free discovery call.
