Why Marketers Shouldn't Blindly Follow Google's Recommendations
By Mark Harnett
Google's automated recommendations for Google Ads accounts are intended to help optimize your account and increase your ROI. However, not all of Google's recommendations serve your interests. The fundamental principle: Google is trying to make you more efficient so that you spend more money on their platform. Marketers must prioritize their own interests through monitoring and skepticism.
Upgrade Keywords to Broad Match — Use Caution
Broad match enables search term variations but risks conflating different user intents. Example: "firewall" — a teenager circumventing firewalls and an enterprise executive purchasing million-dollar solutions could trigger identical ads despite vastly different needs. Exact match targeting proves more effective for disambiguating contexts.
Raise Your Budget — Sometimes
While increasing budgets can seem logical, alternatives exist like lowering cost-per-customer. Financial position and strategic goals should guide budget decisions, not Google's recommendations alone.
Expand via Google Search Partners — Never
Non-Google websites can run Google Search ads as partners. Personal experience: lost $50,000 to worthless traffic from spammers using robots to click ads and submit forms. Avoid this feature entirely pending improvements.
Display Expansion — Use Cautiously
Display ads reach browsing audiences rather than active searchers, converting less effectively. Similar bot-driven fraud plagues display networks. Recommend separate campaigns for tracking display traffic quality independently.
Performance Max Campaigns — Maybe
This automation-heavy feature works well with proper instrumentation but risks optimizing for wrong metrics if poorly configured. Powerful but requires careful controls.