Should You Trust Google Ads Recommendations? A Complete Breakdown of Optimisation Score and Automation
If you regularly manage Google Ads campaigns, you’ve almost certainly seen the Recommendations tab sitting in the left-hand menu of your account. Google presents this section as a helpful guide designed to improve campaign performance, increase conversions, and optimise your advertising strategy.
But here’s the important question:
Should you actually follow Google’s recommendations?
The answer is not as straightforward as Google would like you to believe.
Many advertisers assume these recommendations are objective best practices. In reality, they are heavily tied to Google’s own automation goals and its internal metric known as Optimisation Score.
In this article, we’ll break down the most common Google Ads recommendations, explain what they actually mean, and discuss whether they genuinely help advertisers achieve better results.
What Is Google Ads Optimisation Score?
Before looking at the recommendations themselves, it’s important to understand how the system works.
Google assigns every account an Optimisation Score between 0% and 100%.
This score reflects how closely your campaigns align with Google’s preferred setup and automation strategies.
The higher your score:
- The more closely you follow Google’s recommendations
- The more automated your campaigns become
- The more Google considers your account “optimised”
The Recommendations tab is directly linked to this score. Every suggestion Google makes is designed to increase it.
At first glance, this sounds useful. However, a higher optimisation score does not always mean better campaign performance.
In many cases, blindly applying recommendations can actually reduce campaign efficiency and profitability.
Recommendation 1: Add More Keywords
One of the most common recommendations Google provides is adding additional keywords to your campaigns.
When you click into these suggestions, you’ll often notice a pattern:
- Many keywords are only loosely related to your business
- Some are broader variations
- Others may target adjacent services or products you do not actually offer
Why This Can Be Dangerous
For example:
If your business specialises in car servicing, Google may recommend keywords related to:
- Car parts
- Vehicle accessories
- Automotive products
These are technically related to your industry, but they may not align with your actual services.
Adding irrelevant keywords can lead to:
- Lower-quality traffic
- Wasted ad spend
- Reduced conversion rates
- Poor lead quality
What You Should Do Instead
Rather than accepting Google’s suggestions automatically:
- Perform your own keyword research
- Review search intent carefully
- Focus only on highly relevant terms
- Maintain tight targeting
There may occasionally be useful keyword ideas hidden within the recommendations, but you should evaluate them manually rather than enabling everything in bulk.
Recommendation 2: Start a Performance Max Campaign
Google strongly encourages advertisers to launch Performance Max campaigns.
Performance Max uses Google’s entire inventory, including:
- Search
- Display
- YouTube
- Gmail
- Discover
- Maps
On paper, this sounds extremely powerful.
However, Performance Max is fundamentally different from a traditional Search campaign.
Search vs Performance Max
Search Campaigns
Search campaigns target users actively searching for your product or service right now.
This is bottom-of-funnel marketing.
These users already have intent.
Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max campaigns push your ads across multiple placements, including visual and awareness-focused channels.
This means:
- You reach broader audiences
- You target users earlier in the buying journey
- Intent is often lower
When Performance Max Makes Sense
Performance Max can work well if:
- Your goal is growth and scale
- You can tolerate a higher cost per acquisition
- You want more total conversion volume
- You already have a strong Search foundation
When It Does Not Make Sense
It may not be suitable if:
- You need highly efficient lead generation
- Your margins are tight
- Your current CPA is already near the maximum acceptable level
- You rely heavily on high-intent traffic
The key point is this:
Performance Max is not a direct replacement for Search campaigns.
It serves a different purpose entirely.
Recommendation 3: Increase Your Budget
Another frequent recommendation is increasing campaign budgets.
Google often shows projections such as:
- More conversions
- Higher traffic
- Increased sales opportunities
Technically, Google is usually correct.
More budget often does generate more traffic and conversions.
The Problem With Budget Recommendations
What Google doesn’t emphasise enough is the impact on:
- Cost per conversion
- Profitability
- Return on ad spend
As budgets increase, campaigns typically need to:
- Enter more auctions
- Compete more aggressively
- Bid on broader traffic
This usually pushes conversion costs higher.
Why This Matters
If your current campaigns are already operating at your maximum profitable CPA, increasing spend may simply make the account less profitable.
More conversions are meaningless if they generate lower returns.
A Better Approach
Increase budgets only when:
- Your campaigns remain profitable at scale
- Your margins allow higher acquisition costs
- You understand the impact on ROAS and CPA
Never increase spend simply because Google recommends it.
Recommendation 4: Enable Dynamic Images
Google also recommends enabling Dynamic Images.
With this feature, Google scans your website and automatically selects images to display alongside your ads.
The idea is that machine learning will choose visuals most likely to improve performance.
Why Many Advertisers Avoid This
In theory, automation sounds efficient.
In practice, Google often selects poor or irrelevant images.
Examples advertisers have reported include:
- Maps
- Office buildings
- Generic graphics
- Unrelated imagery
For visual products or services, irrelevant images can seriously damage click-through rate and ad quality.
Why Manual Control Is Better
When you choose your own images, you can:
- Ensure relevance
- Match visuals to search intent
- Test different creative angles
- Maintain brand consistency
Google’s automation still lacks the contextual understanding that experienced advertisers have about their own customers.
Recommendation 5: Expand Campaigns to the Display Network
Google frequently suggests enabling Display Network expansion alongside Search campaigns.
The argument is that Display impressions can help guide customers towards conversion.
While this may sound logical, it often creates issues.
Why Display and Search Should Be Separate
Search campaigns target active demand.
Display campaigns target passive audiences.
These are completely different user behaviours.
Combining them can lead to:
- Inflated CPAs
- Lower-quality traffic
- Reduced campaign efficiency
- Poor attribution clarity
The Better Strategy
Display advertising absolutely has a place in digital marketing.
However, it should usually be:
- Strategically separated
- Measured independently
- Built around awareness or remarketing objectives
Running Display within Search campaigns rarely produces the same level of efficiency as pure Search targeting.
Recommendation 6: Automatically Created Assets
Google also recommends enabling Automatically Created Assets within Responsive Search Ads.
This feature allows Google to generate:
- Headlines
- Descriptions
- Ad copy variations
using your website content and existing ads.
Is This Feature Useful?
Sometimes.
If you never test ad copy yourself, automatically created assets may occasionally improve performance.
However, they are still no substitute for strategic copywriting.
Why Human Messaging Still Wins
A skilled advertiser understands:
- Customer pain points
- Buying motivations
- Unique selling points
- Industry language
- Emotional triggers
Google’s AI can remix existing content, but it still struggles to match the nuance of well-crafted human messaging.
The best-performing advertisers still:
- Write their own copy
- Test messaging manually
- Conduct proper A/B testing
- Continuously refine their ads
The Bigger Problem With Optimisation Score
After reviewing all these recommendations, a pattern becomes obvious:
Many of Google’s suggestions push advertisers towards:
- More automation
- Less manual control
- Broader targeting
- Higher spend
This creates a conflict between:
- What Google wants
- What advertisers actually need
Why Agencies Face Extra Pressure
This issue becomes even more significant for agencies and freelancers.
Google uses optimisation score as part of its criteria for:
- Google Partner status
- Premier Partner status
This creates pressure to:
- Accept recommendations
- Increase automation
- Follow Google’s preferred setup
even when those changes may not benefit clients.
As a result, agencies can end up balancing:
- Client performance
- Profitability
- Google partnership incentives
That’s a potentially dangerous dynamic for the industry.
Final Thoughts: Should You Follow Google Ads Recommendations?
Google Ads recommendations are not inherently bad.
Some suggestions can absolutely be useful under the right circumstances.
However, they should never be applied blindly.
The most important thing to remember is this:
Optimisation score is not the same as campaign success.
A lower optimisation score with strong profitability is far better than a 100% score with poor returns.
Successful advertisers focus on:
- Profitability
- Lead quality
- ROAS
- CPA targets
- Business objectives
—not simply pleasing Google’s automation system.
Use recommendations as ideas, not instructions.
Carefully evaluate each suggestion based on your own campaign goals, data, and growth strategy.
