What Does the Optimization Score Mean
The Optimization Score is an indicator on how well your ads are performing. So a 100% means that your ads are running the best they can. And you would think that in an ideal scenario that’s what you’re supposed to strive for as an advertiser. But, here’s the catch: from Google’s perspective it means your ads are generating an optiminal amount of revenue for your account. And Google’s revenue goals for your account don’t necessarily align with your spending goals.
There’s one thing you should know about Google Ads’ algorithms. They love stability. Especially stability in revenue. Tools such as the Recommendations Tab and The Performance Planner are tools that help create stability. It makes it easier for Google’s algorithms to calculate how your ads will behave and spend in the next 30 days. AKA: how much revenue your ads will generate for Google.
Limitations of Optimization Score
As you can see you might want something completely different than Google in terms of spend. This is because Google is limited in understanding your business goals. What do I mean by this? Google doesn’t know anything about your strategy, besides from what’s already in your account. Such as your campaign goal and bid strategy type. I’ll dive a bit deeper into two examples of where Optimization Score can be rather tricky and potentially just make you spend more instead of fixing your issues.
Bid Strategy Type Suggestions
For example: one of your new campaigns is on Enhanced CPC. Google will be very quick to suggest an automated bid strategy such as Target CPA. However, you only have 5 conversions so far. Switching to Target CPA immediately can actually harm your campaign performance.
How? Google has too little data to know what your conversion actually looks like. You switch, and soon your campaign will be limited by budget, or your campaign stalls. Instead, I would recommend having at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days. This way the algorithm will understand better what your conversion looks like. Ultimately, bringing you better results.
Budget Recommendations
“Increase your budget, because your campaign is limited by budget”, is a common suggestion. You then increase your budget with X amount to receive X amount more conversions. It doesn’t take a marketer to understand that spending more money most likely means more results.
So you increase your budget, but soon enough your campaign is limited by budget again. And once again, Google asks you to increase your budget. Moreover, you might not even want to follow these recommendations. Because, you might be on a very tight budget. But Google doesn’t know that, because they can’t look into your pockets.
But, the problem might not be your budget. Instead take a look at your keywords, and especially the search term report. Perhaps you’re getting loads of irrelevant traffic which needs to be excluded. Or, you have costly underperforming keywords. These can be moved to a new ad group, or campaign to reduce costs instead.
A High Score Doesn’t Equate Results
I’ve seen accounts with a 90%+ score, but they weren’t driving any valuable results. The pages might be broken, or your ads might not be structured right. Yet, Google still gives these accounts a 90%+ score, because they’re still spending. It’s money down the drain. In short: a 100% score doesn’t necessarily equate actual results that are valuable to you.
How You Should Use the Recommendations Tab Instead
You now know that Google has limited understanding of your business goals. But, I honestly do love the Recommendations Tab. It’s a great tool to see if there are any gaps or opportunities within your account. All without having to manually sift through each and every campaign. I use the recommendations tab for the following reasons.
1. Troubleshooting
Your performance suddenly went down hill, but you’ve no clue why. The recommendations tab shows you if anything is flagged. Such as ad violations, because your ads didn’t meet certain criteria. Or, your budget is limited and it needs to be increased. It can give you a quick overview of what might be wrong with your account.
2. Missing Creatives
Finding and fixing missing creatives is an easy way to improve metrics such as Click Through Rate (CTR). With creatives I’m referring to elements such as Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) and ad extensions. Having enough creatives such as 3 ETAs per ad group, helps the AI learn which ad is the better choice. Moreover, having enough extensions increases your clickable space, improving your CTR.
Before the Recommendations Tab existed you first had to find out if you had creatives missing. And when you found out that you did: where were these creatives missing? This was a lot of manual and time consuming work. Now it only takes one quick look.
3. It Saves Time
The recommendations are especially helpful if you’re in a time crunch, have a large account, or don’t know where to begin your optimization this time. As I said before, it can give you an overview on where to look. But, I always recommend verifying the validity of the suggestions before implementing.
Recommendations & Optimization Score Recap
I can’t stress enough that a 100% Optimization Score doesn’t mean anything, if it doesn’t improve your actual results. However, the Recommendations Tab is still a great tool to spot opportunities when used right.
When making use of the recommendation make sure to
- Never blindly trust the recommendations Google makes. Check if they align with your goals first
- Have a campaign goal assigned to help Google better understand your goals
- Ask yourself before implementing changes if there is another solution that can help instead
- Prevent your campaigns from dying, by checking if your campaign has enough data. Especially, before implementing any fully automated bid strategy
I hope this gave you a better understanding on how to use the recommendations tab, and why a 100% Optimization Score might harm your business. If you’ve any questions just drop me a line down below. Or, book a free Google Ads Consultation to discuss how you can improve your ads!
