Optimization score is made up of over 50 recommendations to optimize search campaigns

Optimization score is made up of over 50 recommendations to optimize search campaigns

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Optimization Score Is Made Up Of Over 50 Recommendations To Optimize Search Campaigns.

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Optimization score is made up of over 50 recommendations to optimize search campaigns

Are you looking for Google Ads Search Certification Exam Answers? If it’s yes, you will find the latest and updated answer to Google Ads Search Certification Quiz by Google and Get a Free Certificate of Google Ads for free. This article will help you with the Google Ads Search Certification Answers in the easiest ways.

The correct answers are marked in Green Color with a tick mark so that you don’t get confused about the correct answer to the question. After passing the final exam, you are rewarded with a certificate whose validity is for two years, and it is downloadable, so it can also be used along with your CV and Resume.

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Google Ads Search Certification Exam Answers

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Knowledge Check Assessment Answers (21 Questions)

1. Optimization Score is made up of over 50 recommendations to optimize Search campaigns.

2. Which of the following factors wouldn’t change an account’s optimization score?

3. How does Google Ads generate responsive search ads?

4. How many ads should be implemented per ad group?

5. Which are the three required parts of a text ad?

6. Arrange the items below in order of hierarchy, beginning with the top level.

7. What is the key value proposition of Google Search campaigns?

8. Which part of a Search ad isn’t automatically generated by Dynamic Search Ads?

9. Which two people might see an ad with the keyword +black +shirt (set as broad match modifier)?

Select All Correct Responses

10. Advertising with Google Ads starts with creating campaigns based on your business objectives. Which campaign type would you pick for each of the following scenarios?

11. How can Google Ads help you advance your business goals?

Select All Correct Responses

12. Match each autobidding strategy to the right campaign goal.

13. Which of the following is a core benefit of Google Ads automated bidding?

14. Match the marketing goal to the correct ad extension.

15. Which ad extensions can serve automatically?

16. Why do search ad extensions matter?

17. If an advertiser doesn’t want to add remarketing tags to a website, why would Customer Match be a good fit for them?

18. True or false? Affinity Audiences allows advertisers to reach people who’re actively researching and intending to buy the products or services they offer.

19. Which of the following can be customized with audience signals to make Search campaigns more efficient?

20. What are the three main factors that determine ad quality?

21. Which attributes describe a good landing page experience?

Select All Correct Responses

Pass The Assessment And Earn A Certification (Complete Required)

Google Ads Search Certification Assessment Answers

1. Organize these steps in the correct order to set up an effective Customer Match strategy. (The first step should be on top.)

2. Match each ad extension with the benefit it brings to a user’s ad experience.

3. Sandy, an expert on Search marketing, knows she should use extensions effectively in order to optimize her Google Ads campaign results.

What’s Google’s recommendation about extensions?

How much would Jim pay for the first spot in the auction?

5. Three core principles, focused on helping businesses reach their online potential, are the foundation for Google Ads. The first of these is relevance. Google Ads connects businesses with the right people at the right time.

Upon which other principles was Google Ads built?

6. Brenda’s working on improving a Google Search Ad’s quality score so it potentially gets a better ad rank and performs better in the ad auction.

What change to Brenda’s ad might improve the Ad Rank?

7. Which of the following goals can you achieve for your marketing campaign by using automated bidding?

8. Silly Sayings is seeing a lot of website traffic, but the company wants to generate more qualified leads. They’re interested in trying ad extensions to see if they can increase the number of qualified leads they receive.

In what way can ad extensions assist companies such as Silly Sayings in generating more qualified leads?

9. Jennifer’s looking to limit the number of people who see her Google Search Ad for an all-inclusive vacation to Paris. She doesn’t want to match with people looking for anything else — just “all-inclusive vacation Paris.” So she limits who sees her ad using exact match type.

Which search terms might match with Jennifer’s ad?

10. Marta’s online store sells accessories for a widely used smartphone, and her current customer base shares a number of relevant characteristics. She believes she’ll have her best return on investment by narrowing her Google Search campaign audience.

Which two Google Search campaign settings can be configured to reach more specific customers? (Choose two.)

Select All Correct Responses

11. A golf enthusiast regularly watches instructional videos about golf, has recently searched for the best golf clubs on Google.com, and has researched golf courses on Google Maps.

Which type of Search Audience solution would best reach this individual?

12. With Dynamic Search Ads, what does the advertiser provide?

13. Why is using the performance targets feature after utilizing the Performance Planner recommended?

14. Every ad contains a URL displaying your website address. You can add two optional path fields to the display URL in a text ad.

What’s an advantage of using these optional path fields?

15. A water-sports company specializes in custom-made watercrafts and accessories.Their marketing manager decides to use the broad-match keyword, “boat.” The manager then adds “paddle” as a broad-match modifier.

Which two searches may prompt the marketing manager’s ad? (Choose two.)

Select All Correct Responses

What type of automated bidding strategy would be best for Priya’s campaign?

17. What is one of the reasons why an advertiser should consider using Performance Planner on a monthly basis?

18. Yan is working on a Remarketing List for Search Ads campaign.

Which user could be added to a valid Remarketing audience list to ensure optimal results?

19. What Search Network text ad component provides up to three fields of 30 characters each?

20. Tomacz wants to use a Google Search Ads campaign to capture the attention of customers searching for camping equipment online.

What’s a key benefit of a well-managed Google Search Ads campaign?

21. Google Ads reviews saved text ads to ensure they meet advertising policies before being shown to users.

What criteria are reviewed by Google Ads?

22. Bob’s electronics company has quite a buzz around a new television they’re launching, called UltraView1000. This television is equipped with an accessibility feature that lets voice commands it. Bob decides to use broad match modifier in his Search Ads campaign with the keywords “television,” “accessible,” and “voice.”

Which benefit does broad match modifier give Bob’s Search Ads campaign?

23. Rebecca is a marketing executive at an airline company. She has been asked to plan her company’s online advertising budget on a monthly basis. She’s chosen Google Ads’ Performance Planner to help accomplish this task.

What are two advantages Performance Planner offers Rebecca? (Choose two.)

Select All Correct Responses

24. When are automated extensions, such as Seller Ratings, shown?

25. What’s a key objective in delivering ad extensions?

26. Match these Search Audience solutions with the benefits they can bring to your campaigns.

27. What’s the primary benefit of using structured snippet extensions in your ads?

28. Rina notices that her ad’s average cost per click (CPC) is significantly higher than the industry benchmark. But she’s not seeing improvements in her ad’s position.

What can she do to potentially get a higher ad position?

29. Lisa sells kitchen furniture through her website. While her sales are stable, she’s concerned that they’re not keeping pace with those of other online furniture stores.

How can a Google Search campaign benefit Lisa’s business?

30. Pete is the marketing director for an electric car company. He recently chose “leads” as his Google Search campaign marketing goal.

What did he hope to achieve by selecting “leads” as his goal?

31. With Similar Audiences, which Google product is included when finding new people with similar profiles?

32. Siona needs to make sure her ads are getting a minimum number of impressions on the top of the page.

What type of automated bidding strategy is Siona using?

33. Brian manages his company’s Google Search Ads campaign. He regularly reviews the optimization score to make his Google Search campaign as effective as possible.

What’s Brian’s optimization score based upon?

34. Ingrid wants to acquire a lot of exposure for a new product line that she’s launching. She understands that she can reach a significant portion of people on the internet with the help of a Display campaign.

In what way will a Display campaign achieve Ingrid’s marketing goal?

35. What are two ways Dynamic Search Ads brings value to an advertising campaign? (Choose two.)

Select All Correct Responses

36. In-market audiences allow the opportunity to specifically identify what kind of user?

37. Automated bidding does the heavy lifting for advertisers on Google Ads.

What does automated bidding use to set the right bid for every auction?

38. What’s an accurate description of callout extensions?

39. Steven is an advertising executive at a large auto parts company. He uses his Google Ads Recommendations page to help him with strategies to optimize his Google Search Ads campaigns.

One reason Steven values the optimization score is because it makes it possible for him to do what?

40. Molly wants to clear her remaining stock in preparation for ordering a new line of products to sell. As a result, she’s willing to increase her CPA (cost-per-acquisition) and investment, as long as it means generating more sales.

41. What does Performance Planner automatically do?

42. You manage marketing for a small business on a tight budget, yet you need to reach as many people as possible.

How can Google Ads help?

43. Hank wants to use a “Maximize Conversions” campaign with the Performance Planner.

Which recommendation can be provided to Hank by the Performance Planner?

44. Samira has been tasked with increasing the relevance of her company’s ads. She has been told that she can use multiple headline options in her responsive search ads as a way to increase relevance.

How many headlines can Samira include in a single responsive search ad?

45. Marco owns a company that installs smart-home accessories. His employees recently completed specialized training on installing specific units for garage doors. He wants to capitalize on his employees’ new skills.

How could a Google Search campaign benefit his business?

46. John’s Plumbing prides itself on excellent customer service, especially during after-hours service calls. They want to connect with people who need emergency plumbing services in the middle of the night.

Which criteria should John’s Plumbing configure to meet this goal?

47. Peggy owns a house-cleaning service. She built a booking website and is ready to promote her services online. She wants her ads to reach people actively looking for businesses similar to hers.

Which Google Ads campaign should Peggy use to make sure potential customers consider her services and take action by booking house cleanings?

48. Jerry’s managing a Google Search campaign and would like to improve the position in which his ads appear. He’s increased his bids, but his ad still isn’t showing at the top of Search results.

What else might he do to improve his Ad Rank?

49. Tara is using Search Audiences to reach her most valuable customers.

Which direct benefit might she obtain by using Search Audience?

50. An advertising executive takes over a Google Search ads campaign. On his Google Ads Recommendations page he notes that the campaign’s optimization score is 40%.

What does this score indicate?

Yes, all these Google Ads Search Certification answers are 100% correct.

Yes, all these questions are the latest ones to improve your experience. I keep updating the article with the latest answers, so check and bookmark the page.

Yes, at the end of the exam, you will be awarded a free certificate when you pass with min score.

The maximum validity of the certificate is only two years.

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I’m assuming that this article would be helpful for you to find all the Google Ads Search Certification Answers and grab some premium knowledge with less effort. If this article helped you in any way, share it with your friends on social media.

Optimization Score Is Made Up Of Over 50 Recommendations To Optimize Search Campaigns.

Correct Answer:

Google Ads Search Certification Exam Answers 2022

Earn a Google Ads Search Certification by demonstrating your mastery of Google Ads Search campaigns. Prepare for the certification by completing the diagnostic assessment, or proceed to get certified. Study Google Ads Search: Grow Your Business with Google Ads, Explore the Value of Google Search, Understand the Google Ads Auction, Deliver the Right Message with Text Ads, Make Ads Relevant with Search Ad Extensions, Increase Efficiency with Automated Bidding, Reach Valued Customers with Search Audiences, Boost Performance with Optimization Score, Increase Conversions with Performance Planner.

Google Ads Search Certification

Demonstrate your mastery of building and optimizing Google Search campaigns. Certified users will exhibit the ability to leverage automated solutions like Smart Bidding and Audience Solutions to boost campaign performance for specific marketing objectives.

By earning the Google Ads Search Certification, Google recognizes your ability to:

Note: Some courses contain links to sites that may not be available in your preferred language or that require you to select your language.

Prepare for the certification

Note: This assessment is optional but will help prepare you for the certification. Check your understanding of key concepts tested in the certification.

The Google Ads Optimization Score – How to use (and not use) this new report

There have been a lot of changes going on inside of Google Ads lately (And yes, in case you missed the news, AdWords is now Google Ads).

One of the new additions to the Ads interface is the optimization score. The Google Ads optimization score is Google’s way of telling you how well your account is doing, and what you need to do to improve your results.

But is this score beneficial? Or is it just Google’s way of pushing us to spend more money on advertising, disguised as help?

Source: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9095477

In this video and guide, we are going to dissect the Google Ads optimization score. We’ll look at how Google calculates this score. Then we’ll break down Google’s optimization recommendations. We’ll determine which suggestions are useful, and which recommendations you might be better off ignoring.

Follow along to learn how to use (and not use) the Ads optimization score.

How does optimization work in Google Ads?

Before we break down the Ads optimization score, let’s talk about what optimization means and how we make optimizations in Googe Ads.

Optimization is defined as the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource.

Of course, for most online marketing efforts, there is no such thing as best. But there is better. And within Google Ads, there are always opportunities to make your advertising more cost-effective.

Let’s review some of the areas where we can make improvements to our Ads account, and then we will analyze Google’s optimization recommendations.

Types of Google Ads Optimization

Bid optimization – Increase CTR or lower CPA

Bid optimization involves adjusting your bids to maximize your results. Often advertisers will raise their bids to improve their Ad Rank, which in turn will increase their click-through rate (CTR), and potentially increase conversions. Or an advertiser will lower their bid in an attempt to reduce their cost per conversion, and increase their profit margins.

Ad copy optimization – Automatic rotation vs. even rotation

Ad groups exist to allow you to test and improve your ad copy. One of the simplest ways to optimize your ad copy is through ad rotation. By default, Google always wants to enter the ad that gets the most clicks in the ad auction. But if you change your ad rotation settings so that your ads are displayed evenly, you can get more complete data about all your ads. Then, you can choose your best ads based on cost and conversions, as opposed to clicks.

Landing page optimization – Better landing page experience = more conversions

Landing page optimization is one of the most overlooked adjustments an advertiser can make. Creating unique landing pages for each ad group allows advertisers to match their landing page copy to their ads and keywords. Matching your landing page copy to your ads and keywords will increase your Quality Score, which will lower your CPC and improve your ad rank.

Also, enhancing your users’ landing page experience is one of the best ways to increase your conversion rate. If your ads are getting clicks, you can almost always get better results by upgrading your landing pages.

Keyword match type optimization – Match types for each stage of the keyword life cycle

Keywords are the fuel that powers Google Ads. But finding cost-effective keywords to advertise on can be hard. One of the best ways to optimize your keywords selection is to test match types. When you identify new keywords to test, you want to use broad and broad match modified keywords so you can accumulate enough data to learn from your results. But as you refine your ad groups, you can use phrase and exact match keywords to help reduce spending on wasted ad clicks.

Search term optimization (and negative keywords)

Running ads on broad and broad modified match keywords will feed a lot of data into your search query report. You can optimize your keywords by mining this report. You can pull out the best keyword variations and build new ad groups around them. And you can add the search terms that are leading to wasted clicks to your negative keyword lists.

Quality Score Optimization

Many of the other optimization techniques we’ve discussed will help you improve your Quality Score. Higher Quality Scores lead to higher Ad Rank, at a lower cost. And if you’re a conspiracy theorist like I am, then you might believe that earning good keyword Quality Scores can impact your mythical (but potentially real) Google Ads Account Quality Score.

Profit optimization – The most important metric isn’t in the Ads interface

It’s easy to get focused on all the metrics in the Ads interface. After all, there’s so many to choose from, clicks, CTR, average CPA, ROAS, etc. But, you know which metric you won’t find inside of Google Ads? The most important metric, PROFIT. Unless you’re a big budget advertiser running a branding campaign, you should always focus on profit. So when you evaluate your optimization score keep your ROI in mind. All the optimizations in the world are useless if they don’t increase your ability to earn a profit using Google Ads.

Campaign and ad group optimization – Why SKAGS work

The key to better results from your campaigns and ad groups is granularity. The reason to build granular ad groups and different campaigns for different audience sets is not to create more work for ourselves. But rather to see better data in our accounts. When you can directly match your results to your actions, you can make better decisions. So, for example, if you are using single keyword ad groups (skags), you can tie your results directly to your specific keywords and their match types. But if you jumble a bunch of similar keywords into the same ad group, you may have trouble identifying which keywords or keyword match types are responsible for your results.

Building targeted campaigns and well-organized ad groups is one of the best ways to optimize your account structure and get better results.

Budget optimization – Small adjustments are the key to big results

Account Optimization – The work of a PPC pro is never done!

We all want our advertising to be successful, and Google will reward you if you optimize your account. If you’re logging into your Ads account, checking your recommendations, and making small changes every day, the results will follow.

Conversion optimization – The results that matter

Optimizing for conversions may be the most important thing you can do in the ads interface. Getting results, opt-ins, sign-ups, downloads, and sales is what drives our advertising. And, as with everything else in the Google Ads ecosystem, winning conversions has a compounding effect. Google wants to show the ads that get results. So optimizing for conversions will often lead to more conversions.

One score to quantify all your optimization opportunities?

Until recently, there wasn’t a reliable and unbiased indicator to tell you which adjustments to your account are likely to have the most significant impact.

You could use third-party tools like Wordstream to grade your account.

But no single, native Google Ads metric explained how your account was performing overall.

What is the Adwords optimization Score?

Oops, I meant to write Google Ads optimization score there.

Your optimization score is an account performance grade ranging from 0 to 100%. The score is calculated based on the results you’ve earned, your settings, and your status as an advertiser. The score factors in how well your account matches Google’s recommendations. And it also measures how much of an impact fully adopting Google’s automated suggestions would have on the results Google values.

Now, as helpful as this score sounds, we don’t want to follow Google’s machine-generated advice blindly. So let’s go inside my account, take a look at my score and see how we can use this information.

Account optimization score

As you can see, my optimization score is front and center in my recommendations tab. And it’s not all that impressive – a 77.3%. If Google were handing out letter grades, I’d be getting a C+.

But if you have taken any of my PPC training courses before, then you know that I don’t always follow Google’s recommendations. And that’s because Google’s objectives are not always the same as mine. Google wants me to maximize my bids, and I want to maximize my profit. Sometimes those objectives work in harmony and sometimes they don’t.

Campaign level optimization score

There are a couple of other important things to note about this feature. You can also get an optimization score at a campaign level.

Adjusting your optimization score

You can improve your optimization score by dismissing Google’s recommendations. But, if you’re going to reject Google’s suggestions, be prepared to answer for your decision! Google isn’t going to let you off the hook without knowing why you don’t like their advice.

Interpreting your optimization score

Let’s take another look at my account optimization score and see what improvements Google thinks I should make.

Investigating bid and budget recommendations

The most significant proposal in my optimization score is that I increase my budget. Now, I have my budget capped at a pretty low amount because I use this account to test out techniques and create training videos (like the one in this article) for my courses.

Should you raise your budget?

One-click “Apply” vs. keyword level adjustments

A better course of action would be to evaluate the specific keywords and ads that are limited by budget. Then, if need be, I can increase my bids at a keyword level and monitor the impact my budget increase has on my performance and overall budget.

Although I agree with Google’s suggestion that I should increase my spending, I don’t agree with Google’s tactics for increasing my bids. Accepting Google’s budget suggestion might not be detrimental in a small test account. But authorizing a 1000% budget increase could be disastrous for a large advertiser with a big budget.

Enhanced CPC bidding recommendation (but where’s the data?)

Another one of Google’s budget-related proposals is that I move to enhanced CPC bidding. This suggestion doesn’t provide any data about how enhanced CPC is expected to impact my results. So, I am disinclined to approve this suggestion without further analysis.

Don’t forget about structured snippets!

Google’s recommendation that I add structured snippets is pretty much a no-brainer. I should be using structured snippets with my ads. I should be using as many extensions as I can reasonably enable with my ads. However, putting these extensions in place requires configuration. Unfortunately, there’s no one-click “Apply” option for this optimization.

Keyword optimization recommendations

Google’s keyword recommendations are not exactly straightforward. They want me to remove the redundant keywords from my ad groups. It’s important to remember that Google’s artificial intelligence technology generates these suggestions. So although your optimization score provides quantifiable ways to improve your account, there will be circumstances where the suggested changes lack context. My keywords suggestions appear to be one of those scenarios.

Redundant keywords or match type confusion?

I am using the phrase match keyword “google advertising training.” And Google is telling me that “google ads training” is a close variant that I should remove from my ad group. But I want to look at my search query report and keyword level CPC data before I apply this change. Testing close variants can be a great way to find new keywords, as long as your match type settings are not causing wasted clicks. If these keywords are set to phrase and exact match, there shouldn’t be much redundancy.

Responsive search ads are here – we should use them!

This recommendation is on my to-do list. So as soon as I get time, I’ll go into my account and test Google’s new responsive search ad options.

Automatic ad rotation (probably not)

Google wants to be able to select my best performing ads for the ad auction. Ad rotation is one recommendation I will be ignoring completely. If I adopt this suggestion, Google’s likely to select my ad rotation based on clicks. But, I prefer to set my ad rotation evenly, so that I get a chance to see how my ads perform and I can optimize my ad rotation for conversions.

Scoring the Ads optimization score

Overall, I would say the optimization score is a great new feature. This score helps you get an idea of how your account measures up to Google’s suggested best practices. And the percentage improvement scores are a quick way to see which changes are predicted to have the biggest impact on your results. Also, if you want to follow Google’s guidance, it’s easy to apply the suggested changes.

Just keep in mind, it’s a good idea to be discerning about Google’s advice and the optimization score doesn’t replace sound strategy. Google’s objectives are not always the same as yours. And Google can’t factor your most important metric – profit – into their optimization score. If you want to dive deeper into creating a profitable campaign, take a look at our complete Google Ads Tutorial here.

Let’s wrap this up by reviewing what we learned about the optimization score.

Reviewing Google’s optimization recommendations

Many of the recommendations in this score are spot-on

The majority of the recommendations that make up my optimization score are not overly biased in Google’s favor. And implementing these optimizations is likely to help my account performance. However, I’d avoid using the one-click “Apply” feature for bid adjustments and keyword selection. This feature has the potential to make changes to your account on a larger scale than you might want. Instead, I’d advise making adjustments at the keyword level in the Ads interface or using AdWords Editor.

Much like passing the Google Ads exam, a 100% score may not be achievable (or desirable)

A 100% optimization score should not be your end goal. Maybe 90% is a pretty good target? As we discussed, embracing all of Google’s suggestions might not help you achieve your objectives.

Focus on results, not on arbitrary scores

The optimization score is a fun new tool. But stay focused on deploying the tactics that will help earn the results you need. Use the optimization score to find opportunities that have synergy with your advertising strategy.

You have nothing to lose by checking your score today!

Evaluating your optimization score can only help you learn more about how to improve your advertising. This score should be available in your account. Go check it out today!

What is your optimization score? – Leave a comment with your score.

What’s your optimization score? Did you beat mine? Leave a comment with your score below. And if you’re unsure about how to act on the recommendations in your account, feel free to leave a question in the comments. We’ll try to help you figure out if Google’s giving you sound advice, or if you need to do little more investigation before applying Google’s recommendations.

Google OptiScore, Recommendations, & Explanations – Tools Every Campaign Manager Should Know

Over the past few years, Google Ads has added more and more automated optimization features to its platform, from smart bidding to auto-generated ad copy to targeting recommendations. With new features designed to automate optimization across all aspects of campaign management, advertisers have a growing set of tools to evaluate and improve account performance. Google’s “Opportunities Tab” has evolved into a full-fledged optimization suggestion engine, complete with a scoring system and full-set dashboard of recommendations that advertisers can implement with just a few clicks. This article will highlight some of these features, namely Google Optimization Score (AKA OptiScore), Recommendations, and Explanations, as well as the caveats surrounding their use.

In This Article:

What is Google OptiScore?

Google gives OptiScores at the Profile level, the Account level, and the Campaign level. At the campaign level, optimization scores are currently only available for Search, Display, Shopping, and Video Action campaigns.

Optimization scores typically include “recommendations” to improve overall account efficiency (and raise OptiScore). These recommendations are tailored to each account and introduce relevant features that can help optimize bidding, keywords, and ad performance.

Where to Find OptiScore and Recommendations in Google Ads

From the All Campaigns view within an account, you can see each campaign’s OptiScore within the performance columns. Clicking on the blue hyperlinked optimization score next to each campaign will take you into the recommendations for that campaign.

If you would like to see the optimization score for an entire Google Ads account or profile, first navigate to the specific profile or account, then click on the “Recommendations” tab in the left-hand sidebar.

The above screenshot shows the Recommendations tab at the account level. The overall OptiScore for the account is the big blue number in the top left. Additionally, you’ll see a percentage in the upper right corner of some of your recommendations. This percent indicates how much the optimization score is expected to increase if the recommendation is applied.

How to Apply or Dismiss Google Recommendations

Google makes it easy for account managers to apply or dismiss a recommendation right from the dashboard.

Choosing to apply or dismiss changes will impact the overall optimization score of your account. If you apply changes, you’ll likely see your OptiScore increase. If you dismiss changes, you may see your OptiScore decline.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that your OptiScore values are not factored into other metrics like Quality Score or Ad Rank. OptiScore is simply an assumption of performance potential. So, take your optimization score with a giant grain of salt and continue to analyze your full set of performance indicators to make the best decisions.

Types of Recommendations

To make it easier on the eyes, Google’s recommendations dashboard is broken down into categories. Tabs across the top to help you quickly filter between different categories. Let’s walk through the different types of recommendations. Keep in mind that if your account has a high OptiScore, you may not see all of these different categories.

Repairs Recommendations

Repairs recommendations identify issues and suggest fixes to improve overall account health and performance. These are usually recommendations to fix certification issues, ad destinations, or editorial issues with ad text. Repair recommendations can also identify issues with conversion tracking, like in the example below.

Here, Google has identified that there are several ad groups with no keywords. Aim to check your repairs recommendations weekly to make sure you don’t have any errors in your account.

Bidding & Budgets Recommendations

Bidding & budgets recommendations help leverage the right bid strategy for a business’s objectives. These typically involve adjusting budgets, using automated bid strategies like Target CPA, or adjusting conversion tracking to ensure all interactions in a customer’s journey are assigned adequate credit. Note: Bidding & budgets recommendations only encompass bid policy campaigns, not fully automated Smart Campaigns.

Keywords & Targeting Recommendations

Keywords & Targeting recommendations cover a lot: including changes to keyword match types, ideas for new keywords, and expanding targeting. Additionally, now that Google has removed broad modified keywords and is encouraging a more streamlined account structure, this recommendation category can help identify keyword redundancies that can be removed in order to simplify campaign management and data collection.

In the first example below, Google is recommending that we run our ads on search partner networks. Another example of a targeting recommendation might be to turn on an age demographic that you had paused or to add audiences to your remarketing campaigns.

Ads & Extensions Recommendations

Ads & extensions recommendations are meant to help refine existing ads and extensions, create new ads, or organize ads into more effective groupings. These recommendations include launching Responsive Search Ads (RSAs), building ad extensions, and tailoring ad copy to feature popular search terms.

In this example for a lead gen client, Google recommends using lead form extensions to help capture more conversions by giving them the option to submit their info without ever leaving the SERP.

Within this category, Google also offers ad suggestions or variations of existing ads that might boost campaign performance. These are created automatically and can be launched right from the Recommendations page.

In the example above, Google is recommending that we add new assets to our existing RSAs. When we click to “View Recommendations,” we get an “Ad Strength” score and specific recommendations for new headlines, descriptions, and specific keywords that Google recommends adding to our ads to improve performance.

Google’s suggestions aren’t perfect and need to be checked for grammar. In the above example, we see a suggestion to add “Made In The Usa,” which we would want to correct to “Made in the USA” if we were to add it.

If you’ve started a new Google Ads account recently, make sure to check your ad suggestion settings. By default, new accounts are set to automatically apply ad suggestions within 14 days if they’re not dismissed. With this default setting selected, Google’s AI-driven recommendation engine can adjust active text and display ads, meaning campaigns can change without explicit consent—and these changes may increase costs and reduce efficiency. Luckily, Google allows advertisers to opt-out of auto-applied recommendations at the account level, giving advertisers full control over which suggestions they choose to apply or dismiss.

To turn off automatic ad recommendations, navigate to account settings, and select “Ad suggestions.” You should then have the option to choose whether or not you want ad recommendations to apply automatically.

Automated Campaigns Recommendations

Automated campaigns recommendations simplify campaign management through automated bid strategies, targeting, and ad creation. These entail switching to Smart Shopping campaigns, creating a Local campaign, or using Smart Display campaigns.

In the example below, Google recommends creating both a Smart Shopping and Smart Display campaign for the client.

When we expand the recommendation, Google provides more info and justification, as well as a quick link to “Get Started.”

Dismissed Recommendations

One additional thing to note is the tab for “Dismissed Recommendations,” which lists all of the recommendations you’ve declined. This really comes in handy if you have accidentally dismissed a recommendation or you see your OptiScore going down and want to revisit some of the recommendation ideas.

Is a 100% Google Optimization Score Always Best?

This all sounds pretty good in theory—Google identifies all the reasons a campaign isn’t reaching its goals and then gives you the option to remedy those issues with just the simple click of a button. But what would happen if you applied all of Google’s recommendations to an account? Is a 100% optimization score always best?

Generally speaking, no. Though Google’s machine learning is sophisticated, it doesn’t consider retailers’ unique business goals. In fact, having a perfect Optimization Score can actually be detrimental to ad campaigns by increasing costs or disrupting a specific strategy.

In our experience, Google’s recommendations have tended to push advertisers towards broader, more aggressive targeting at higher spend levels. Common recommendations across our accounts include implementing broad match keywords, pushing a keyword to a top of page bid, or increasing budgets. While these adjustments could potentially be helpful for certain types of campaigns, accounts with tight margins and/or small budgets would generally be better off without them. Seemingly innocuous changes introduced by recommendations can result in a campaign spending a lot of money on low-value traffic in a short amount of time, causing retailers to lose ground in competitive channels.

As noted earlier, new Google accounts are defaulted to let Google auto-apply ad suggestions after 14 days. It appears Google is planning to follow suit with their other recommendations. Some of you may have noticed a new “Auto-Apply Beta” badge in the top right-hand corner when you log into your account.

When you click on this badge, you’ll several sections of checkboxes allowing you to opt-in to recommendations for bidding & budgets, keywords & targeting, and ads & extensions. Hopefully Google will migrate all of their auto-apply options to an “opt-in” rather than an “opt-out” model to give advertisers further control over their account management, but until that is confirmed, keep a close eye on these updates.

Google Ad Recommendations Case Study:

One of our clients is a B2B e-commerce company in a competitive industry. They have pretty strict ROAS targets and cost concerns, but due to the high competition in the search landscape, they place a lot of importance on brand visibility.

A few weeks ago, we noticed a “Bidding and Budgets” recommendation to use automated bidding instead of enhanced CPC in their branded campaign. Google recommended switching the campaign to a “Maximize conversions” bid strategy, which sets bids in order to achieve the highest number of conversions possible using a campaign’s budget.

After doing some research, we determined that using an automated bid strategy could be beneficial, but we weren’t sure that Maximize conversions bidding made the most sense for this particular campaign. A Maximize conversions bid strategy could result in greater conversion volume at the expense of impression share percentage, which didn’t align with the client’s desire for high brand visibility. We decided a “Target Impression Share” bid strategy would probably be a better fit, as it ensures ads show up in a certain percentage of eligible auctions.

All told, the test resulted in 19% more impressions, a 7% increase in impression share, a 7.7% decrease in CPCs, and a slight improvement to top of page rate. We were surprised by the 7.7% decrease in CPCs, as we thought this number might increase along with the higher impression share. Down the line, we will experiment with different CPC limits to see how low the maximum CPC can be while retaining our target percentage of impression share.

While this is just one example, it goes to show how recommendations can be used to help analyze and improve campaign performance. The main takeaway here is to do your due diligence and research each recommendation thoroughly before applying it to your account. Some recommendations are better than others, and it’s important to understand what will and won’t work for your particular marketing goals before rolling out changes.

Running tests on your recommendations is also a great way to ensure you’re implementing the best ideas for your account.

What are Explanations in Google Ads?

Like recommendations, Google “explanations” is a new feature that attempts to automate account analysis and optimization. Explanations provide insights into fluctuations in performance for search campaigns and ad groups, identifying what Google thinks are the most likely reasons for impression, click, and other changes. Explanations are based purely on performance comparison with the previous period, and they only appear if changes to performance meet certain thresholds.

There is some overlap between explanations and optimization score, as optimization score also analyzes performance history to assess how well an account is expected to perform. However, the product teams at Google that manage both features are completely different, and optimization score takes several other factors into account besides performance history.

How to View Explanations in Your Account

To view explanations, you’ll first need to set your performance dates to view a period over period comparison. When a campaign has enough volume and the period over period change is significant enough, explanations will show up as hyperlinked, blue metrics, such as the blue “-11.94%” in the screenshot example below. Explanations will only be visible for your volume metrics (clicks, impressions, conversions, etc.) and not your efficiency metrics (CPC, CVR, CPA, etc.)

Upon hovering over the hyperlink, there is an option to “View Explanations.” This will open a window on the right side of the screen that identifies the campaign, the time frame, and the metric that was hyperlinked.

Clicking “View Explanations” prompts Google to open a window on the right and begin a quick analysis before displaying some insights into what may have caused the change.

This window shows what changed and why that may be. For instance, the example above explains that the ad group saw a large decline in clicks because of a decline in search interest.

Additionally, at the very bottom of the window, Google provides a diagnostic report summarizing what Google analyzed and what are not potential causes for the change in performance.

Types of Explanations

There are many different types of explanations, ranging from diagnosing how bid changes impacted your ad serving to explain how overall search interest led to a drop in your impression volume. Rather than restate them all here, we’ll just point you to this helpful Google article which describes the different explanations you might see in your account. Here are a few examples below.

This is an example of a Budget Allocation explanation. It explains that the drop in clicks for this ad group may have been caused by a change in how the budget was spread across multiple campaigns or ad groups.

This example shows an Auction Competition explanation. Here, we see that one of our competitors got less aggressive, which increased impressions and clicks. You can see that this explanation even provides a quick link to view the auction insights to look at additional data.

This explanation attributes our increase in clicks to an improvement in absolute top impression share. The question mark next to each explanation provides additional insight. Here, Google explains that an increase in impression share improves your clickthrough rate.

Things to Keep in Mind About Explanations

Explanations are a useful tool for assessing and identifying potential reasons for changes in account performance. They allow marketers to focus more on optimization and less on investigating why certain fluctuations occur.

That being said, explanations only look for problems occurring at the campaign, ad group, and keyword level. Website changes that could affect conversion rate or tracking are not taken into account. In addition, explanations are only available in campaigns and ad groups that have experienced a significant change in performance and are running on manual CPC, enhanced CPC, or target CPA bid policies. Lastly, they can only be viewed when comparing contiguous periods of the same length with sufficient volume and activity.

Further digging will need to be done to fully understand what is really driving performance changes in your account and the actions needed to improve performance. But, explanations are a great place to start your analysis, as they help draw your attention to potential red flags in your account and point you in the right direction for uncovering the problem.

Final Thoughts

Google’s machine learning has come a long way, and new automated features like explanations, recommendations, and OptiScore can provide useful insights that greatly benefit account performance. While we can expect these tools to become increasingly sophisticated, it will likely take a long time before Google’s AI can incorporate them into a larger strategy that considers each business’s unique goals. That’s why human insight and problem-solving are so crucial in the Google Ads ecosystem—in 2021 and beyond.

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Jessica

Originally from Boston, Jessica moved to California after graduating from Northeastern University in 2018. She worked in television development & production before joining the Effective Spend team as a digital media specialist. Outside of work, she’s an avid pianist and enjoys roller skating down the Venice strand.