Should you pay attention to the Optimization score in a Google Ad Grants account?

Google Ads gives your account as a whole, and individual campaigns, an Optimization score. This score is fairly meaningless. You could accept every recommendation that Google makes, or dismiss them all, and either way the Optimization score would be 100%.

Experienced Google Ads managers don't take Optimization score seriously, and are selective about which recommendations they implement.

Generally these recommendations represent what Google wants advertisers to do, not what's in the best interests of the individual advertiser.

Go to Campaigns > Recommendations to see Google's suggestions.

Which recommendations should you accept or dismiss?

Take Google's recommendations with a big pinch of salt, especially when you are still learning. Some are beneficial, some could be detrimental. If in doubt, play safe and dismiss or ignore them. Don't let the Optimization score influence your decision making.

There is often an option to accept or dismiss individual suggestions, or groups of suggestions, which might be an alternative to a wholesale decision.

Here are some examples but note that this is not an exclusive list, and Google is constantly changing how recommendations are worded, and adding new types.

Don't be surprised if a short while after dismissing a recommendation, it pops up again!

Add broad match keywords—Get more conversions at a similar or better ROI by adding broad match versions of your existing keywords

Be aware that Google is pushing advertisers to use broad match instead of phrase or exact match keywords. That could lead to more impressions. But it could also lead to worse CTR or Conversion rates. On most Ad Grant accounts broad match keywords perform less well for quality metrics, because search terms tend to be more generic and less relevant. There's an inevitable trade-off between quantity and quantity.

Accept if: your impressions are low

Dismiss if: you have concerns about quality

Remove redundant keywords—Make your account easier to manage by removing redundant keywords

This recommendation is often misleading. Google will often say that a keyword is "redundant" when it's actually a different keyword variant i.e. phrase or broad match. Never accept this wholesale, check each individual listed item separately.

Accept if: you only use broad match keywords, and want to keep management simple, or if specific keywords are both the same match type and clearly very similar in meaning to each other.

Dismiss if: you want to keep different match types in ad groups, or if you disagree that the terms are redundant/very similar in meaning.

Improve your responsive search ads—Get more clicks on your responsive search ads by improving your headlines and descriptions 

The problem with this recommendation is that it's based entirely on Google's ad strength score of your RSA ad, which doesn't take into account whether the ad is actually performing well or not; from the recommendations screen you can't see performance stats to confirm whether it's a sensible suggestion or not.

Accept if: the ad is actually under-performing (low impression, low quality metrics), or if the headlines and descriptions are clearly insufficiently persuasive.

Dismiss if: you're happy with the ad's performance.

Enable automatically created assets—Get more clicks on your responsive search ads by enabling automatically created assets for your Search campaigns 

I recommend you switch off automatically-created assets/extensions, and keep them switched off. Dismiss this recommendation every time.

Add dynamic sitelink extensions—Enhance your text ads with sitelinks related to your landing page using dynamic sitelink extensions, which can improve your CTR 

Always dismiss this recommendation. Google generally creates poor sitelink text.

Link your Merchant Center account—Promote your products with Performance Max by linking your Merchant Center account

Dismiss it. In an Ad Grant account, you can't create shopping or Performance-Max campaigns. A good example of a recommendation that makes no sense in an Ad Grant.

Add images to your ads—Your ads aren't as prominent as they could be if you added images, which can improve your CTR

Generally it's a good idea to add image extensions to campaigns. It does help raise your CTR, even if the images only sometimes get shown.

Accept if: you don't already have quality images associated with your campaigns.

Dismiss if: you're happy with the images you already have, or don't have any images to use.

Use business logo in your search ads—Increase ad performance and drive engagement by adding business logo to your account 

If you're seeing this, you haven't added a business logo extension to your account. Accept this recommendation. You probably only need one logo extension, added at account level.

Use a portfolio bid strategy—Maximise ROI across your campaigns by using a portfolio strategy with a shared budget 

Always be wary of recommendations that would change your budget or bidding strategy. Chances are, Google doesn't understand your account structure or why you've made strategic decisions.

Accept if: you have multiple campaigns broadly focused on similar audiences.

Dismiss if: your campaigns' audiences have little in common, or if you don't fully understand what a portfolio strategy is (read this course's lesson on bidding strategies).

Finish setting up conversion tracking—Finish setting up conversion tracking by making sure that your conversion actions are successfully reporting conversions

This is a useful warning that your conversion tracking might not be working as intended, or is in the early days before any conversions have happened.

I do not suggest you follow the steps that this recommendation wants you to take. Dismiss it. Instead, check in Google Analytics that conversions are being recorded for any channels, then check whether there have been any for ads. Often all you have to do is wait a few more days. If conversions aren't happening, usually you'd fix it in Analytics.

Remove conflicting negative keywords—People didn't see your ads because of conflicting negative keywords. Remove them so your ads can show.

This happens when you have keywords that you want to get impressions, but have added negative keywords that exclude that traffic. Look at the list you're shown, and decide whether to remove the negative keyword, or remove the keyword.

5 ad groups do not have any ads—Get your ads running by adding ads to each ad group 

Accept this recommendation. This warning is especially handy since it's an Ad Grant requirement to have one ad in each ad group.

Fix your ad destinations—Your ads were disapproved because of destination issues. Fix your ad destinations to show your ads.

Accept this and check your ads' final urls. Perhaps a page's address on the website has changed, or the page has been removed.

Add location assets to your ads—Your ads aren't as prominent as they could be if you used location assets 

Accept if: you want to append location information to your ads, especially useful for locally-based services.

Dismiss if: you don't have a physical location that people can visit, or if you're a national or international nonprofit where office location isn't so important

Remove non-serving keywords—Make your account easier to manage by removing non-serving keywords 

Accept if: you are fairly certain that the listed keywords are unlikely to ever be searched, and aren't important to you, and you like to keep your account very tidy..

Dismiss if: there is a possibility that keywords will get used in future, perhaps you could improve their quality scores instead so they have a chance to get seen.

Add sitelinks to your ads—Sitelinks are missing from 1 campaign

This type of recommendation can be really useful. Google is telling you that something important is missing, in this case sitelinks.

Accept if: you manage sitelinks at campaign level, and have overlooked this campaign..

Dismiss if: you manage all your sitelinks at account level.