Pete Bowen's site

Don’t believe every recommendation from Google.

The optimisation score is Google’s newest way of telling you how to run your Google Ads account.

The score is as a percentage - 0% is terrible and 100% is fully optimised. You can see the score at account or campaign level. You'll find it by typing GT anywhere in your Google Ads account and then scrolling to ‘Recommendations’.

It makes me uncomfortable.

The optimisation score is a Monopoly money metric. You can use Monopoly money to buy green houses or a red hotels in the game, but you can’t buy anything with it in real life. Winning Monopoly isn’t going to make you a property mogul.

Monopoly (12004619774)

Monopoly money metrics look important but they don’t measure the value of Google Ads to the business. They're related, they may sometimes be a proxy for value, but they're not an actual measurement of that value.

You get optimisation score points for implementing Google’s recommendations. Those recommendations come from what’s happening in your account and what other advertisers are doing. The more recommendations you follow the more points you get. The only way to get 100% is by implementing all the recommendations.

But, sometimes chasing a win in the game is bad for the business.

Let me give you an example from an account I manage for an immigration consultant.

Google Ads sent him 134 sales enquiries last month. Each enquiry cost less than a cup of coffee. His service sells for as much as a new car. He’s extremely happy with the results but his optimisation score is only 62.5%.

Google recommended that we add 23 keywords. If we do that we’ll get 14.4 points, taking our score to 76.9%.

Emigrating to a new country is a big decision. My client tells me that people take about 3 years from first thinking about emigrating to actually going.

The keywords Google wants me to add to get the points are likely to be used by people very early in the thinking about it phase. They’re years away from needing my client’s services.

My client’s business model is tuned for people who have made the decision and are ready to go. He doesn’t have a process for nurturing people from first thinking about emigrating to eventually becoming clients. Paying Google to show ads against the recommended keywords will be a waste of money.

Winning those 14.4 points will hurt the business.

The bottom line: All advice - even advice from Google - must be considered in the context of the business goals, no matter how many red hotels it lets you buy.

Need some help with this?

I offer 1-to-1 mentoring and consulting. You’ll get help, advice, support and answers without having to commit to a long-term contract. Details here.

Want to increase your conversion rate?
I’ve seen conversion rates double, triple and even 10X after a few quick and easy changes to the enquiry form. Subscribe now, and I'll send you a free copy of my in-depth ebook High-Converting Enquiry Forms.
You're already paying for clicks. Now turn them into conversions. Privacy policy. Unsubscribe at any time.

Related articles

How I reduce wrong-business leads from Google Ads This is for you if you advertise on Google Ads and get leads who think they're contacting a different business. They call or fill in a form looking for someone else.

How I improve lead quality by telling Google which leads are good. By default Google Ads believes every lead is good. But that's not true. You can give Google feedback on lead quality and use that feedback to get better leads.

How's your Chinese? Google shows English adverts to people who searched in Chinese even though the campaign language is set to English. Here's how you can stop this and why you might want to.

Is it safe to use broad match keywords for lead generation campaigns? Google is pushing broad match hard and, some people are reporting good results. But, is it actually best practice now? Or are broad match keywords a waste of money?

Should I split a massive multi-country Google Ads account into separate accounts? At first glance it seems like splitting a big account into smaller accounts will make it easier to manage. But, there are downsides and, there are ways to make big accounts easier to manage.

Why did Google charge me $300 for a $20 click? Every now and again Google would charge an outrageous amount for one click. As much as 15 to 20 times what they normally paid. Here's how to prevent that.

Why I don't just delete fake leads from my inbox If the only thing you do with fake leads from Google Ads is delete the lead delivery email you risk getting swamped by fake leads. Here's why and what to do to improve lead quality.

Getting a lot of junk leads from Google Ads? You can spot conversion fraud because the leads have genuine email addresses and phone numbers but when you call them they don't remember filling in your form.

A love letter to statistics This is for you if you’re interested in making data-driven decisions about your Google Ads. Amy Hebdon, founder at Paid Search Magic, wrote a fantastic article she described a love letter disguised as a how to about PPC data interpretation.

Allocating budget How do you know the best way to split your ad budget between search and display, between Facebook and Google, between one keyword and another?

Does Google rip advertisers off? I'm not saying that everyone who's paid for Google ads has turned a profit. That's definitely not the case. But, when people lose money on Google ads its likely to be because Google Ads was a poor fit for their business, or because of the way they did Google Ads. I can't see Google risking their future to steal your advertising budget

Don't believe my writing I'm not trying to bamboozle you, it's just that my - and everyone else's - writing isn't always right for your circumstances. Read on to find out more...

Google showed your ads to the wrong people today. Google showed your some of your adverts to the wrong people today. You (or someone you hire) must deal with this or your ads are going to start costing more and generating fewer leads. Here's how.

Has Google jumped the gun on mobile? How much commercial activity happens on mobile phones? Is it enough to justify a mobile-first approach to development? Case study with mobile vs desktop AdWords generated leads across 7 industries.

How do you get more leads from Google Ads when you’ve maxed out impression share? How do you get more leads from Google Ads when you’ve maxed out impression share? Here's how we solved this problem...

How to get fast traction on a brand new Google Ads campaign. I worked out a process for getting fast results from new AdWords campaigns so I didn't have to worry as much. You're welcome to copy (and improve) my process.

I’m getting too many B2C leads. I want only B2B. I’ve bumped into this problem with almost every client who sells to other businesses (B2B) not to consumers (B2C). Here are some options ..

I'm scared I'll break my campaign If you don't feel confident making changes to Google Ads campaigns this might help...

Improve conversion rates by adding extra calls to action. Need to improve your conversion rate? Here's a tested approach that takes only a few minutes.

Putting a little science into AdWords In the past I relied on a combination of the change history in AdWords, some rough notes and my memory to keep track of my testing. It worked but it wasn't great. It became more difficult as my business grew. I started to feel like I was losing control. I couldn't answer questions about an account without having to root around in Google docs, AdWords and email. Read on to see how I fixed this.

Should you advertise on Search Partners? We check the campaigns we manage regularly to see how much it costs to generate an enquiry on Google search versus search partners. Most of the time it costs more or less the same. Sometimes the difference is huge.

Should you show ads to people on their phones? It is a fact that more people use the internet on their phones than they do on computers these days. But are these glued-to-their-phone types going to buy from you?

The hidden trade-offs of automated bidding I like automated bidding. But, there are some trade offs with automated bidding that are not well documented.

Using the Search Terms Report to find negative keywords. The Search Terms Report is a great place to find negative keywords to add to your AdWords campaign. It shows (some of) the actual words and phrases that triggered your ads.

You don't have enough data to be confident that you're making the right decisions. Here are 3 rules of thumb I use to to help me make more of the right decisions when data is scarce.