If you’ve ever managed a Google Ads account, there’s a good chance you’ve received a phone call from somebody claiming to be your dedicated Google account manager, offering to help improve the performance of your advertising campaigns. On the face of it, this sounds like a fantastic service. After all, who better to advise you on how to get the most out of Google Ads than Google themselves?
Unfortunately, having dealt with quite a few of these account managers over the years, I’ve become increasingly sceptical about just how useful their advice actually is.
In fact, I’d go as far as to suggest that some of the recommendations they make could actually leave advertisers considerably worse off, particularly if they’re managing their own campaigns without much experience of digital marketing.
What Does a Google Account Manager Actually Do?
Google offers certain advertisers access to account representatives who can review their campaigns, suggest improvements and introduce new features. Depending on the account, these representatives might work directly for Google or for an external company contracted to provide support on Google’s behalf.
In theory, their job is to help you improve your advertising performance, which should be beneficial to both parties. If your campaigns generate more sales or enquiries, you’re presumably going to continue spending money with Google.
However, there’s an obvious conflict of interest here. Google makes its money when advertisers spend money on advertising, whereas most advertisers are trying to generate the greatest possible return while spending as little as they reasonably can.
Those two objectives aren’t necessarily incompatible, but they’re certainly not the same thing.
And this is where I think some of the advice being given by Google’s representatives needs to be treated with caution.
The Obsession with Optimisation Scores
One thing I’ve noticed is the increasing emphasis Google places on something called the ‘optimisation score’, which is a percentage displayed within your Google Ads account indicating how closely your campaigns follow Google’s recommendations.
The idea is straightforward enough. Google analyses your campaigns, identifies potential improvements and assigns a score between 0% and 100%.
However, the problem is that a higher optimisation score doesn’t necessarily mean your campaigns are generating more profit.
For example, Google might recommend increasing your daily budget, introducing additional keywords or switching to a different bidding strategy. Accepting those recommendations could improve your optimisation score, but that doesn’t automatically mean your actual business results will improve.
Interestingly, you can also increase your score by dismissing recommendations you don’t want to implement, which rather undermines the idea that the percentage represents an objective measurement of performance.
Personally, I’d much rather have an account with an optimisation score of 70% that generates profitable enquiries than one scoring 100% that wastes half its advertising budget.
Broad Match Keywords and Automated Bidding
Another area where Google seems particularly keen to encourage changes is keyword matching.
Historically, advertisers have been able to exercise considerable control over which searches trigger their advertisements. Exact match and phrase match keywords offer ways of restricting which searches can trigger ads, whereas broad match allows Google considerably more freedom to interpret the user’s intentions.
Google argues that broad match, particularly when combined with automated bidding, can identify relevant searches that advertisers might otherwise overlook.
And to be fair, there are circumstances where this works extremely well.
However, I’ve also seen how easily broad match can attract irrelevant traffic, particularly when the products or services being advertised have several different meanings or applications.
If you’re paying several pounds per click, it doesn’t take many irrelevant visitors to make a noticeable difference to your advertising costs.
This is why I’m uncomfortable with the idea of account managers encouraging advertisers to switch everything to broad match without first understanding their business, conversion tracking and existing campaign performance.
The same applies to automated bidding strategies. Google’s algorithms can be extremely effective when they’re provided with sufficient conversion data, but blindly switching to automation isn’t necessarily going to improve an account that’s already performing well.
Performance Max – Is It Really the Answer to Everything?
More recently, Google has been heavily promoting Performance Max campaigns, which allow advertisers to run advertisements across multiple Google properties, including Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps.
Rather than managing individual campaigns for each channel, advertisers provide their objectives, creative assets and other information, and Google’s systems decide where and when their advertisements should appear.
Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach. Performance Max can produce excellent results, particularly for ecommerce businesses with well-configured product feeds and accurate conversion tracking.
However, one of the disadvantages is the reduced level of visibility and control compared with more traditional campaign types.
As an advertiser, I generally want to understand where my money is being spent and which activities are generating results. Handing more of those decisions over to Google’s algorithms can make that considerably more difficult.
I certainly wouldn’t suggest that Performance Max should be avoided, but neither would I recommend switching to it simply because your Google account manager thinks it’s a good idea.
Be Careful with Automatic Recommendations
Something else worth checking is whether you’ve enabled Google’s automatically applied recommendations.
This feature allows Google Ads to make certain changes to your account without requiring you to approve each one individually.
Depending on which recommendations you’ve enabled, these changes can include adding keywords, adjusting targeting or making changes to your bidding configuration.
While this might save time, it also means potentially significant decisions are being made without anybody checking whether they make sense for your particular business.
I’d strongly recommend reviewing these settings, particularly if somebody else has previously helped configure your account.
You can find them within the Recommendations section of Google Ads.
Remember Who You’re Paying
I don’t want to suggest that every Google account manager gives bad advice, because that certainly isn’t the case. Some are knowledgeable, helpful and genuinely interested in improving campaign performance.
However, I do think advertisers need to remember that these representatives work for Google, not for them.
If you’re employing a digital marketing agency or managing campaigns internally, the objective should ultimately be to generate profitable business results, rather than simply increase traffic, conversions or advertising expenditure.
Google’s recommendations should be treated as suggestions worth investigating, not instructions that need to be followed.
If an account manager recommends increasing your budget, ask why. If they suggest switching bidding strategies, ask what evidence supports the change. And if they insist that accepting their recommendations will improve performance, ask them exactly how they intend to measure that improvement.
Ultimately, you know your business better than Google does, and you’re the one paying the advertising bill.
Don’t allow yourself to be pressured into making changes you’re not comfortable with, particularly when your existing campaigns are already delivering the results you need.
After all, Google isn’t going to refund your advertising budget if their recommendations turn out to be wrong.