Google loves adding new features to its Ads platform to help ‘improve user experience and optimisation’. Back in 2018, they announced its auto-applied suggestions and features. From there, it’s added a recommendations tab with an ever-expanding list of things you can opt in for (or are automatically opted in for).
In short, this feature allows Google to automatically implement recommendations that it has suggested for your Ads. They cover core ad components such as keywords, ad copy, and bidding. Google’s Auto-Apply Recommendations have great potential, but as you will see below, it’s not just a simple case of ticking all the boxes and letting Google do the rest.
If this is something you have noticed in your Google Ads account, or want to learn more about, read on. I have created a simple guide below explaining what they are, their pros and cons, and how to use them.
What Are Google’s Auto-Apply Recommendations?
The Auto-Apply Recommendations feature allows Google to make changes to your Google Ads account and ads on your behalf without approval. These changes are implemented automatically after 14 days unless you review them (where you can manually approve or reject them).
The recommendations include:
- Bidding (Bidding efficiency, bidding goals, CPA targets, etc.).
- Ads and Extensions (Ad rotation, Ad improvements, Callouts, etc.).
- Keywords and Targeting (Redundant keywords, new keywords, negative keywords, etc.).
Currently, there is a list of 36 different recommendations to choose to opt in to. While auto-apply recommendations can change many things in your account, at this moment in time, they cannot change your actual budget.
According to Google, the feature is meant to improve your optimisation and make the whole Google Ads experience easier for businesses to manage while saving you time. However, be very careful, remember Google is a profitable business with its own business priorities and it is worth considering who will benefit from any changes made to your account.
The Pros and Cons of Auto-Apply Recommendations
Pros
- Great for time management: If you don’t have the time to continually make manual adjustments on a daily basis, auto-apply recommendations could be a quick win. If you don’t have a dedicated team working on this for you, it can take away much of the tedious work involved in Google Ads and allow you to concentrate on other areas of your business.
- Improving your optimisation score: The bottom line is, is that Google’s auto-apply recommendations can boost your optimisation score. This is a score from 0-100% that Google assigns based on how well your account could be performing.
- Speed up the initial ad creation process: The recommendations can be applied to existing ads and new ads so you can speed up the initial creation process. This is often tedious and involves a lot of testing. Using auto-apply recommendations effectively does some of the testing for you.
- You’re benefiting from Google’s AI learning from the masses of data in your account. Something that would take you hours to analyse manually, Google can provide the answers immediately.
Cons
- They require additional monitoring and adjustments: Although the automation speeds up some processes, until you are happy with the end results, you still need to monitor and adjust the ads. So many argue that the auto-apply recommendations feature isn’t a time saver at all.
- Oftentimes a manual approach is needed: Sometimes you simply need a manual approach and greater control. For example, if you’re creating ads for a new product launch. In times like this, simply sitting back and letting Google take the reins may not be the best option.
- Lacking industry refinement: This feature has no real customisation for your specific business industry. As a result, many of the recommendations may not be relevant to your business or type of work.
- Less control over ad copy: A major drawback is the loss of control. Google is effectively making changes on your behalf without your approval. Understandably some businesses may be against this.
What are the Best Practices for Using Google Ads Auto-Apply Recommendations?
With a clear idea of the pros and cons of Google’s Auto-Apply Recommendations we can look at how to use them. It’s important to understand that each case is different and this may not even be a viable strategy for your business.
However, the key to using this feature properly is to be proactive – don’t just sit back and let the automation run its course. You have to understand the various options, perform monitoring and analysis, and know when to stop.
Understand the Different Options
The first step is to make sure you understand the different auto-apply recommendation options. These are split into four main categories – bids, ads and extensions, keywords and targeting, and repairs. We have listed some of the examples below:
- Use optimised ad rotation.
- Add responsive search ads.
- Remove redundant keywords.
- Remove non-serving keywords.
- Remove conflicting negative keywords.
- Use optimised targeting.
- Upgrade your conversion tracking.
- Add new keywords.
- Add broad match keywords.
- Use display expansion.
- Bid more efficiently with target impression share.
- Adjust your CPA targets.
Most of them are pretty self-explanatory. For example, “Add broad match keywords” means that Google Ads will find and add broad match keywords relating to the keywords you already have targeted in your ads.
It’s then a case of looking at each individual option and assessing whether it applies to your ad campaign and the goals you want to achieve.
Something like “Add broad match keywords” might be detrimental. This is because oftentimes your ads are based on specific keyword research you’ve already done. Therefore, if Google decides to add new keywords to the mix, this could disrupt your strategy or even mean your ads end up targeting the wrong customers, diluting your marketing budget on wasted clicks.
To Apply, or Not to Apply?
As you can see from the above, Google’s Auto-Apply Recommendations are tricky. Our best advice is to not tick the auto-apply recommendations at all, but look at what makes sense for your campaign objectives and test this manually outside of the recommendations, in a controlled experiment. This way, you have a clear timeframe to review the performance before and after the changes were made – giving you the ability to see how the change has impacted your campaigns and if it really is something you should apply to your account.
Remember, only apply one big change at a time, if you do too much too soon in your account you have no real way of knowing which of the adjustments made the biggest impact on any change in performance. If you opt-in to Google’s Auto-Apply Recommendations you are taking away this control.
Red Flags to Consider
It’s important to understand that you don’t have to use Google’s Auto-Apply Recommendations. They are an optional feature and you can opt out of ALL features – which we would recommend. But if you are still considering applying some of the features here are just some of the red flags we have spotted in our accounts over time:
Bid More Efficiently With Target Impression Share / Maximise Clicks / Target CPA
If Google is recommending that you adjust your bidding strategy you really need to consider what your priorities are for each campaign, and if you have added a marketing objective (sales, leads, website traffic etc.), if not then Google is making recommendations blindly based on no idea what you want to prioritise.
Remove Redundant / Non-Serving Keywords
What does Google classify as redundant or non-serving? Which metrics is this based on? Be very careful with this one as Google will often remove exact match keywords that have a higher conversion rate and opt to keep the same broad match keyword which with more impressions and clicks. If you opt in to this feature you may see your website visitors increase and your leads or sales decrease.
Add New Keywords
Google will recommend adding new keywords based on your current targeting and additional (similar) keywords that will increase the volume of traffic to your website. But be careful as this isn’t always relevant traffic. If you are B2B and looking for commercial leads quite often this feature will add broader terms that can attract residential searches and lead to wasted clicks and potentially poor quality leads that you cannot service.
Use Display Expansion
DON’T DO IT! If you want to use Google’s display network then create a dedicated display campaign, it will perform much better with dedicated assets based on your campaign objectives rather than seeing clumsy looking text adverts where creative visual image ads should be.
Do you see a common theme in most of these examples? In most cases, Google will try to increase the number of impressions and clicks. Why? Because once you have more website visitors, regardless of your conversion/sales data Google will recommend that you increase your budgets to meet the higher demand.
Then who is the winner here? Have a clear and open mind when testing these strategies and really consider: does this benefit Google or for me?
If you currently have these on and find they aren’t working or are causing too much confusion with your ad campaigns, switch them off!
How Can You opt out of Google’s Auto-Apply Recommendations?
The process is relatively simple, you just have to know where to look in your Google Ads account:
- Open & log in to your Google Ads.
- Go to “Recommendations” and then “Auto-Apply”.
- Click on the drop-down menu and deselect all recommendation types.
- Click the “Don’t automatically apply ad suggestions” tick box.
- Click “Save” to save your changes.
You can review the history of all changes that Google’s Auto-Applied Recommendations have applied to your account here too.
Final Thoughts
I hope you have a clearer understanding of Google’s Auto-Apply Recommendations. Whilst in principle, they may seem to be a help to reduce your workload and improve your PPC optimisation, however in our experience they can often cause more harm and workload if your campaign objectives are not clear to Google.
For beginners, or if your business is making its first venture into PPC, the recommendations will certainly help speed up the ad creation process and do much of the heavy lifting. You could consider using them to start with and then adjust as your PPC marketing ramps up.
However, if you have a dedicated team or agency working on your account for you then I would highly recommend that these features are turned off. Most digital marketing professionals with knowledge of PPC will be able to make these adjustments in a controlled manner ensuring the best possible results for your campaigns.
I appreciate that this subject is complex with many features to consider, if you have limited or no Google Ads experience, it can seem daunting. With that in mind, please feel free to contact us if you feel your PPC campaigns need improvement or if you want advice on implementing Google’s Auto-Apply Recommendations.
