Why I disagree with Google Ads “Recommendations” and “Optimization Score”

When you log into your Google Ads account, Google pushes some recommendations right in your face.

Implementing these recommendations counts towards what Google calls your optimization score.

Above, I have a recommendation where Google is “recommending” that I add broad match keywords to my campaign.

In my experience, broad match keywords will NOT be good for the campaign.

They will be good for Google because the client will spend more money on whatever Google thinks is best.

They will NOT be good for the client, because the client’s budget will get used up quickly on keywords that Google thinks are relevant but in my experience are not.

Phrase match keywords tend to get a much better result (and Google has even changed the definition of these in recent times, don’t get me started).

Broad match keywords may be useful, if you are at the start of a campaign and are looking to do some research on other keywords to target, if you have a lot of budget to feed Google’s algorithm but NOT as a blanket rule for an established campaign on a smaller budget like Google is suggesting here.