How To Use The Google Recommendation Tab

As a digital marketer and Pay Per Click specialist, Google Ads may just be one of, if not the most used advertising platforms when it comes to creating and monitoring your campaign performances. Alike anything that Google provides, it is extensive with many varied tabs located along the left-hand side of the platform. One of these is the recommendations tab – a helpful section dedicated to campaign improvements. As you may know by now, with digital marketing there’s no one size fits all here, with many different winding roads to take when PPC campaigns are involved. What may work for one, may not work for the other, and unfortunately, we do not possess an infinite amount of time during the day. So this tab assists in recommending suggestions that will in return help to improve campaign performance. Each recommendation is tailored to your own unique strategies as they are created through analysing the account’s data. From improving keywords and ads to help maximise budget, introducing you to new and relevant features, to increasing the overall efficiency of the campaigns, the recommendations section can help you to:

Be efficient and make improvements quickly

Keeping a successful PPC account with progressive campaigns requires a lot of hard work and not to mention time. The recommendations tab conducts the research and analyses the data for you, meaning this time can be better spent on making changes instead. From the dashboard, it is easy to either apply or dismiss a recommendation. At the top, you will be able to see an optimisation score, and if you apply a change this will increase this figure – the goal here is to get it as high as possible. For dismissing recommendations, however, every time you do this you will have to provide a reason for why you are dismissing that particular action. The higher the optimisation score the better as this is Google’s estimate of how well your campaign should perform. Additionally, accounts with an optimisation score of less than 75% are missing out on extra Google support so it’s worth keeping up with it for multiple reasons.

Keep your campaigns fresh and optimised

Over time a campaign may need a slight switch up. After all, the world is rapidly changing and this too means that competition is evolving with new and lost companies, as well as users altering what they are searching on Google through their keyword input. Therefore, you can’t just rely on the same keywords, ads, and bidding strategies. Using the recommendations tab helps to give your campaigns a ‘face lift’ – allowing you to possibly discover new strategies that you would not have discovered on your own. You never know, you may find the perfect solution to your problem – that’s if you have any of course.

See performance estimates based on historical data

Google Ads looks at past performance in comparison to current data to make their recommendations. With this, they can also analyse search intent and the results from this, outlining the potential that new keywords or an ad copy revamp may bring for example. Although these forecasts are not true representations of future performance, they will help to outline an overall idea of how implementing a certain recommended action will affect the campaign’s future.

The types of recommendations that are available in Google Ads

Within the dashboard, there are five different category types, and for an easier visual you can filter these to only view the recommendations for each type. Moreover, you can also view the recommendations as a whole under the all-button option, or in contrast, view your dismissed actions with the ability to put these back into the general recommendations tab if you made a mistake or are second-guessing your early dismissal (we have all been there). Without further ado, let’s discuss these different types of actions.

1. Ads & Assets

The first category present is based on ads and assets. In general, the actions recommended will revolve around ways to strengthen your campaign’s ads through for example improving or creating new assets (previously known as extensions), organising ad groups, and altering or creating a new ad schedule. The recommendations are endless here, with the main aim to heighten the CTR (click-through rate) and make your ads more tailored to your consumer. A few examples could be to:

• Add descriptions to your site links
• Add image assets to your ads
• Improve your responsive search ads
• Add a video ad
• Optimise your ad rotation

2. Automated Campaigns

We are living in a world where AI technology is taking on new heights and new ground. There is no exception to this with Google Ads, as automated campaigns use this technology to simplify campaign management. This is what the second category is focused on. For these campaigns, parts of the management process are automated – targeting, bidding and ad creation to be exact. Looking back to the recommendations section, this will present actions to you revolving around trying new features linked to automation, for example:

• Create a local automated campaign
• Create a Smart Display campaign
• Create a Performance Max campaign

3. Bidding & Budgets

Switching to bidding and budgets, this third category really is based on what it says on the tin – bidding and budgets. One of the important everyday management tasks when looking after a PPC account and/or campaign is to analyse the budget and adjust bids. Making sure you are not spending over budget is important, whilst also ensuring you are maximising the spend to its full potential is also vital – the ad recommendations tab will help you do just that! It will also alert you if your smaller and limited budget is subsequently affecting your campaign’s performance. Some of the suggestions that could be present within your own featured suggestions are:

• Adjust your budgets
• Set a target CPA
• Set automated bidding
• Bid more efficiently with maximise conversions
• Raise your budgets for upcoming traffic increases

4. Keywords & Targeting

So…you have outlined clear and well-written ads, but these won’t succeed unless you have added the right targeting. This is where keywords and targeting come in. To show your ads to the right people, you need to make sure you are incorporating the correct search terms within your ad copy –using words and phrases here so that you know your correct consumers are Googling, and also incorporating audiences so your ads can be shown to the right people. Yes, your copy may be great and contain all the necessary key selling points and call to action, but if you are not targeting your preferred audience type then you will probably end up showing your ads to the incorrect people, therefore producing no conversions in the process. The recommendations based on keywords and targeting include:

• Create a custom audience
• Refresh your Customer Match list
• Remove conflicting negative keywords
• Upgrade your exciting keywords to broad match
• Use optimised targeting

5. Repairs

Onto the last category – repairs. This type of ad recommendation helps to solve account issues and other problems that are restricting your campaign’s performance. Overall, you will see actions that can switch this around, and improve the overall health and performance of the account for the better. For example:

• Fix low CPA targets
• Add keywords to each ad group
• Add products to your Shopping campaigns
• Fix your ad destinations
• Fix your audience targeting

Should you implement your Google Ads recommendations?

It is worth noting here, that whilst the recommendations tab on Google Ads is useful and great for an overall account and campaign insight, you don’t have to solely rely on this to make and predict changes. Moreover, it only knows your PPC data and not your business personally, so not every recommendation will be beneficial or align with your own individual goals and objectives. However, on a base level, it does take out some of the guesswork – swings and roundabouts and all here. After all, as we are all creating campaigns for vastly different products and businesses, and are sticking to varied budget amounts, using Google Ads’ recommendations will suit digital marketers in different ways. So, the next time you are in Google Ads, click on the recommendations dashboard and have a see for yourself.

Looking for further information or need help with your PPC accounts and strategy? Please don’t hesitate to contact us today – We are always happy to assist you.