A 100% optimization score in Google Ads doesn’t mean your account is performing well. It means you’ve accepted Google’s recommendations.
Those are very different things.
What Is Google Ads Optimization Score?
It’s a 0-100% score Google assigns to your account based on how many of their recommendations you’ve implemented. Accept a recommendation, score goes up. Dismiss it, score goes down.
It looks like a performance indicator. It isn’t. It’s a compliance indicator — measuring how closely you’re following Google’s suggestions.
Why Should You Be Skeptical of Google’s Recommendations?
Google is a business. Their revenue comes from ad spend. More spend = more revenue for Google.
Look at what they consistently recommend: add more keywords (more spend), enable broad match (more spend, more irrelevant traffic), increase budgets (more spend), enable Display Network on Search campaigns (more spend on lower-quality inventory), adopt Performance Max (less control, often more spend).
I’m not saying Google’s recommendations are always wrong. Some of them are genuinely useful. But they’re designed to increase your spend and Google’s revenue — not necessarily your return on investment. Those goals overlap sometimes and conflict other times.
Which Google Ads Recommendations Should You Ignore?
The ones that increase spend without improving targeting:
Broad match suggestions. In lead generation accounts, broad match almost always increases irrelevant traffic. The recommendation to switch from exact/phrase to broad is almost always worth dismissing.
Budget increase suggestions. These fire automatically when your campaign is budget-constrained. Sometimes you should increase the budget. Often the right answer is to improve the campaign’s efficiency so it performs better with the same budget.
Display Network opt-ins. Google will repeatedly suggest enabling the Display Network on Search campaigns. This almost always hurts lead quality. Dismiss it.
Automated bidding changes before you have data. Google pushes Target CPA and Target ROAS bidding. These strategies work — but they need conversion history to optimize against. Implementing them on a new campaign with no data produces poor results.
What Should You Pay Attention to Instead of Optimization Score?
Customer acquisition cost. That’s the number that tells you if the account is working.
If your CAC is under one-third of LTV and trending stable or improving, the account is healthy — regardless of optimization score. If your CAC is too high or trending the wrong direction, you have a problem — regardless of optimization score.
I’ve managed accounts at 40% optimization score that were profitable and accounts at 95% that were hemorrhaging money. The score tells you nothing about outcomes.
The Right Way to Use Google’s Recommendations
Review them. Don’t reflexively accept or dismiss. Ask one question about each: does this recommendation make my targeting more precise, or does it expand my targeting and increase spend?
If it makes targeting more precise — consider implementing it. If it expands targeting and increases spend — apply much more scrutiny before acting on it.
Treat Google’s recommendations the way you’d treat advice from someone whose financial interest may not perfectly align with yours. Useful input, not gospel.