← The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
Optimization Score: 100% Compliant, 0% Profitable (Episode 464)
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Chris Schaefer
Foreign hello and welcome to the Paid Search Podcast. My name is Chris and today we're going to talk about Google Ads. I have a really interesting show for you today, a little bit different. I'm not answering questions. I'm jumping into one topic and one topic only. We're going to talk about Optimization Score. As you can tell from the title, I believe optimization score means 100% compliant, 0% profitable. I'm going to explain what that means a little bit later in the show. You'll hear me discuss what it, what Optimization Score is, what where it comes from, what it's not. And I think if you listen to the whole show, you'll walk away understanding a lot about how you should treat Optimization Score in your campaigns. Before I dive in, I want to remind you about my sponsor, opto.com PSP. They are a wonderful online tool to help you get more done in Google Ads. You can use it to identify wasteful spend, different areas of your campaign that are ineffective, areas that can be optimized. And this is not anything like what I'm talking about today. This is not an optimization score recommendation system. This is an auditing tool that can take you from one level of performance to the next. It helps you with everything you need to know, from the quality of traffic to bidding, negative keywords. It helps you from beginning to end. You can try the tool for free for 28 days at opteo.com PSP that's o p t e o.com PSP and I tell you what, you're going to like it and it's a great tool. And this is a special opportunity. You only get to try it right here at this URL. Optio.com PSP try it for free for 28 days. Okay, so usually I go into questions here. Skip, skip, skip. It is Memorial Day weekend here in the in the US So a lot of people are not even going to listen to this on Monday. If, if it's Tuesday and you're driving to work or listening to this at work, Happy Tuesday. We're going to jump in. We're going to talk about Optimization Score. What it is, what it's not, what you should know about it. So as with every discussion that I talk about with Google Ads, I like to first define what it is and help you understand the basics of how it works. And you know, so that those that are highly advanced in Google Ads and those that are brand new at Google Ads both come to the same understanding. So let's read the definition of optimize Optimization Score. And I'll talk a little, a little bit about it. Optimization score is a Google Ads metric that ranges from 0 to 100% that estimates how well your account is set to perform with suggestions to improve campaign effectiveness. So that is from Google, a definition of what it is. Very simple, short and sweet. Okay, now what we need to break down here is, you know, where do you find it? How does it influence decisions? How does it influence the Google Ads system? Because just based on the definition, it doesn't sound that intimidating. It doesn't sound that scary. But I think you'll understand it is a lot bigger than what you think. So optimization score can be seen directly in your Google Ads account by clicking on the recommendations tab. So over on the left side of the screen, towards the top, there is a recommendations tab. When you click on that, it brings up at the very top of the screen a bar going from left to right. You will see your recommendations. Below that bar. Your recommendation score is based upon how many of those recommendations that you have taken, or maybe you haven't taken any of those recommendations and you've just done certain things that the recommendation system would have recommended and therefore you are compliant with the recommendations that Google would have given. So number one is you do not have to click the recommendations button apply button in order to achieve a higher optimization score. You can do it naturally by just doing Google's best practices, right? Using automated bidding, using broad match keywords, using search partners, increasing your budget. There's a lot of things that may or may not pop up in your recommendations tab, but if you do those things immediately, your optimization score will be higher and higher and higher. Alternatively, you can click the apply button on the recommendations and it thus boosts your optimization score. So hopefully you're understanding a bit about the relationship between recommendations and optimization score. When you apply or do the things that the recommendation system gives you, it then increases your optimization score. So you know where to find it, you know how it works and it applies to any campaign, whether you're doing search, display, YouTube, any of that stuff. There are recommendations that can apply to any campaign type. And what I think we need to do now is we need to jump into, you know, the definite. We need to go back to the definition to understand pick apart what this definition says and what it doesn't say. Okay, so I'm going to read the definition again. Now that you know where it is and how it reacts, let's talk about the definition. So reading again. Optimization score is a Google Ads metric that estimates and we're Going to stop right there. Estimates how well your account. We're going to stop on the word estimates. Let's zoom in on that. Let's unpack this here. When it says estimates, just English language. When you say estimate, you're not talking about the reality of something. You're guessing at the future, right? Just basic vocab English estimating means that this is not happening. Now I'm estimating that this is what's going to happen. Okay? So immediately you have to understand the only thing that optimization score does is it estimates for the future. It does not estimate based on what's happened or where you are now. Okay? It is not based on reality. Now let's continue the definition. So optimization score is a Google Ads metric that estimates how well your account is set to perform. So there's the second qualification that we read here. How well it is set to perform. Now, this particular phrase is set to perform is a very loaded comment here, right? If I say that I am very set to perform, to do something that has not necessarily assessed my success of it, it is only that I am prepared to an extent to perform at a certain level. So again, futuristic. So this is both times we're looking at the definition and it estimates, right? A futuristic view of how it is set to perform, not how it has performed or how it's currently performing. Only the settings of the account, therefore determining the performance in the future. So this is a bit of an extravagant reach here, right? It's estimating your settings, it's estimating your structure, your button clicking. Do you have this button click? This button click? If so, we estimate you will perform better. Huh. Okay, that seems a bit of a stretch because I work with a lot of accounts. I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of people, if not thousands, over my 21 years. No two accounts are the same. I Could you listen to this podcast enough. You'll hear me say over and over, I cannot tell anyone definitively that this is the best thing to do. If I've said that before, then I need to take that back because I don't think I've ever said, always do this. And I think it is an absolute leap for Google to estimate the performance of a campaign based on settings that are in that campaign. No campaign is the same as another. No account is the same as another. So to boil it down to just say, if you have this button checked and this button checked, you're at the most probable chance of success. I mean, that's. That is a leap. Is absolutely a leap. So let's take that section. Now let's look at the last part of the definition here of what Optimization Score is. It has suggestions to improve campaign effectiveness. Suggestions. So, so these are the recommendations. Suggestions to improve. So if you push these buttons, it will then improve your chances of estimation that you are set to perform in the future. It is absolutely a stretch upon a stretch that this record, this, this, this Optimization score is going to determine success. It is only supposedly giving you a higher chance at success. Now I have, I have, I have, I have a beef with this. I'm gonna get into that later. But let me say what I love to do is I love to paint a picture for you, give you an illustration that, that takes a complicated thing and makes it simple. So I've tried my best to come up with this. So let me say it in a couple different ways and then we'll move on. So bear with me if you get it, but I just want to paint the picture as clearly as I can. So let me say this, say it as plain as I can. Optimization score measures compliance with its recommendations. Compliance, not real world performance. Optimization score measures your compliance with the recommendations that it gives you. It does not measure your real world performance. Okay, now, now I want to paint a picture. I have a couple examples to help you understand this to be a better extent. Let's step outside of the Google Ads box and say, you know everybody has GPS now, right? You use Google Maps or whatever you use to, to get around. How many times have you deviated from your driving path? And the GPS will freak out and recalculate even though it has told you that the fastest route is this direction. But when you go this way, there might be a wreck, some bumper to bumper traffic, something that's happened. And you know that this is not the fastest route because there's bumper to bumper traffic. There is no longer the fastest route. So Optimization score is to real world performance. The way that the GPS is to the adherence of you for following its directions. No, no, no. This is the fastest route. But you can see that it's not. You know that if you go this way you'll, you'll go better. So again, Optimization score measures compliance with its own recommendations, not your real world performance. Are you following instructions? Let me say it another way. If you have kids or everyone's been to school, right? So everybody's going to have an experience with this. You, if you're, if a student is getting an A plus grade for writing an essay, but in reality the essay makes no sense and is a nightmare to read it because they're following a specific template, but the effectiveness of what it's producing is highly ineffective. The grade that the person's receiving adheres to the compliance within the form of the writing, not the quality or the effectiveness of the content. So the output is the content of that essay, but the grade does not grade the content. It grades the adherence to the form of that template. So I've said it multiple ways. Hopefully it's clear to you what optimization score measures. It does not measure real world performance. It measures compliance within its own recommendation system. So what does that mean? What does that mean? So you out there, manager of your Google Ads account, business owner, you are having an issue and your campaign's no longer working, and you notice that your optimization score is very low. Now the thing is, if you haven't made any changes and the optimization score has stayed the same the whole time, that means that you had a low optimization score during success and a low optimization score during failure. Applying recommendations that thus raises the optimization score does not mean that you will suddenly start having success. It only means that you are now complying with those recommendations. Okay, so making these changes does not result in better qualified traffic. Right? Let's. Let's get down to it. If you want to increase your chances at better qualified traffic, at better metrics of better conversions, clicking apply for the recommendations and raising your optimization score does not directly do that. It might do something, it might work. But that is an indirect effect of mere adherence and compliance to the recommendation system itself. So I think I've painted a pretty, pretty clear picture here about what I think optimization score is, not what I think it is. This. I'm following the definition and I'm telling you from experience that this is a compliance meter. It is a thank you for checking those boxes that we told you to check meter. That's what it is. So let's now create even more of a boundary here. What is optimization score in relation to quality score? They could not be more different. Just because they are both scores does not mean that they are related in any way. They both measure something, but they measure something completely different. Increasing your optimization score does not mean that your quality score will increase. Optimization score is a relatively new measurement feature in Google Ads. It was only introduced in the past few years. Quality score has been in Google Ads since the beginning. I don't know exactly what year, but I believe it's. I mean, I believe it was derived shortly after Google became Google. I mean, it is the core calculation that determines who Gets to show in first position. You take money and you take quality score. That equals a person's ranking in the paid ad system. So quality score is a direct measure of adherence to a standard. But this standard has to do with the structure of the campaign, the kind of ads that you're building with each of those ad groups, the type of keywords that you're choosing. Right. It is the ingredients to the Google Ads account and adhering to a best practice process that is what will determine quality score. Optimization score measures none of that. You can have the best keywords in the world and have a very poor quality score. You can have the best keywords in the world and have a very high quality score. They are completely unaffected by each other. So do not confuse quality score. Do not think that quality score influences optimization score and vice versa. So those two things should be completely separate in your mind, only in the fact that they share a word score. So let's talk about what's fueling this optimization score. Why? Why? I feel, you know, going back to the title of the podcast, why I feel like optimization score, 100% compliant, 0% profitable. Why do I make such a claim? Well, let me give you a list of the most common recommendations that I see that have the highest percentage of of recommendation score boosts in your account. Alright. And what I mean by that is, if you apply these recommendations, your optimization score will jump 1520 points. Right? Massive improve. Wow. Way to go. Congratulations, you have set yourself up for success. Quote, unquote. All right, so the MO1, the most common is changing from manual bidding, which I use a lot. I prefer manual bidding, so I see this all the time. So anyone who's using manual bidding sees this recommendation all the time. Switch to automated bidding, it will be a 15, 20 point, maybe even higher optimization score improvement. So Google wants you to relinquish your bidding control over to an automated system, particularly max conversions or max conversion value bidding. One of those two bidding strategies, not max clicks. Okay. Pretty, pretty, pretty brazen to go from manual to max conversions again. And the reason I have a problem with that, it's not that I'm against automated bidding. I use it all the time. It's wonderful when it works. But again, to make a determination that it is always better to run automated bidding. Max conversions, max conversion value bidding across the board. That is an audacious statement. That is ridiculous. As I said at the beginning, there is no reason why you should always assume that what's good for everybody is good for me. Don't copy your Competitors because your competitors are doing it. Don't try and mimic everyone else. Every account is different. Every campaign sees different levels of success and strategy that works or doesn't work for them. So to apply this standard ubiquitously across all accounts as one of the highest, most effective ways to raise your optimization score and thus set yourself up for improvement is ridiculous. Absolutely not. Doesn't mean it won't work. But to apply this standard, though this is a standard, is crazy. Next, the biggest suggestion that I see that provides the biggest boost to optimization score is broad match keywords. Add more broad match keywords or just add broad match keywords to your campaign. Put more broad match keywords into your campaign. This usually is accompanied with a list, 10, 15, 30, 40 keywords for all the different campaigns and ad groups that you have. So it could could be a ton of keywords, particularly with keywords that are, you know, close. You know, there it's never going to suggest phrase match and it never suggests, it never suggests exact match. It's always broad match. And then it comes with a very high boost to your optimization score. So again, as in the first one, you relinquish your ability to bid on individual keywords. With the second one here you're link, you're relinquishing your ability to control your traffic quality. Broad match keywords, otherwise known as well, let's see, the the term that, that Google's been using is comprehensive, comprehensive keywords. Broad match keywords do not adhere to any strict theme the way that exact match does in the way that phrase match kind of does. So it applies very liberally to a set of terms that can be mangled and moved around. And using different things. Your original broad match keyword may not in any way resemble the resulting search term. Click that you got from it. So so far the top two recommendations relinquish our ability to control our bids, our cost per click and they relinquish our ability to control our traffic quality. Next most common is increase bids. Sorry, not increase bids. I said that wrong. Next most common is increase budget. Add more budget. You're losing impression share. You're losing opportunities. There are click moment opportunities that you're missing. Did you know that your competitors are showing more often than you? There's a lot of ways that that this information is brought to your attention, but it's all pointing to spend more money. This one always comes with very high optimization score boost. Right? You might go from a 70% optimization score up to a 80% optimization score because you increased your budget way to go. You have set yourself up for more success. The only thing you've done is just increase the volume of whatever you were getting before. No campaign has become more successful simply because it raised the budget. It only raises the volume at which it gets what it was getting before. So success is not. Let me say it this way. Your budget increase is not a precursor to success. The precursor to success is setting up specific strategies, limiting your risk, managing your traffic quality. All of that is what sets you up for success, not just increasing budget. Right? And then a fourth, little bit more obscure one. This one is a particular pet peeve of mine. Search Partners. Turn on Search Partners. Turn on Display Network, right? Get an extra 5, 8, 10% boost on your quality score. Excuse me, no optimization score by turning on Search Partners. This is particularly a nail in the coffin for me. That really upsets me because now after you've relinquished your bids, after you've relinquished your ability to control your traffic quality, after you have increased all of that spend, now you're getting to the point where you are relinquishing how much traffic's going to Google now it's an uncontrollable amount is going to non Google Networks. Search Partners is a big umbrella term for all those other things that, that show Google Ads in their search engines. All kinds of stuff you've never heard of, obscure stuff, really strange things. Sometimes it's, you know, ever land on a page where you're like, this URL doesn't exist and it's just a holding page, but the page has like search results on the page. Those, I don't know if they still are, but at some point those were part of Search Partners, right? I mean it's, it's not the best quality, if it's quality at all. Okay, so that gives you an idea. You know, you want to improve your optimization score, which I think is not something you should do. Those are four of the most common things that I see that boost your optimization score. And I think every one of them can be essentially a giving up of your rights in Google Ads. Give up your bids, give up your quality of traffic, give up more money, and now give up Google, right? You do all four of those, but you've. What are you doing anymore? Are you even advertising on Google for what you want? I don't know. Maybe not. So last, I want to tell you one more tidbit that I think is important about understanding these recommendations before I do. Optio.com is my sponsor. Keeps me going. I'll tell you the truth. I am doing this late in the afternoon after dinner for me. It takes time and a lot of energy for me to do these and Optio does pay and foot the bill for you guys to be able to hear me do these things. So I never ask you to, you know, donate or you know, I don't do Patreon anymore. It is all of this is strictly due to Optio and if you, if you want to at least shoot them something, an email, let them know thanks and know I I don't want to use your software but thanks for supporting Chris. Thanks for giving us this content for free. They are, they are footing the bill for my time here and I appreciate what they do very much and you certainly will appreciate their software if you try it. Optio.com PSP all right, last thing is this. You might ask, well, Chris, where do these recommendations come from? You know, why, why are they there? Here's what I would call the origin story of recommendations. You don't know it, but your recommendations are based on what bidding strategy you're using. If you change your bidding strategy from max clicks to target roas, you'll get different recommendations. If you change your strategy from max conversions to target cpa, you will be getting different recommendations. All these changes to your bidding strategy essentially tells Google this is what this person is trying to accomplish and thus presents you with recommendations based on the assumed goal of what bidding strategy you've used. I think this is absolutely ridiculous because do you know how much time in my consulting sessions I spend explaining the difference between max conversions, target CPA maximize conversion value? I mean these bidding strategies are Greek to most people, right? I know that comment doesn't make any sense to people in Greece, but it's from Shakespeare. So that is not a proper way to. You have to assume that someone understands the bidding strategy and their goals and have has chosen that bidding strategy on purpose because they have well defined goals. That is a ridiculous way to reverse engineer the way that recommendations work. I think a better recommendation system should be based on real world performance, right? Saying, oh, you've chosen this path. So let me give you recommendations because you've chosen this path. Well, back up. Maybe we should talk about which path is right for me. Maybe I don't know what bidding strategy is right for me. And that is, that's the better question, right? Why? Why? I think you should instead approach Google Ads to figure out what can Google Ads do for me. Not not how can I optimize my campaign for the expectation of it to perform based on suggestions to improve that. That is what optimization score is and it provides no more than that. It is a hundred percent compliance, zero percent profit. It is not a guide marker to success. It is merely measuring your compliance to its own recommendations. And with that, thank you guys so much for being being with me. I will be back next week with a normal show. If you'd like to reach me you can find me@chris schaefer.com I offer Google Ads coaching, one on one sessions where we can talk, discuss, strategize your campaign together. Or if you just want to hand it off, I also do management as well. Otherwise, stay right here. I will catch you guys next week.