The Paid Search Podcast – Episode 497

Q&A: Answering Questions from Listeners
Host: Chris Schaeffer
Date: January 26, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Google Ads expert and Premier Partner Chris Schaeffer answers four listener questions focused on troubleshooting Google Ads performance drops, understanding the value (and pitfalls) of Google's Recommendations and Optimization Score, campaign type selection in Google Ads (with an emphasis on e-commerce), and his thoughts on the “Bid for new customers only” setting. Each answer is detailed, practical, and delivered with Chris’s signature candid, occasionally irreverent tone.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Diagnosing a Sudden Drop in Performance

[03:33 – 14:14]

• Primary Concern: Drops in conversions (not just ads stopping entirely).
• Chris's Process:
  • Step 1: Check conversion tracking & technical issues.
    • Compare before/after stats.
    • Commonly, a website or form change leads to lost tracking (“…the problem’s not a drop in performance, there’s a drop in tracking, right?” – Chris, 05:39).
  • Step 2: Assess targeting changes.
    • Analyze search terms for major shifts.
    • Look for “rogue” keywords eating up spend or disappearing.
  • Step 3: Review bid adjustments.
    • Check if a change in bid strategy (manual, target CPA, target ROAS) caused impressions or position drops.
    • “Did I make a manual bidding change that would have tanked the campaign?” – Chris, 10:08
  • Common Combined Issue:
    • Breaks in conversion reporting feed bad data to bidding algorithms, spiraling campaigns into even worse performance or wasting spend.
    • Examples: Wrong tracking codes, counting too many or too few conversions.

2. Dismissing Google Ads Recommendations & Optimization Score

[14:36 – 23:34]

• Listener Oathy’s question: Why didn’t Chris mention dismissing recommendations to artificially boost optimization scores?
• Chris’s Response:
  • Acknowledges he intentionally skipped “hacks” in prior talk focused on flaws in the Recommendations system.
  • Dismissing recommendations boosts optimization score without improving account.
    • “If my optimization score is 35% and then it jumps up to 75% and I’ve done nothing… it means the optimization score is pointless. It’s a game, it’s a gimmick.” – Chris, 18:37
  • Why bother at all? Google Partners must uphold minimum scores for status—even when disagreeing with suggestions.
  • Removing bad or irrelevant recommendations also prevents accidental account harm (“the amount of damage…and spend that is done is really—I mean, who knows?” – Chris, 20:55).
  • Attitude toward optimization score: It’s a vanity metric, often meaningless for actual performance.

3. Choosing Google Ads Campaign Types: Search, Shopping, Display, Etc.

[25:12 – 36:23]

• Listener asks about running various campaign types for e-commerce (demand gen, Performance Max, retargeting, etc.).
• Chris’s Priorities:
  • Search campaigns are king:
    • “It is the only serious campaign type. Period. …That’s where the real success is for accounts that spend millions.” – Chris, 27:00
    • Search campaigns offer transparency, levers to pull, and true customization.
  • Other Campaign Types:
    • Display:
      • Useful for remarketing or when targeting specific placements/audiences after careful experimentation.
    • Standard Shopping:
      • Works well for e-commerce, sometimes better than Performance Max.
    • Performance Max:
      • Only recommended for e-commerce.
      • "I really only like Performance Max for one thing nowadays and that is e-commerce. That's it." – Chris, 34:06
      • Often runs well in tandem with standard shopping.
    • What Chris avoids: Demand Gen, video, app install, hotel campaigns—“not serious contenders” and lack customization.
  • Key philosophy: Avoid opaque, non-customizable campaign types; one-size-fits-all is a losing game.

4. "Bid for New Customers Only" Setting in Google Ads

[36:32 – 43:18]

• Efren asks about Chris’s experience with this search campaign setting.
• Chris’s Take:
  • “I don’t use it. I have zero experience with it. …I don’t like it. It’s ridiculous. The hoops to jump through and it’s unreliable. I think I made my point.” – Chris, 42:05
  • Why Chris avoids it:
    • Requires value-based bidding (maximize conversion value, target ROAS)—strategies Chris generally dislikes.
    • Requires passing customer data to Google, which is often technically complex and unreliable.
    • Data fidelity is a perennial problem, even for high-spend advertisers.
      • “If a company with this kind of capacity of spend has conversion tracking issues, what hope is there for many smaller businesses?” – Chris, 39:48
    • Needs large data volumes to work, making it impractical for many accounts.
    • Privacy and control concerns: “So that I can what, trust Google with more data that I can’t see? I’m going to give Google more information?...No, I can accomplish that other ways.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On sudden performance drops:
  “Did one of my forms break? Did my call tracking break?... It's something that needs to be solved, but it's a lot better than the other possibility.”
  – Chris, [05:28]

• On optimization score manipulation:
  “I have made no changes to my account yet that has improved my optimization score. So obviously this is proof that the optimization score means nothing, right?”
  – Chris, [18:23]

• On the value of most campaign types:
  “Most Performance Max campaigns I look at, most video and display campaigns I look at—they’re all the same. They’re using the same boring settings. They're having the same crappy success.”
  – Chris, [31:50]

• On passing data to Google:
  “The hoops to jump through this—just so that I can what, trust Google with more data that I can't see? ...No, I can accomplish that other ways. …I don’t use it. I don’t like it. It’s ridiculous.”
  – Chris, [42:00]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro and episode setup: [00:00 – 03:27]
• Diagnosing sudden account performance drops: [03:33 – 14:14]
• Recommendations/optimization score system (and dismissing recs): [14:36 – 23:34]
• Campaign types in Google Ads—search, display, shopping, Performance Max: [25:12 – 36:23]
• Bid for new customers only – why Chris avoids it: [36:32 – 43:18]
• Conclusion & free audit offer: [43:18 – end]

Episode Takeaways & Tone

Chris delivers listener-focused, actionable advice with a healthy skepticism about Google’s “black box” systems and a clear preference for campaign types and strategies that allow for granular control and genuine, provable impact. He champions transparency and customization while candidly dismissing much of Google's automation and recommendation fluff as insubstantial—especially where client value and accountability are at stake.

If you'd like Chris to audit your Google Ads account, he offers a free 35-minute video for new listeners. Find him at ChrisSchaeffer.com.