Google Ads Introduces New Recommendations For Discovery Campaigns

Google Ads introduces a new set of recommendations for Discovery and Video campaigns. Here’s a breakdown of how the recommendations will affect your account’s Optimization Score.

In addition to the Discovery Optimization Score, updates to auto-applied recommendations and YouTube campaign optimizations were also introduced.

Maximize Performance For Discovery Campaigns

Until now, the Optimization Score in Google Ads only scanned across Search, Display, Shopping, and Video campaigns. Today, they now include Discovery campaigns.

What will you see in the Google Ads interface?

Your Discovery campaigns will now show a score of 0-100%, with 100% meaning the campaigns are performing at their full potential.

The major updates that Discovery recommendations will notify you of include:

  • Fixing disapproved assets
  • How to show ads to more customers (audience updates)
  • Using optimized targeting to get more conversions

Image credit: support.google.com, January 2022

The new recommendations for Discovery campaigns are geared to getting you to lean more into automation through audiences. Google has features for audience expansion that takes your existing customers to find additional like-minded consumers.

If you’re looking to stay strict on targeting, be mindful of applying these recommendations.

Scaling Auto-Applied Recommendations

The second set of updates are within auto-applied recommendations. You are now able to auto-apply Google’s campaign recommendations at the manager account-level.

What does this mean?

This update means that you no longer have to go into individual accounts and apply recommendations manually.

Google has been testing this feature of auto-applied recommendations at the manager account level with mixed reactions. As of now, there are 22 recommendations you can auto-apply. The newest updates include:

  • Improving your responsive search ads
  • Upgrading your conversion tracking

You do have the option to personalize which recommendations you automatically apply, if any at all. The recommendations are aimed to scale the level of effort it takes to optimize campaigns.

However, at the end of the day, these automatic recommendations are best used in conjunction with manual monitoring.

Video Campaign Optimization Updates

The last set of recommendations upgrades are for Video campaigns. The new recommendations include:

  • Setting up product feeds
  • Setting up Google Analytics 4
  • Upgrading your conversion tracking

Upgraded tracking will be beneficial to measure cross-device and cross-platform performance.

Cross-platform measurement will help you more accurately track conversions, especially if you use Video campaigns for top-of-funnel marketing.

Summary

Google continues to make upgrades to its recommendations and Optimization Score for advertisers. The features will only continue to grow.

This gives you the ability to focus less on manually optimizing and more time strategically analyzing your accounts.

With any new update or feature, always be sure to check your work and understand if these updates make sense for your business.

Optimization Score is not the end-all be-all for accounts. You use it to gauge how certain aspects of your campaign are performing. In then end, you should always exercise your own judgment, as you know your accounts best.

Source: Google Ads Help

Featured Image: Primakov/Shutterstock