Advertisers face new choices as Google Ads pushes auto-apply, Display Expansion, Search Partners, and budget recommendations. Each setting can affect costs, performance, and strategy. Here’s what to check before making changes.
When managing campaigns in Google Ads, knowing which recommendations to trust can make or break your results. Some suggestions may help boost performance, but others risk raising costs or shifting your strategy in unintended ways. As Google Ads evolves, advertisers must stay alert to new features and settings that can have a significant impact.
Below are four Google Ads settings and recommendations that deserve careful review before you enable them.
Auto-Apply Settings
Google’s Recommendations tab automatically generates suggestions for every account, but the auto-apply feature takes it a step further by letting Google implement selected changes on your behalf. While this can streamline routine optimizations like Use Optimized Ad Rotation, it also includes more controversial options such as Improve Your Responsive Search Ads or Use Display Expansion. In some cases, Google representatives have strongly encouraged advertisers to enable auto-apply, even when the benefits were unclear.
It’s important to only opt into auto-apply for recommendation types that fit your brand and campaign goals. Regulated industries, for example, should avoid auto-generated ad copy, and advertisers with strict CPA or ROAS targets should be cautious about letting Google set those benchmarks. As targeted bidding changes roll out, these decisions will become even more critical. Google is incentivizing auto-apply more aggressively, but not every account will benefit from it. Enable only the options that align with your objectives.
Display Expansion
Display Expansion allows search campaigns to serve ads on the Google Display Network, but search and display ads serve fundamentally different purposes. Search ads respond to user intent, while display ads interrupt browsing to build awareness. This means their performance metrics-like click-through and conversion rates-differ significantly.
Display ads typically have lower click-through and conversion rates, but generate more impressions at a lower cost per click. While Display Expansion can increase traffic, mixing search and display in the same campaign (outside of Performance Max) often leads to less efficient results. Advertisers should weigh the trade-offs before enabling this feature.
Network Settings
Advertisers should also pay close attention to which networks their campaigns are targeting. For Demand Gen campaigns, Google has moved network controls to the ad group level, making it easy to overlook where ads are actually running. Some campaigns have seen a drop in traffic quality after inadvertently enabling the Google Display Network, despite Google’s claims of improved performance.
Legacy campaigns may also shift placements unexpectedly, such as moving from Google Discover to Gmail or YouTube, sometimes doubling the CPA. Segmenting performance by network can help identify which placements are delivering value. Additionally, Google often recommends enabling Search Partners to increase reach, but it’s essential to evaluate their performance separately. If Search Partners aren’t meeting efficiency goals, it’s usually best to opt out unless you have a specific traffic target in mind. For more on how Google Analytics is flagging campaign issues, see this analysis of new diagnostic alerts for missing URL parameters.
Budget Recommendations
Google frequently suggests increasing budgets to capture more conversions or reach a wider audience, but these recommendations often downplay the additional costs involved. For example, a campaign might be told it could achieve 30% more conversions, but only if the budget increases fivefold. In another case, Google recommended doubling a client’s daily budget for an estimated 0.75 extra conversions per week-an investment that rarely makes sense.
Advertisers should always weigh the projected benefits against the real costs before accepting budget increases. It’s also important to remember that Google won’t automatically reduce your budget if performance drops, so monitor changes closely and revert them if they don’t deliver results.
By taking a closer look at auto-apply, Display Expansion, network settings, and budget recommendations, advertisers can make more informed decisions and keep their campaigns aligned with business goals. Understanding where your ads appear, how much you’re spending, and what you’re getting in return is key to avoiding costly mistakes.
