If you have been running Google Ads for any length of time, you have probably received an email or phone call inviting you to speak with a Google Ads Advisor.

The invitation usually sounds useful:

Let us review your account and help improve campaign performance.

For a new advertiser, this can sound like free expert consulting. But should businesses blindly follow the recommendations given during these calls?

A recent discussion in the Google Ads community on Reddit raised this exact question. The responses from advertisers and PPC professionals revealed several recurring concerns about the quality, motivation and practical value of Google Ads Advisor recommendations.

These Reddit comments represent individual experiences and opinions. They should not be treated as official evidence about Google or its representatives. However, the discussion offers some valuable lessons for advertisers managing real campaign budgets.

The General Consensus

The most common advice from experienced advertisers was simple:

Listen to the recommendation, but do not implement it blindly.

Several advertisers said that the quality of advice varies considerably depending on the representative assigned to the account.

Some advertisers reported receiving useful guidance about campaign settings, conversion tracking and platform features. Others claimed that applying the recommended changes increased costs or reduced campaign performance.

The important point is that a Google Ads Advisor recommendation should be treated as a suggestion, not as an instruction.

The Most Common Concern: Increasing Ad Spend

One of the strongest themes in the Reddit discussion was that many advisor recommendations appeared to encourage higher advertising expenditure.

Common recommendations mentioned by advertisers included:

• Increasing daily campaign budgets
• Using Broad Match keywords
• Switching to automated bidding
• Enabling automatically created assets
• Expanding campaign targeting
• Launching Performance Max campaigns
• Removing restrictive targeting settings
• Accepting more automated recommendations

Some advertisers felt that these changes primarily helped Google increase advertising revenue rather than helping the advertiser improve profitability.

That does not mean every budget increase or automation recommendation is wrong. A campaign limited by budget may genuinely benefit from additional spending. Broad Match can also perform well when conversion tracking, bidding data and negative keyword controls are properly configured.

The problem begins when such recommendations are applied without considering lead quality, margins, sales capacity and actual business results.

Advisor or Sales Representative?

Another recurring concern was whether Google Ads Advisors function mainly as advertising consultants or as sales representatives.

Many advertisers believe that some representatives are evaluated partly on account adoption, campaign expansion or advertising expenditure.

Google wants advertisers to achieve results because successful advertisers are more likely to continue using the platform. At the same time, Google earns more revenue when businesses spend more on advertising.

These two objectives often overlap, but they are not always identical.

For example, Google may recommend increasing your campaign budget because the campaign is losing impressions due to budget limitations. From the platform's perspective, this is a valid opportunity.

However, increasing the budget may not make business sense when:

• The existing leads are poor quality
• The sales team cannot handle more enquiries
• The campaign is already above the target cost per acquisition
• The business has low profit margins
• Conversion tracking is inaccurate
• The landing page is performing poorly

The platform sees available traffic. The business owner must determine whether that traffic is commercially valuable.

Not Every Google Representative Has the Same Expertise

Another important observation from the Reddit discussion was that advisor quality appears to vary.

Some representatives may have strong technical knowledge and practical advertising experience. Others may rely heavily on scripts, account recommendations and standard platform guidance.

This can produce generic advice such as:

• Increase your optimisation score
• Add more Broad Match keywords
• Raise your campaign budget
• Use Performance Max
• Enable automated recommendations
• Switch to Maximise Conversions

None of these recommendations is automatically wrong. But none is automatically correct either.

The right decision depends on campaign history, conversion volume, attribution accuracy, lead quality, profit margins, customer lifetime value and the advertiser's business model.

Large Advertisers May Receive Better Support

Some contributors to the discussion suggested that larger advertisers often receive better support than small businesses.

Advertisers with substantial budgets may receive:

• More experienced account representatives
• Industry-specific insights
• Earlier access to beta features
• Technical implementation assistance
• Market research and audience data
• More detailed campaign analysis

Smaller advertisers may be more likely to receive standardised recommendations that can be applied across many accounts.

This cannot be confirmed from Reddit comments alone, but it matches a broader reality in most advertising platforms: high-spending accounts generally receive a higher level of account support.

The Problem With Optimisation Score

Several advertisers also expressed concern about the heavy emphasis placed on the Google Ads optimisation score.

Google's optimisation score estimates how well an account is configured according to Google's recommendations. It can help identify missing assets, bidding opportunities, keyword expansion options and campaign settings.

However, it does not directly measure:

• Profitability
• Lead quality
• Sales revenue
• Customer lifetime value
• Return on advertising spend
• Offline conversion quality
• Business sustainability

A campaign with a 70% optimisation score can be more profitable than a campaign with a 100% score.

Advertisers should therefore avoid accepting recommendations simply to increase the optimisation score.

The primary objective is not to satisfy the Google Ads interface. The objective is to generate profitable business outcomes.

Broad Match Is Not Automatically Good or Bad

Broad Match was one of the recommendations frequently criticised in the discussion.

However, Broad Match itself is not necessarily the problem.

Broad Match can work effectively when the account has:

• Reliable conversion tracking
• Sufficient historical conversion data
• A suitable automated bidding strategy
• Strong negative keyword management
• Accurate conversion values
• Regular search-term analysis

It can perform badly when:

• The campaign has limited conversion data
• Every form submission is counted as a valuable lead
• Spam leads are included as conversions
• Negative keywords are poorly managed
• The bidding system is optimising towards weak conversion actions
• The advertiser serves a narrow or specialised market

Therefore, the correct question is not whether Broad Match is good or bad.

The correct question is whether the account has enough reliable data and control mechanisms to use it safely.

Automated Bidding Requires Accurate Data

Google representatives frequently recommend automated bidding strategies such as:

• Maximise Conversions
• Maximise Conversion Value
• Target CPA
• Target ROAS

These strategies can produce strong results, but only when Google receives accurate conversion signals.

If an account counts low-quality actions as conversions, automated bidding may optimise towards those actions.

For example, suppose a lead-generation campaign records the following as conversions:

• Phone calls lasting five seconds
• Spam form submissions
• Page visits
• Button clicks
• Unqualified enquiries
• Genuine sales leads

Google's bidding system may not know which actions actually produce revenue unless the advertiser provides better conversion data.

Automating a campaign before fixing conversion tracking simply allows the system to make bad decisions faster.

Never Make Major Changes During the Call

A practical lesson from the discussion is to avoid making major account changes while speaking with an advisor.

During a call, the representative may guide the advertiser through several settings and recommend enabling them immediately.

A safer process is:

1. Write down each recommendation.
2. Ask the advisor to explain the expected benefit.
3. Request supporting data from the account.
4. Review the recommendation after the call.
5. Assess the possible risks.
6. Test the change on a limited scale.
7. Monitor the results before expanding it.

This prevents impulsive account-wide changes that may be difficult to reverse or properly evaluate.

Questions to Ask a Google Ads Advisor

Advertisers should ask direct questions before implementing any recommendation.

What business metric will this improve?

The answer should relate to conversions, revenue, lead quality, CPA or ROAS, not merely clicks, impressions or optimisation score.

What account data supports this recommendation?

Ask whether the recommendation is based on your actual campaign performance or is simply a general best practice.

What are the possible risks?

A credible recommendation should include both benefits and risks.

How should the result be measured?

There should be a defined testing period and success metric.

Can this be tested through an experiment?

Major bidding, keyword or targeting changes should ideally be tested instead of applied across the entire account.

Will this increase spending?

Ask how the recommendation may affect daily spend, CPC, CPA and total monthly cost.

What should we do if performance declines?

There should be a clear rollback plan before making the change.

A Practical Framework for Evaluating Recommendations

Every Google Ads recommendation can be evaluated using the following framework.

1. Business Relevance

Does the recommendation support the actual business objective?

For example, increasing traffic is not useful when the business requires only highly qualified enquiries.

2. Data Quality

Are conversion tracking and conversion values accurate enough to guide the system?

3. Financial Impact

Will the recommendation increase spend, CPC or acquisition costs?

4. Risk Level

Could the change affect the entire account, or can it be tested within one campaign?

5. Measurement

Can performance before and after the change be compared clearly?

6. Reversibility

Can the original settings be restored if the change performs badly?

7. Commercial Outcome

Will the recommendation improve qualified leads, revenue, profit or customer acquisition?

When Google Ads Advisors Can Be Helpful

Google Ads Advisors can still provide value in several situations.

They may help advertisers:

• Understand newly released Google Ads features
• Identify account configuration problems
• Resolve basic policy or approval issues
• Review missing campaign assets
• Understand bidding strategy requirements
• Discover beta features
• Identify budget limitations
• Review conversion tracking settings

They may be particularly useful to advertisers who are new to Google Ads and need help understanding the platform.

However, platform knowledge should not be confused with complete business strategy.

A representative may understand Google Ads extremely well but may not understand your profit margins, customer behaviour, sales process, local competition or operational limitations.

What Google Ads Advisors Cannot Decide for You

Only the business or its advertising manager can properly determine:

• Whether a lead is genuinely valuable
• Whether the campaign is profitable
• Whether the sales team can handle additional leads
• Whether the landing page accurately represents the service
• Whether customers generated through advertising remain profitable
• Whether increasing the budget is financially sustainable

Google Ads can measure advertising activity. It cannot fully understand the business unless accurate sales and revenue data are supplied.

The Best Approach: Listen, Verify and Test

Advertisers do not need to reject every recommendation from a Google Ads Advisor.

They also should not accept every recommendation automatically.

A more rational process is:

1. Listen to the recommendation.
2. Understand why it is being suggested.
3. Compare it with actual account data.
4. Evaluate the business impact.
5. Test it through a controlled experiment.
6. Measure qualified conversions and profitability.
7. Keep, modify or reverse the change based on evidence.

This turns the advisor's suggestion into a testable hypothesis rather than an unquestioned instruction.

Final Thoughts

Google Ads Advisors can provide useful platform knowledge, feature explanations and optimisation ideas.

But advertisers must remember that Google's recommendations are created within the context of the Google Ads platform.

Your business has a wider set of priorities:

• Profitability
• Lead quality
• Sales capacity
• Customer retention
• Cash flow
• Long-term growth

The best Google Ads accounts are not built by accepting every automated or advisor recommendation.

They are built through accurate conversion tracking, disciplined testing, search-intent analysis, strong landing pages and continuous measurement of genuine business outcomes.

Your objective is not to optimise the account for Google.

Your objective is to make Google Ads work profitably for your business.

Key Takeaways

• Do not blindly accept or reject Google Ads Advisor recommendations.
• Ask what account data supports each recommendation.
• Measure CPA, ROAS, revenue and lead quality rather than optimisation score alone.
• Do not make major account changes during an advisor call.
• Test bidding, keyword and targeting changes on a limited scale.
• Ensure conversion tracking is accurate before using extensive automation.
• Remember that increasing traffic or spending does not automatically improve profitability.
• Evaluate every recommendation against your own business objectives.

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Editorial note: This article is based partly on opinions and experiences shared by users in a Reddit Google Ads discussion. Individual experiences may differ. The discussion should not be interpreted as an official statement about Google, its employees or its support partners.