Follow some of them, not all of them. Google's recommendations tab is a list of suggestions generated by Google, and it doesn't know your margins, which leads turned into customers, or which towns you actually serve. Some suggestions are safe housekeeping. Others change how much you spend or what you pay for, and those deserve a question before you click.
The tab also shows an optimization score. Google's help page on optimization score describes it as an estimate of how well your account is set up to perform, and says that applying or dismissing recommendations changes it. A higher score means you've done what Google suggested. It doesn't mean you're getting more leads. Don't chase the score for its own sake.
Why the tab can't judge your account
A recommendation is built from account settings and platform data. It can see that a campaign is limited by budget, so it suggests a bigger budget. It can't see that your phone calls aren't being counted, or that half your leads were wrong-fit. Only your own tracking knows that.
That gap is where the trouble starts. A suggestion that makes sense for an account with clean measurement can quietly waste money in one without it. Before you act on any recommendation, you need to be able to say what a real lead is and whether your account counts it. If you can't, start with conversion tracking (the code that tells you which click produced a real lead, not just a click).
Suggestions that are usually low risk
Some recommendations fix things nobody would argue with:
- Repairing an ad or link that's been disapproved or points at a broken page
- Adding assets such as extra headlines or a missing phone number, which you can read and approve yourself
- Fixing a conversion setting that you already know is wrong
Even here, read what it will change. Low risk doesn't mean you can skip looking.
Suggestions that deserve a question first
These change who sees your ads or how fast money leaves the account:
- Raise your budget: Only worth it if the demand is the right demand. If tracking is loose, you're scaling the same waste faster.
- Switch keywords to broad match: Broad match (letting Google show your ad for loosely related searches) can buy browsers instead of buyers. Without a strong negative keyword list (searches you tell Google never to show up for), it often does.
- Add or expand into new campaign types: Performance Max, for instance, is Google's most automated campaign type, and it hides where the money goes. See Search vs. Performance Max.
- Raise bids: Check whether a weak ad-to-page match is the real cause, as with a keyword flagged below first page bid.
The test for each one is simple. Ask what it does to your cost per genuine lead, not to impressions or clicks. If nobody can answer that, wait.
Be careful with auto-apply
Google also offers to apply some recommendations automatically. That means changes land in your account without you reading them first. If you turn it on, make sure someone reviews the change history regularly. An account that changes itself is hard to explain later, and you can't fix what you can't trace.
A workable routine
Open the tab once a week. Dismiss what doesn't fit your business, and dismiss it on purpose so it stops nagging. Apply the housekeeping. For anything that touches budget, match types or bids, write down what you expect to happen and check it against your lead numbers once there's enough data.
If you'd rather have someone else look, an independent audit shows which recommendations your account needed and which ones were just moving money. Our Google Ads management page explains how we decide what to change, and in what order.