Google is applying its own recommendations

Some recommendations are harmless. Others add broad keywords, switch bidding strategies or raise budgets, and each change is applied without anyone reviewing it at the time. Months later, nobody remembers why the account looks the way it does.

It also makes every other analysis harder. When Google can change the account in the background, a result may come from a change nobody on your side made.

The check reads the account's recommendation subscriptions and keeps the enabled ones.

Checks that weigh money or clicks judge what they find on your own account's numbers, not on one figure applied to every account, so what counts as a problem on a small account is not the same on a large one. Checks on settings read how the account is set up.

When there is too little to go on, the check says so instead of guessing. A finding always comes with the rows behind it, so you can read the evidence before you decide.

1. In Google Ads, open Campaigns, then Recommendations.
2. Open Auto-apply at the top of the page.
3. Look at each tab, such as Ads and assets, Keywords and targeting, Bidding and budgets, and note what is ticked.
4. Open the account's change history and filter by Google's automated changes to see what was applied.

Untick the auto-applied recommendations you have not chosen on purpose. Keep only those you would accept every time without reading.

Review recommendations by hand once a week instead. Many are useful, as long as someone decides.

• Auto-applied recommendations
• Change history
• Optimization score

The checks next to this one in Campaign structure, each with its own page.

• An account big enough to test that has never tested
• Google widening the audience past the one you chose
• AI Max is widening what a campaign matches
• No audience list on any campaign
• No list separating people who already bought
• Remarketing lists too small to serve