Google Ad recommendations can now be applied as experiments

Curious about a Google ad recommendation but skeptical about its impact on your campaigns? Now, you can apply a recommendation as an experiment by using the Experiments page.

How it works. When you set up an experiment, you can test the recommendation without risking your main campaign’s performance. If the experiment is successful, you can apply the results by converting that experiment to a new campaign or transferring the experiment results to the original one.

Limited functionality. Right now the feature is only available on broad match and Target ROAS recommendations. In Googles Help doc, they said they’ll continue to roll out additional availability in the coming months.

Best practices. Google recommends following its best practices guide to set up, manage, and optimize your experiments. You can also read the help guide for additional resources.

Why we care. Recommendations were recently ranked as one of marketers’ least favorite parts of PPC. From pushy ad reps to recommendations that only served to increase an obscure optimization score, it’s no surprise that marketers are skeptical of the “all or nothing” approach.

This new feature is a great way to find out if some recommendations really could help improve campaign performance. Did Google finally listen to our complaints?

About The Author

Nicole Farley is an editor for Search Engine Land covering all things PPC. In addition to being a Marine Corps veteran, she has an extensive background in digital marketing, an MBA and a penchant for true crime, podcasts, travel, and snacks.