We are a podcast and we love podcasts so we are very happy to have one of the co-hosts of Marketing O'Clock - Greg Finn. Recently Marketing O'Clock and this very podcast were listed on SEJ's Top SEO Podcasts - so thanks to them for listing both of us along with some other great shows.

The final straw for Greg and the where the guys started to dig in is with the following image and tweet:

The 74% score bump that set Greg off was for Google Shopping. The discussion turned to the issues with this type of recommendation.

Google Partners Badge & Status

The partners program in 2020 was to require agencies to maintain 70% scores but it has been pushed back to 2021. For Greg the issue is that to keep in the Google Partners Program agencies will need to keep a certain score but so often to do that goes against the best interests of the client.

So what are agencies to do? Help sell for Google or protect the client? The recommendations so often go against what will drive ROI

Pros to Google AI Recommendations

While it was difficult to get some Pros to the recommendations from Greg we did get a couple of suggestions and ways it can help:

Search Partners - maybe there are times where it does make sense as something to do that you missed.If you are running out of budget on a campaign so raising the budget is something that makes sense.Missed site extensions sometimes we miss in campaign/ad group creation. Just in general it can be helpful to catch things we miss but it is so rare.Automated bid according to Greg maybe outdoes manual by 50-60% but to rely on the automation 100% the time just isn't the best for most accounts either.

If nothing else the recommendations can show you things to try and test so even if you don't hit apply, take a look and maybe test out or experiment with some of the recommendations.

Cons to Google AI Recommendations

Raise your budgets. How is that a good suggestion for a client? A company has a set budget and usually approval for an entire quarter or year - an agency or PPC Manager can't just go and spend more in 99.99% of the times it is recommended.

Greg talks through just how bad the UI and recommendations can be where there was an instance that instead of Apply This Change, it was a button to Apply All 116 Recommendations - why would Google do that and why would someone blindly say yes to such a thing??

Many times the AI doesn't understand the business and keywords. In one example a pest control company was told to target "computer mouse" - not sure how that would help a pest control company.

Another note about the optimization scores is from Mark: I love that how a 100% optimization score when taking on a new client is usually a red flag.

Greg's Suggestions for Google Ads

Instead of just turning something on, what if there was a button to create an experiment with a recommendation and test it with X dollars for Y days.

Use automation and AI to leverage experiments and how things react in a way that won't tank an account, relationship, campaign or someone's job.

Full Transcript

Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt scintilla and Dave roar. You guys excited to have everybody join us on another one of these business of digital podcast episodes. And, uh, I believe we have Dave over there. How's it going, Dave? I am here and now today, guys, I just want to introduce a very special guest, a friend of mine, Greg Finn.

How's it going, Greg?

Greg Finn: [00:00:27] Fantastic. Hey Matt. Hey Dave.

Matt Siltala: [00:00:30] You know, we were talking before, just before we started recording, it seems like it's been forever since we've hung out in real life. And it probably has literally been a couple of years, Greg.

Greg Finn: [00:00:40] I know, I really miss that with the in-person conferences. It's it's, Twitter's great.

You can still sort of keep in touch, bu