In April 2018, Google began implementing ad recommendations. Basically, these are ads that Google generates and "suggests" for you to use. These ads are developed using machine learning. They pull content from previous campaigns, including ad headlines, descriptions, extensions and landing pages Advertisers may view, edit and/or reject ad suggestions. But if they don't take action within 14 days, the ad will be automatically applied to their account. So, if you're not paying attention, you might find ads that you've never seen before appearing in your account now! Google Ads Advice picture Why change? AdWords claims that ad suggestions are designed to improve performance. As described in the AdWords help file: Studies have shown that ad groups with 3 or more high-quality ads can receive up to 5% to 15% more clicks or conversions than ad groups with only 1 ad if ad rotation is optimized. The more ads you offer, the more options you have to show the ideal information for each user search. The idea is that the more ads you play, the more likely you are to hit the right ad that has the most appeal to your target market. wake up call If you're actively managing your AdWords account, you'll quickly discover these new ads. But if you're not, watch out! Some of these ads may be perfectly acceptable. But others won't. Here are some of the issues we foresee: Misrepresent your brand. Call me old fashioned, but I don't believe machine learning can keep the brand intact. Even small changes can convey something you never thought possible. Extracted from outdated information. What if you are in the midst of a major rebrand? AI won't know. As a result, ad suggestions may extract outdated and/or inaccurate information. Emphasize clicks, not conversions. What is the purpose of Google optimizing these "suggested ads"? I'm industry mailing list clicks - which is a good thing for Google's revenue. But that's probably not the type of optimization you want. Most likely, you are more interested in conversions. Lose important qualifiers. Maybe you have an important qualifier that needs to be included in all of your ads - a qualifier that auto-generated ads might miss. For example, we have a client that provides services only for corporate groups. For them, this is a very important differentiator. Without it, they'll attract clicks from people who are looking for a service -- but for a different type of group. Approval could not be obtained in a timely manner. This is a big one. Giving clients 14 days to approve a suggested ad isn't realistic for many of us. Our experience with Google ad recommendations In Group 27, we participated in the beta testing of Google Promoted Ads. As with any new feature or change in AdWords, we've adjusted them fairly. But here's what we found: The ad copy is intermittent. Ads are not read well at all. They are written clearly without the intervention of skilled (human) writers. Information is incorrect or incomplete. The information contained in the ad is close.but not quite right. Poor appearance. Ads look bad. We would be ashamed to present them to our clients for approval. We definitely don't want them living on the internet. As mentioned, one of our main sticking points is the 14-day limit. Even if the ad quality issues are overcome, the 14-day limit will limit any serious attempt to use them. Our clients are very busy. That's one of the reasons they hired us! We have regular monthly meetings with most of them to address things like ad approvals. But it's not realistic to make time outside of these meetings to approve ads on an ad hoc basis. All of this makes me wonder what the heck is going on here. Is Google really out of touch with the reality of managing customer accounts? Or, they may think that click-optimized suggestions and auto-apply ads are a lucrative strategy to ignore.