Last checked against Google’s documentation on 30 September 2026.
What is optimization score in Google Ads?
Google defines optimization score as “an estimate of how well your Google Ads account is set to perform”. It runs from 0 to 100%, and 100% means Google thinks the account can perform at its full potential. Next to the score you get a list of recommendations, and each one shows how many points it would add.
That last part is the key to reading it. The score is a summary of the Recommendations page: Google says an account reaches 100% by applying or dismissing all of its recommendations. So the score measures how much of Google’s current advice you have dealt with, weighted by how much Google expects each item to matter. It is a useful checklist. It is not a measure of whether the account makes money.
Where you see it
Open Recommendations in the Campaigns menu. Google’s check your optimization score page shows the score at the top and the recommendations grouped as All recommendations, Bidding & Budgets, Ads & assets, Keywords & Targeting, and Repairs. The score exists at the campaign, account, and manager account levels. Google lists it for active Search, Display, Video Action, App, Performance Max, Demand Gen, and Shopping campaigns. It also appears while you build a new Search or Performance Max campaign, and Google says it is bringing a version to YouTube brand campaigns, called Brand Optiscore.
What optimization score doesn’t measure
Be fair to the score first. Many recommendations point at real setup gaps: disapproved ads, ad groups with no ads, conflicting negative keywords, missing assets, or a bid strategy with no conversion action to learn from. Clearing those is worth doing, and the score is a quick way to find them.
What it can’t see is anything Google doesn’t know about your business. It optimizes toward the goal your bid strategy sets, or toward one Google infers when your strategy doesn’t state one. That goal is built on the actions you include in the Conversions column. If those actions are the wrong ones, say a page view or a form start counted next to real sales, the score will steer you toward more of the wrong thing. Our guide to one vs every conversion counting covers a common version of that problem.
| Optimization score | An account audit | |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | How much of Google’s current advice is still open, weighted by estimated impact | Whether the account makes money, and what is wasting it |
| Source | Google’s recommendations, built from account data, settings, and trends | Account data plus your own records: sales, lead quality, margins |
| Knows your margins? | Only through the conversion values you report | Yes, if you bring them |
| Checks tracking counts the right things? | Flags missing actions and sudden conversion rate drops; uses whatever you count as the goal | Yes, it is the first check |
| Catches wasted search terms? | No recommendation type adds negatives for wasteful searches | Yes, from the search terms report |
| Reaches its best by | Applying or dismissing every recommendation | Fixing the findings with the most money at stake |
The search terms row is worth spelling out. Google’s list of recommendation types includes removing conflicting negative keywords, but none that adds negatives for searches that spend without converting. An account can score 100% while a large share of its spend goes to searches you would never want. That check lives in the search terms report.
How the score is calculated and what moves it
Google says the score is calculated in real time from your account’s and campaigns’ statistics, settings, and status, the impact of the recommendations available, and your recent history with recommendations. Google’s launch post from 2018 adds that recommendations with more expected impact get more weight in the score.
- Score uplift. Each recommendation shows an uplift from under 0.1% to 100%. In Google’s own example, applying a recommendation with a 5% uplift from the account’s Recommendations page raises the account score by 5%.
- Uplifts overlap. Added together they can pass 100, because applying some recommendations cancels others.
- Dismissing counts. Applying and dismissing both change the score. That is how an account reaches 100% without accepting everything.
- It moves on its own. Google says the score and the recommendations change with your settings and with trends across Google Ads. A new recommendation appearing lowers the score even if you did nothing.
- Paused campaigns linger. Per Google’s recommendation types page, a paused campaign keeps counting at the account level for 7 days, and at the campaign level for up to 90 days, because recommendations are trained on 7 to 90 days of data, mostly 28.
That 28-day training window matters. A recommendation built mostly on the last four weeks can miss seasonality, a slow sales cycle, or a change you made last month on purpose.
- Narrow change
- Changes spend, bidding, or reach
View as table
| Item | Score uplift | Group |
|---|---|---|
| Raise your budgets | +6.2% | Changes spend, bidding, or reach |
| Add broad match keywords | +4.9% | Changes spend, bidding, or reach |
| Bid more efficiently with Target CPA | +3.1% | Changes spend, bidding, or reach |
| Improve your responsive search ads | +1.4% | Narrow change |
| Remove redundant keywords | +0.3% | Narrow change |
Is optimization score important?
Not for the auction
Google states the score isn’t used by Quality Score, and its 2018 launch post added that it doesn’t factor into Ad Rank. A low score doesn’t raise your cost per click or push your ads down the page.
Yes, if you are a Google Partner
Google’s Partner badge requirements include a performance requirement: the partner’s registered manager account needs an optimization score of at least 70%, checked daily, alongside spend and certification requirements. The Google Partners FAQ is explicit that partners don’t need 100% or to adopt every recommendation, and that applying and dismissing both raise the score. Google’s API documentation describes a manager account’s score as a weighted combination of its client accounts’ scores.
Useful, for everyone, as a to-do list
Read the Repairs group first. It holds the recommendations that fix something broken, such as disapproved ads, ad groups without keywords, or a conversion action whose conversion rate dropped sharply. Then work through the rest one by one, as the next section describes.
How to judge each recommendation
Every recommendation is a proposed change. Treat it like one from a colleague: read what it changes, check the evidence, compare it with what you know, then decide.
- Read what it changesWhich setting, which campaigns, and whether it moves spend, bidding, or reach.
- Check the data under itAre the conversions it learns from real outcomes? Does the last month look like a normal month?
- Compare with your numbersYour break-even cost per conversion, the search terms report, lost impression share.
- Apply, test, or dismissApply narrow fixes, test bid and budget changes as experiments, dismiss the rest with a reason.
Here is how that plays out for common recommendation types, using the names from Google’s recommendation types page.
| Recommendation | When it tends to help | When to dismiss | Check first |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raise your budgets | The campaign converts at a cost you are happy with and runs out of budget | Cost per conversion is already above what a customer is worth to you | Lost impression share from budget vs rank; see this guide |
| Add new keywords, Add broad match keywords | Tracking is sound, conversion volume is steady, negatives are in good shape | The search terms report already shows searches you don’t want | Search terms for the campaign, sorted by cost |
| Bid more efficiently with Target CPA; Adjust your CPA or ROAS targets | The Conversions column counts real outcomes and there is enough of them | The new target pays more per conversion than it is worth, or conversions include micro-steps | Which actions are primary; your break-even cost or return |
| Improve your responsive search ads; add sitelinks, callouts, or other assets | Usually, when the suggested text is accurate | The text promises prices, offers, or claims you can’t stand behind | Every suggested line, read as a customer would |
| Remove redundant keywords | Tidying duplicates in the same ad group | The keyword it would remove is the one with the conversion history | Conversions for each version before removing |
| Fix your conversion tracking; Fix your conversion action with a conversion rate drop | Almost always worth investigating: it points at measurement | Only when you know the cause, such as an action you changed on purpose | Tag status in Goals, and conversions against your own records; see conversions dropping to zero |
The pattern: recommendations that remove, fix, or tidy something are narrow and easy to check. Recommendations that raise spend, widen matching, or change bidding need your own numbers first, because the uplift doesn’t know what a conversion is worth to you.
Dismissing recommendations and the score
Google’s apply or dismiss guide describes the steps. On the Recommendations page in the Campaigns menu, select View recommendation on a card, then Dismiss all. You can also open the card’s three-dot menu and choose Dismiss all. Keep in mind:
- Dismissing raises the score. The Partners FAQ says so directly, and the score page says you can see the total score attributed to dismissed recommendations.
- It isn’t permanent. Google says recommendations can be dismissed for 28 or 60 days depending on the reason, and can come back if the campaign is still eligible.
- Level matters. Dismissing at the campaign level dismisses that type for that campaign only; other campaigns can still show it. Dismissing at the account level stops it for every campaign for a while. Keyword and ad group suggestions can be dismissed one by one.
- Partial accepts leave the card. If a card suggests ten keywords and you accept five, it stays until you select Dismiss all.
- You can undo it. Select Dismissed at the top of the page, open the card’s three-dot menu, and choose Undismiss all.
Applied recommendations are recorded in change history, and Google says you can undo one there within 30 days, though a partially applied recommendation can’t be undone. Our guide to undoing changes in Google Ads walks through it.
What to use alongside the score
The score tells you which of Google’s suggestions are still open. These tell you whether the account is healthy:
- An ordered audit. Start with conversion tracking, then settings, search terms, keywords, bidding and budgets, ads, landing pages, and targeting. The Google Ads audit checklist goes through each check, and how to optimize Google Ads turns them into a daily, weekly, and monthly routine.
- Change history. Google’s change history lists changes from the past two years against clicks, cost, and conversions. Line up every applied recommendation with what happened next.
- Experiments. For bigger changes, a custom experiment splits a campaign’s traffic and budget between the original and the change. Google offers them for Search, Display, Video, and Hotel campaigns.
- Your own outcome numbers. Cost per conversion, conversion value against spend, and what happens after the conversion, from your sales or lead records. These are what the score can’t see.
Google also advises waiting before judging an applied recommendation, since seasonality and other changes affect results. Compare the same metrics over the same length of time, two to four weeks after the change. If you are weighing an automated review, see what a free Google Ads audit should check, and what it can’t.
