You hear it all the time. You have to optimize your campaign in order to improve results or increase your return on ad spend.

Well that sounds great, you definitely want to increase your return on ad spend and make more money. Who doesn't!?

But what exactly does it mean to 'optimize' your campaign? What tasks does the include?

Does it just mean raising your Google Ads Optimization Score?

Actually no, raising your Google Ad's Optimization Score typically doesn't help you increase your campaign's return on ad spend. It only helps to increase your "Optimization Score" which is worthless if it's not helping you generate a higher return on ad spend (ROAS). I've been working with businesses for over 7 years now helping them lower their cost per conversion and increase their campaign's ROAS.

Optimizing a Google Ad campaign is largely a matter of identifying keywords and dimensions (locations, demographics, audiences, ad schedule & device) that aren't converting (or converting very poorly) and eliminating them to reduce wasted ad spend. This is the easiest way to bring down your campaign's average cost per conversion and increase ROAS. This also means you'll be spending less on ads which Google dislikes.

At the end of the day, you have to remember you and Google's incentives are not aligned, you want to maximize your return on ad spend. Google just wants to maximize your ad spend. For this reason, you must take their account recommendations and 'scores' with a grain of salt.