3 Google Ads Strategies We'd Think Twice About (And Why "Best Practice" Isn't Always Best)
Performance Max, broad match, and Google's own recommendations aren't automatically good for your business. Here's what to check first.
If you've spent any time in your Google Ads account, you've probably seen the platform nudge you toward a few familiar suggestions: turn on Performance Max, loosen your keywords to broad match, apply the recommendations Google flags for you. They're presented as easy wins. Sometimes they are.
But at Clear Performance Ads, we've found that these defaults don't automatically serve every business, especially small and mid-size companies in Metro Detroit and across Michigan who can't afford to waste ad spend chasing metrics that look good on a dashboard but don't translate into real customers.
Here are three things we'd think carefully about before leaning on them in most accounts, and what to check instead.
1. Performance Max for Lead Generation (Especially Form Fills)
Performance Max, or PMax, is Google's automated campaign type that runs across Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Maps from a single campaign. It's built to work best when an account already has a large volume of reliable conversion data and strong first-party signals from further down the sales funnel, things like actual purchase data or qualified lead information, not just a form submission.
In our testing, PMax has consistently generated a strong volume of form submissions and calls. The problem is lead quality. The people filling out those forms often aren't the right fit, even though the campaign reports look strong.
That's the trap. PMax can make your Google Ads account appear to be performing well on paper while the leads underneath don't hold up. Before trusting PMax with your lead gen budget, look past the volume and ask what happens to those leads after they convert. Do they turn into real customers, or do they stall out in your sales pipeline?
2. Broad Match Keywords
Broad match lets your ads show for a wide range of searches related to your keywords, even ones that aren't closely tied to what you actually offer. It can lower your cost per click and make your in-platform metrics look better at a glance.
Cheaper leads aren't the same as more profitable ones. Broad match often brings in more irrelevant searches and lower-quality prospects, which means your team spends extra time filtering through people who were never likely to become customers in the first place. For a home services company in Dearborn or a law firm in Ann Arbor, that wasted time adds up fast.
This doesn't mean broad match has no place in a strategy. It means it needs to be tested and monitored carefully, with a close eye on search term reports, rather than turned on because it's the path of least resistance. Google's Ads Help Center explains how match types work in more detail if you want to dig into the mechanics.
So What Should You Do Instead?
None of this means you should avoid Performance Max, broad match, or Google's recommendations altogether. It means they should earn their place in your strategy through real business results, not just impressive-looking numbers inside the platform.
That takes tracking that goes deeper than clicks and conversions. It means connecting your ad data to what actually happens after the lead comes in: did they book a job, become a client, make a purchase? For Metro Detroit businesses working with limited ad budgets, that distinction can be the difference between a campaign that feels productive and one that's actually profitable.
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3. Following Google's Recommendations (Or Your Rep's Advice) Without Question
It's worth remembering that Google is a publicly traded company. Their incentives aren't always aligned with your company's profitability, and that shapes a lot of what shows up inside the platform. The recommendations you see in your account, and some of the strategies account representatives are encouraged to promote, are built with Google's own goals in mind as much as yours.
That's not a conspiracy. It's just business. But it means the "optimization score" nudging you to accept every suggestion isn't a scorecard for your bottom line. It's closer to a scorecard for how closely you're following Google's playbook.
Every recommendation should be evaluated the same way: does this actually improve down-funnel profit, or does it just make the platform metrics look stronger? Those are not always the same thing, and the difference matters most for smaller advertisers with tighter margins.
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