Why a Higher Optimisation Score Made Everything Worse

The optimisation score went up. The results went down.

Claire audited a dog training school where 3 services were mixed into one campaign, the display network was bringing in fraud leads, and Google was spending the budget on puppy training searches instead of the high-value board and train enquiries.

She explains why the optimisation score measures compliance with Google, not performance for you — and why $20/hour puppy classes were eating the budget meant for $2,000+ board and train programmes.

https://www.clairejarrett.com/

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Transcript

Welcome to Clicks and Clarity with Claire.

I audited a dog training school recently where the business owner had been congratulated on improving the account performance.

The optimisation score had gone up.

And I had to tell him to pay no attention to it whatsoever.

The optimisation score is Google wanting you to play their game. If we aimed to get it to 100%, we would be applying their recommendations randomly. And their recommendations are designed to make Google money, not you.

But that was not even the biggest problem in this account.

The business offered 3 very different services. Local dog training for people wanting a private trainer nearby. Board and train, where people send their dog away for intensive behaviour work. And aggression and reactivity training for dogs with serious behavioural issues.

All 3 were mixed into one campaign.

Now, think about what happens when Google has one budget to split across 3 very different services. Local dog training has the highest search volume. Puppy training near me, dog trainer near me. Loads of people searching. So Google spends most of the budget there, because that is where the volume is.

But those people are looking for 6-week socialisation classes. They want group sessions at $20 an hour. That is not what this business does.

Meanwhile, the board and train keywords and the aggression training keywords, which are where the real revenue sits, were being starved of budget.

The owner was getting leads. But the wrong leads. Phone calls from people who had not even read the prices on the landing page. They would skim the site, click to call, and then discover it was thousands of dollars for a board and train programme. Those calls went nowhere.

The form submissions, on the other hand, were from people who had actually read the page, seen the pricing, and still wanted to enquire. Those were the qualified leads. But there were very few of them.

And here is where the display network made it even worse.

The campaign had the display network turned on. That means the ads were not just showing in Google search results. They were appearing on forums, on game sites, on random apps.

When you run a campaign with the display network on and set it to maximise conversions, you get ridiculously spammy leads. A lot of the time they are pure fraud. They come from advertisers in Google's network just defrauding the system. I have seen it before. I had a client selling sailing holidays who was getting phone calls for the Coast Guard. Nothing to do with sailing holidays.

And the worst part is that once those bad conversions start coming in, Google thinks it is doing a good job. So it brings in more of them. The problem feeds on itself.

The conversion tracking was also not working correctly. It said 18 conversions in the last 30 days. But when I looked, I had serious questions about how many of those were real.

And the business owner kept switching between maximise clicks and maximise conversions, trying to force leads to come in. But every time he switched to maximise conversions, it got worse. Because Google was optimising for the wrong type of lead. More phone calls from skimmers. Fewer form submissions from qualified buyers.

This to me says the entire structure needed rebuilding.

3 services need 3 campaigns with individual budgets. I suggested 20% to local dog training, because it is not the primary market. 40% to board and train. 40% to aggression and reactivity.

Board and train people will travel. They are sending their dog away for weeks. So that campaign can target a wider area. But local dog training and aggression training are location-specific. Those campaigns need tighter geographic targeting.

And critically, puppy training near me needs to be added as a negative keyword. Because those searchers are looking for socialisation classes, not intensive behaviour modification. They are never going to pay for what this business offers.

The optimisation score did not tell the owner any of this.

It went up while the results got worse. Because Google was measuring whether the account followed its recommendations, not whether the business was getting the right leads.

That is it for today.

If you want me to check whether your optimisation score is hiding real problems in your account, book a free audit at clairejarrett.com.

So many thanks for listening.

Bye for now.