If you run a roofing or renovation business and you’re spending money on Google Ads, there’s one setting quietly draining your budget right now. I see it every single day. Real accounts, real budgets, real money going down the drain. So let me show you the number one thing I switch off the moment I take over an account.
It’s called auto-apply recommendations. And honestly? It’s costing you more than you think.
Whose side is Google actually on?
Here’s the thing. Google makes recommendations that sound helpful. “Add these keywords.” “Try this bid strategy.” “Expand your reach.” Sounds great, right? But who do those suggestions actually serve?
Google’s incentive is to get you spending more. More budget, more clicks, more ad spend. That’s how they make their money. What you care about is something completely different: getting the most leads for a price that makes sense. Those two goals don’t always line up. In fact, they often pull in opposite directions.
So when Google offers to automatically apply its own suggestions to your account, you’re basically handing the keys to someone whose paycheck depends on you spending more. Not exactly a fair deal.
Where to find this setting
Let me walk you through it. Jump into your account and click on Campaigns. Up the top, you’ll see a Recommendations tab. Click that, and over on the right-hand side there’s a button for Auto-apply settings.
Open that up and you’ll find two sections: “maintain your ads” and “grow your business.” Both are full of things you want switched off. Let me explain why.
The “maintain your ads” traps
Under “maintain your ads,” there are seven settings. A couple stand out as genuinely risky.
First, there’s the option to let Google rewrite your responsive search ads and headlines. Think about that for a second. Do you really want Google inventing copy and putting words in your brand’s mouth? I don’t. You’ve worked hard on how your business comes across. Keep control of that.
Then there’s upgrade your conversion tracking. This one matters a lot. Once I’ve set up conversion tracking and tested it properly, I don’t want anything touching it. If Google starts fiddling with how leads get counted, you lose the one thing that tells you whether your ads are actually working. Turn it off.
The rest in this section, removing keywords, using “optimised” targeting, and so on, all get switched off too. You want to choose and test your own keywords, not let the system swap them out behind your back.
The “grow your business” money burners
Now we get to the sneaky stuff. There are fourteen settings under “grow your business,” and three of them are the real budget killers.
- Add new keywords and broad match keywords. Broad match sounds harmless until you understand what it does. Say you’ve got a solid keyword like “roof repair in Auckland.” Nice and specific, the kind of search a real customer makes. Broad match takes “roof repair” and matches it to almost anything: how to repair a roof yourself, what a roof repair looks like, even people hunting for roof repair jobs. You end up paying for browsers, not buyers.
- Display expansion. This one slaps banner ads across random websites on the display network. The conversion rate? Often less than 0.1%. That’s not marketing, that’s setting money on fire.
We want customers, not curious people poking around Google on their lunch break. So all three of these stay off.
Why bid strategy should never be on autopilot
The bidding recommendations deserve their own moment, because this is where automation can really hurt you. Target impression share, maximise clicks, maximise conversions, target CPA, target ROAS… the list goes on.
Here’s the deal. Your bid strategy isn’t a “set it and forget it” thing. It changes depending on where your account is at. A brand-new account needs one approach. A mature account that’s humming along needs another. And when you’re ready to scale, that’s a third approach entirely.
Three stages, three different strategies. If you let Google flip these automatically, there’s a real chance it’ll undo whatever success you’ve built. Imagine finally getting your cost per lead where you want it, then waking up to find the whole thing tanked because an automated switch fired overnight. Not worth the gamble.
The simple rule: stay in the driver’s seat
So what’s the takeaway? Turn off all of them. All fourteen “grow your business” settings and all seven “maintain your ads” settings. Every single one.
This isn’t about being a control freak. It’s about making sure that every change on your account is something you know about and chose. When you’re running a busy crew and your ad budget is feeding your lead pipeline, the last thing you want is decisions getting made for you in the background. Autopilot is almost guaranteed to make Google more money and leave less for you.
You’ve got enough on your plate keeping jobs moving and clients happy. Your ad account shouldn’t be quietly working against you while you do it.
If you’d like a second set of eyes on your account settings and campaigns, I’m happy to take a look. You can book a quick review through the link below. Cheers, and have a great one.