The cost of clicking ‘Apply All’
Have you ever accepted a handful of Google Ads' AI recommendations, thinking they’d deliver quick wins—without really digging into the details? Guilty as charged. What I learned (the hard way) is that automation, without context and oversight, can move fast—and in the wrong direction.
Google’s AI makes campaign adjustments deceptively simple. With one click, you can roll out changes that promise better performance. And on the surface, the logic seems sound. Broaden keyword match types to expand reach? Sure. Raise the budget to "capture more conversions"? Why not? But what the AI doesn’t understand is everything behind the scenes—your margins, your ideal customer, your seasonality, your product pipeline. What it sees as opportunity, we have to evaluate through the lens of risk.
In my case, it started with a push to add broad match keywords. Within hours, our campaigns were pulling in a flood of irrelevant traffic. CTR dropped. Conversions slipped. And Google’s response? “Increase your budget to maintain performance.” We did. That’s when the spend took off. By the time we caught it, we were ~$30K deep into inefficient traffic and scrambling to clean up the mess.
That experience humbled me—and made me more cautious, more deliberate, and a lot more skeptical of any recommendation that comes without context. Because here’s the truth: AI doesn’t know your business the way you do. It doesn’t understand what a high-quality lead looks like. It doesn’t know which SKUs drive profitability or how your ops team handles a surge in volume. And it definitely doesn’t know what your boss would say about a large overspend in under 72 hours.
That’s not to say Google’s recommendations are all bad. Some can be incredibly useful—when applied with strategy and tested properly. But they are suggestions, not strategy. They should be reviewed critically, applied selectively, and monitored like any other campaign decision. You don’t hand over the keys to the car just because it has cruise control.
So now, whenever I see that tempting “Apply All” button in Google Ads, I pause. I dig into the data. I ask what problem it’s solving—and who it’s really solving it for. And I remind myself of that very expensive lesson: automation is a powerful tool, but only when there’s a human at the helm.
