Optimization score
optiscore / account score / recommendations score
Optimization score is a platform's estimate of how fully your account is set up, shown as 0 to 100 percent. Both Google and Microsoft say it rises when you apply a recommendation or dismiss one. So it measures how few recommendations are outstanding, not how the account performs.
Both platforms describe it almost identically. Google calls it an estimate of how well your account is set to perform, running from 0 to 100 percent, with 100 meaning the account can perform at its full potential. Microsoft calls it an estimate of how well you are set up to get the most from your account or campaign, on the same scale, with the same meaning at the top.
Then comes the sentence that tells you what the number actually tracks. Google says your account can reach an optimization score of 100 percent by applying or dismissing all recommendations. Dismissing. Declining a suggestion moves the score exactly as accepting one does.
Microsoft does not just say this, it draws it. Its documentation explains that hovering over the score shows it is made up of account optimization in dark blue and dismissed recommendations in light blue, and that once you apply or dismiss a recommendation the score increases accordingly. Two platforms, arrived at independently, displaying the same design.
There is an arithmetic tell too. Google notes the total could add up to more than 100 if every individual uplift were summed, because applying some recommendations invalidates others. A figure whose parts do not sum to the whole is an index, not a measurement.
In practice
This is the number behind the call that starts with an offer to help improve your account. It is not a fabrication and the recommendations are not automatically bad, but the score is a count of outstanding suggestions rather than a verdict on results. An account at 65 percent with strong returns and an account at 95 percent that is losing money are both entirely possible, and the score is doing its job in each case.
Not the same as
- Quality Score
- A different measure with a different purpose, and Microsoft states its version is not used at auction time.
- Account performance
- Cost per acquisition, return on ad spend and revenue are the measures of that. This one moves when you dismiss advice.
Why it matters to you
Knowing that dismissal raises the score changes how the conversation goes. If a low score is raised as a concern, the answerable question is which specific recommendations are outstanding and what each would change, rather than what the number should be. And a supplier reporting a rising optimization score as evidence of progress is reporting how many suggestions they have cleared, which may or may not be the same thing.
What to ask or check
- 01Which recommendations are outstanding, and what would each one actually change?
- 02Were any dismissed, which raises the score without changing the account?
- 03Alongside the score, what happened to cost per acquisition over the same period?
What people get wrong
That a low score means the account is performing badly. Google says an account reaches 100 percent by applying or dismissing all recommendations, and Microsoft shows dismissed recommendations as a visible component of the score.
Red flags
- A low optimization score presented as evidence that an account is underperforming.
- A rising score reported as progress, without the cost per acquisition beside it.
- Recommendations dismissed in bulk to raise the number.
Where you will see it
At the top of the Recommendations page in both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, and in sales calls about your account.