How to Approach Testing Google’s Ad Advisor

Google’s Ad Advisor is now available in beta inside Google Ads, which means it’s officially fair game for testing and discussion.

Like most AI-driven tools Google has rolled out lately, Ad Advisor promises faster insights, smarter recommendations, and less manual digging. In reality, it’s more of a mixed bag. There is potential, but as with most of Google’s AI products, there are also clear limitations that marketers need to understand before relying on it for decision-making.

Here’s how we’re approaching testing it so far.

First: Yes, You Can Use It (and Talk About It)

Ad Advisor is still in beta, but it’s available across accounts. This isn’t a closed experiment or early-access-only tool. If you see it in your account, you’re free to test it and evaluate whether it adds value to your workflow.

That said, “available” doesn’t mean “ready to trust.”

How Skeptical Are We of the Recommendations?

We like to practice healthy skepticism with Google products, and this tool does nothing to change that.

Ad Advisor currently feels similar to other Google AI surfaces: a mix of occasionally useful insights and recommendations that range from obvious to helpful to flat-out incorrect.

In one recent test, Ad Advisor flagged large performance changes in video campaigns, specifically increases in video views. That sounds insightful until you remember the budget on those campaigns had just been increased. The “why” wasn’t nuanced; it was simply a reaction to spend changes.

After we pushed the conversation further, Ad Advisor did offer some higher-level suggestions around reallocating budget across video campaigns, which was more helpful.

On the flip side, it also insisted that a non-existent campaign was in the learning phase. Even after we told it the campaign name wasn’t real, it doubled down before eventually conceding it was wrong.

That pretty much sums up the current state: some basic trend recognition, paired with bugs and blind spots that make it unreliable for anything precise.

Where Ad Advisor Can Be Useful

Right now, Ad Advisor works best as a starting point. Its strengths are:

• Surfacing high-level performance changes
• Acting as a brainstorming partner for strategic questions
• Highlighting trends you may already suspect but haven’t reviewed yet

It can be a useful prompt for where to look, but it shouldn’t replace manual analysis or trusted third-party tools when it comes to real optimization decisions.

Where It Falls Short

Do not – we repeat, do not – rely on Ad Advisor for deeper analysis.

It lacks:

• Context around why changes happened beyond surface-level explanations
• Reliable accuracy across all campaigns and data points
• The nuance needed to understand account-specific strategy or constraints

In its current beta form, it’s not something we’d rely on to guide budget shifts, structural changes, or major optimizations without validating everything independently, which defeats the purpose of a time-saving tool.

How Ad Advisor Compares to Google Reps

Interestingly, the experience mirrors what many advertisers have seen with Google reps over the past few years: Sometimes the advice is solid, even genuinely helpful. Other times, it’s generic or misaligned with the account’s goals.

There’s also a familiar pattern. When you consistently ignore or politely push back on poor recommendations with Google reps, one of two things tends to happen: either support drops off entirely, or the quality of advice improves as the conversation becomes more grounded.

So far, Ad Advisor behaves much the same way.

How We Recommend Testing Ad Advisor Right Now

Given where the tool is today, our advice is to stay high-level. Good questions to ask include:

• Which campaigns improved or declined in performance?
• When did those changes occur?
• What factors might have contributed to those shifts?
• Are there any broad budget allocation suggestions?

Beyond that, we wouldn’t put much stock in its specific optimization tips, at least not without validating them through your own analysis.

Ad Advisor isn’t useless, but right now, it’s best treated as:

• A high-level insight tool
• A prompt for further investigation
• A supplement to manual analysis, not a replacement

It may improve over time, like many other Google tools, as critical feedback comes in. By all means, test it, but don’t trust it – and don’t ignore any critical gut reactions.