Why Regular Google Ads Audits Matter
Knowing how to audit a Google Ads account is one of the most valuable skills in performance marketing. Every account drifts over time. Campaigns that performed well six months ago may be wasting budget today. Settings get changed and forgotten. New campaign types launch and old ones keep running without review. Keywords accumulate irrelevant search terms. Conversion tracking breaks silently.
The cost of an unreviewed account is real. Budget drains to campaigns that no longer serve a purpose. Targeting settings quietly broaden beyond your intended audience. Smart bidding strategies optimize toward outdated conversion data. These problems compound month over month until someone finally asks, "Why are our results declining?"
An audit is the answer. It gives you a clear, structured assessment of where an account stands, what is working, what is wasting money, and what needs immediate attention.
When to Audit:
- New account takeover: When you inherit a new account as a new hire, new agency relationship, or new client. You cannot improve what you do not understand.
- Quarterly discipline: Even well-managed accounts benefit from a structured review every 90 days.
- Performance drops: When performance drops significantly and you need to identify the root cause, not just guess.
A thorough audit takes 2-3 hours for a moderately complex account (5-15 campaigns). This is not a multi-day project. It is a focused, time-boxed exercise that delivers clarity about what to fix and in what order.
The Google Ads Audit Framework: 8 Areas to Review
This audit framework covers the eight areas that determine account health. They are ordered by impact. Start with account structure and work your way through. By the end, you will have a complete picture of the account.
How to Prioritize Findings
Not all audit findings are equally urgent. Categorize each issue by severity:
Documenting Your Findings
For each issue, record four things: what you found, the severity level, the estimated impact, and the recommended fix. This structure makes your audit actionable. Stakeholders and clients can see exactly what needs attention and why. Keep a reference copy of the Google Ads audit documentation open as you work through each area.
Area 1: Account Structure Review
Account structure determines how easy the account is to manage, optimize, and scale. A well-structured account groups related campaigns logically, avoids overlap, and makes reporting straightforward.
What to Check
- Campaign naming conventions. Can you tell what each campaign does from its name alone? Names should include the campaign type, target market, and goal. "Campaign 1" tells you nothing. "Search | US | Brand Keywords" tells you everything.
- Campaign type distribution. Review the mix of Search, Display, Performance Max, Video, and Shopping campaigns. Does the distribution match business goals?
- Ad group structure. Each ad group should have a tight theme. If one ad group contains keywords for "project management software" and "free to-do list app," the theme is too broad.
- Campaign overlap. Check whether multiple campaigns target the same keywords or audiences. Overlapping campaigns compete against each other in the auction, driving up your own costs.
Red Flags:
- More than 20 campaigns in an account with moderate spend (likely over-segmented)
- Campaigns with "test" or "copy" in the name that are still active
- Ad groups with 30+ keywords spanning multiple themes
- Duplicate campaigns targeting the same geography and keywords
Area 2: Campaign Settings Audit
Campaign settings are where money quietly disappears. One wrong toggle can send budget to the wrong audience, wrong location, or wrong network for months without anyone noticing.
What to Check
- Network settings. Check whether Search campaigns have "Google Search Partners" or "Display Network" expansion enabled. Display expansion sends your search budget to Display placements, which almost always underperforms.
- Location targeting. Verify the targeting method is set to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations" rather than "Presence or interest." The default shows ads to people merely interested in your location, not physically there.
- Ad rotation. "Optimize" lets Google favor the best-performing ads. Use "Optimize" unless you are actively running a controlled test.
- Ad scheduling. Check if campaigns run 24/7 when they should have scheduling restrictions. If your B2B product sees zero conversions between 10 PM and 6 AM, running ads during those hours wastes budget.
- Device targeting. Review device bid adjustments. If mobile drives traffic but not conversions, a -50% mobile bid adjustment saves budget. But verify this with data, not assumptions.
- Start and end dates. Look for campaigns with end dates that passed months ago or campaigns still running that were meant to be temporary promotions.
The most expensive setting mistake is location targeting set to "Presence or interest." An account targeting the UK could be serving ads to users in the US, India, or anywhere else searching about the UK. This one setting can waste 10-30% of budget.
Area 3: Keyword Analysis
Keywords drive Search campaign performance. A keyword audit reveals whether you are bidding on the right terms, blocking the wrong ones, and organizing them effectively.
What to Check
- Match type distribution. What percentage of keywords are broad match, phrase match, and exact match? Heavy broad match usage without strong negative keyword lists typically leads to wasted spend.
- Search terms report. Pull the last 30-60 days. Sort by cost. Identify terms where you spent money but received zero conversions. These are immediate negative keyword candidates.
- Negative keyword coverage. Review negatives at account, campaign, and ad group level. Common gaps include competitor brand terms, job-related queries, and informational queries that do not convert.
- Quality Score distribution. A healthy account has the majority of keywords scoring 6 or above. Keywords scoring below 4 need investigation. Reference Google's Quality Score documentation for the exact components.
- Keyword overlap between campaigns. If two campaigns bid on the same keyword, they compete against each other. Identify duplicates and consolidate.
- Low search volume keywords. These add management complexity without delivering impressions. Review and remove them unless you have a strategic reason to keep them.
For deeper analysis on how to read and interpret this data, see our guide to analyzing Google Ads data.
Area 4: Ad Copy Review
Ads are what your audience actually sees. Poor ad quality limits click-through rate, wastes impressions, and drives up cost per click.
What to Check
- RSA setup. Every ad group should have at least one Responsive Search Ad with a full set of headlines (at least 8-10) and descriptions (at least 3-4). Check for variety. If all headlines say the same thing, you are not giving the algorithm enough variation.
- Ad strength score. Google rates RSAs as "Poor," "Average," "Good," or "Excellent." While not a direct ranking factor, it indicates whether you have provided enough diverse creative assets. Aim for "Good" or above.
- Pin usage. Pins lock specific headlines or descriptions into specific positions. Over-pinning restricts the algorithm's ability to test combinations. Only pin when you have a regulatory or brand requirement.
- Ad extensions (assets). Review coverage of sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, image extensions, and call extensions. Extensions increase ad real estate and CTR. An account without extensions is leaving performance on the table.
- Landing page alignment. Click through each ad and verify the landing page matches the ad message. If an ad promises "Free 14-Day Trial" but the landing page focuses on enterprise pricing, you have a disconnect.
- A/B testing history. If the same ads have been running for 6+ months without new variants, the account has stopped testing.
Area 5: Bidding Strategy Assessment
Bidding strategy determines how much you pay for each click and how effectively your budget converts. Misaligned bidding strategies are one of the most common issues in audits.
What to Check
- Current strategies by campaign. Are strategies appropriate for each campaign's goal? A brand awareness campaign using "Maximize Conversions" may be over-investing. A conversion campaign on "Maximize Clicks" is optimizing for the wrong metric.
- Smart bidding suitability. Smart bidding requires sufficient conversion data. Google recommends at least 30 conversions in the past 30 days per campaign. Campaigns with fewer may not have enough signal.
- Target CPA or ROAS settings. Compare targets to actual performance. If Target CPA is set to $50 but actual CPA is $85, the strategy is either restricting impressions or the target is unrealistic.
- Portfolio bid strategies. Check if any campaigns share a portfolio strategy. This can help campaigns with varying conversion volumes, but it can also cause one underperforming campaign to drag down budget allocation for a strong one.
- Manual bidding assessment. If campaigns use manual CPC, ask why. Manual bidding gives control but requires active management. If no one has adjusted bids in weeks, those campaigns are running on autopilot without the automation that smart bidding provides.
Area 6: Conversion Tracking Verification
This is the most critical audit area. Every other finding depends on accurate conversion data. If tracking is broken or misconfigured, your performance numbers are unreliable and every optimization decision is flawed.
What to Check
- Active conversion actions. Are they all still relevant? Old conversion actions for discontinued products or sunset landing pages should be removed.
- Primary vs. secondary classification. Verify that only your true business conversions (purchases, qualified leads, demo requests) are set as primary. Soft conversions like page views should be secondary.
- Conversion counting method. Use "one" for lead generation (one signup per user matters). Use "every" for e-commerce (each purchase matters).
- Conversion windows. Review click-through and view-through windows. A B2B product with a 90-day sales cycle needs a longer conversion window than the 30-day default.
- Tag verification. Use Google Tag Assistant or the conversion tracking status to verify tags are firing correctly.
- GA4 vs. native tracking. If the account imports conversions from GA4, check that imported conversions match what is tracked natively. Discrepancies indicate configuration issues.
Tracking problems are one of the most common issues found in audits. If your conversion tracking needs a full setup or reset, our Google Ads conversion tracking setup guide walks through the process step by step. For a structured approach to monitoring your tracking setup across all platforms, Budget Checker provides real-time visibility into whether your connected accounts are reporting data correctly.
Area 7: Budget Allocation Review
Budget allocation determines whether your money goes to the campaigns that deliver the most value. Misallocation is one of the highest-impact findings in any audit because it directly translates to wasted or underused spend.
What to Check
- Budget distribution vs. business priorities. Do the highest-budget campaigns align with your most important business goals? A common finding: brand campaigns consuming 40% of budget when they could run on 15%.
- Budget pacing analysis. Are campaigns exhausting daily budget by midday (missing afternoon conversions)? Are campaigns consistently underspending (budgets too high, targeting too narrow)?
- Shared budgets. A shared budget across five campaigns lets Google allocate spend dynamically, but one campaign can consume the majority, starving the others.
- Cost per conversion by campaign. If one campaign delivers conversions at $30 and another at $120, the budget split should reflect that efficiency difference.
- Impression share lost to budget. High "Lost IS (Budget)" means your campaigns are running out of money before the day ends. Either increase budget or tighten targeting.
Budget pacing is something most teams check weekly at best, usually in a spreadsheet. But daily pacing drift compounds quickly. marketingOS's Budget Checker connects to your Google Ads accounts and surfaces real-time pacing across all campaigns. When an audit reveals budget allocation problems, this kind of ongoing monitoring prevents the same issues from recurring next month.
Area 8: Competitive Analysis and Auction Insights
An audit is not complete without understanding the competitive landscape. Your performance does not exist in a vacuum. Changes in competitor behavior directly impact your costs and impression share.
What to Check
- Auction insights report. Review impression share, overlap rate, and outranking share for your main competitors. Are you losing ground? Has a new competitor entered your auctions?
- Competitor ad copy. Search for your primary keywords and review competitor ads. Note their offers, CTAs, extensions, and landing pages. If competitors consistently offer something you do not, that explains why your CTR may lag.
- Impression share trends. Declining impression share with a stable budget means competition is increasing. You need more budget, better ad quality, or more focused targeting.
- Defensive gaps. Search for your own brand terms. Are competitors bidding on your brand? If so, you may need a dedicated brand defense campaign.
- Expansion opportunities. Look at queries where competitors show ads but you do not. These represent potential keyword gaps worth testing.
An audit captures a snapshot in time. What you need after that is ongoing visibility. For continued monitoring of how your account performs relative to competitors, see how Google Ads Manager provides that ongoing clarity without rebuilding reports every week.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should you audit a Google Ads account?
Conduct a full audit at minimum once per quarter. Run focused reviews of budget pacing, search terms, and conversion tracking monthly. Trigger an immediate audit when performance drops significantly or when you take over a new account. Quarterly audits prevent the gradual drift that erodes performance over time.
How long does a Google Ads audit take?
A thorough audit following this 8-area framework takes 2-3 hours for a moderately complex account with 5-15 campaigns. Larger accounts with Performance Max campaigns, multiple markets, or dozens of campaigns may take 4-5 hours. The key is to time-box it. An audit that takes two weeks is not an audit. It is procrastination.
What is the most important thing to check in a Google Ads audit?
Conversion tracking verification. Everything else, keyword optimization, bid strategy, budget allocation, depends on accurate conversion data. If tracking is broken or misconfigured, every metric in the account is unreliable and every decision based on that data is suspect.
Can I use this audit checklist for a client account?
Yes. This framework works especially well for agency marketers onboarding new client accounts. The audit provides a baseline assessment and a clear list of recommended improvements to present in your initial report. The severity ratings help prioritize what to fix first.
What should I do after completing the audit?
Prioritize your findings by severity. Fix critical issues immediately (tracking problems, budget waste, wrong location targeting). Then work through high-severity items in the first week. Schedule medium items within the month. After the initial fixes, establish ongoing monitoring so the same issues do not return. Our Google Ads optimization guide covers the next steps in detail.
Should I use a template for my audit?
A template helps you stay consistent and ensures you do not skip areas. Create a simple spreadsheet with columns for: audit area, finding, severity, estimated impact, recommended fix, and status. Reuse this template for every audit so you can compare accounts and track improvements over time.
Turn Your Audit Findings into Ongoing Control
An audit tells you where the account stands today. But accounts drift. The same problems return if you do not monitor for them. The real value comes from turning a one-time audit into an ongoing discipline.
marketingOS gives performance marketers real-time visibility into budget pacing, campaign performance, and conversion tracking across all connected accounts. Built by a performance marketer who audits accounts every week as part of real client work.
Stop guessing where the problems are. Start with clarity and stay in control.