Google Ads account audit in 10 steps – a practical checklist

Conversion tracking, search terms, bidding and Performance Max. Ten areas to review if you want to understand where your advertising budget is going and where there is room to improve.

Small setup errors can add up in a Google Ads account. A poorly chosen conversion goal, irrelevant searches or overly broad location targeting can each waste budget. Left unnoticed for months, they can cost a substantial amount.

With automated bidding, the data you feed the system matters even more. If you count every button click as a success instead of tracking genuine enquiries, your campaign reports may look better while the number of actual orders barely changes.

You can use this checklist whether you manage your own ads or want to know what to ask your campaign manager. Start with tracking: until you can trust the data, it is difficult to judge campaign performance.

1. Conversion tracking and business results

First, check what your account counts as a conversion and which of those actions your campaigns optimise for. A purchase, a submitted enquiry and a page view mean very different things to your business.

Your primary goals should generally reflect real business results or meaningful interest. For an online store, that usually means purchases. For a service business, it may mean quote requests or phone enquiries.

For some services, customers typically call straight away. In those cases, a click on the call button can serve as an optimisation goal, but a click does not necessarily mean a connected call or a booking. Where possible, track actual calls and their outcomes as well.

• Check that you are not counting the same purchase or enquiry twice, for example through both a Google Ads tag and a GA4 import.
• For an online store, send the actual order value and the correct currency to Google Ads. This allows you to account for revenue when evaluating and optimising your campaigns.
• Review the status of your conversion actions and test the key events. “No recent conversions” does not automatically indicate a tracking problem: there may simply have been no conversions during that period.

Compare your recorded enquiry conversions with the enquiries you actually receive. If Google Ads reports twenty conversions but only a few were relevant prospects, that needs to inform your assessment of the campaign.

2. Consent Mode and enhanced conversions

Consent management is part of checking your tracking setup. A cookie banner appearing on the site does not necessarily mean that the visitor’s choice is being passed correctly to Google’s tags.

Consent Mode adjusts tag behaviour based on the visitor’s consent status. With the correct setup and the necessary eligibility conditions met, it can also support conversion modelling. Its impact varies between accounts, so you should not expect a fixed percentage improvement.

• Check your Consent Mode v2 settings, including the default consent states and whether they update correctly after a visitor makes a choice.
• Use Google Tag Assistant to test both acceptance and rejection.
• Review your enhanced conversions setup. With the appropriate consent, this feature can help attribute conversions more accurately using information such as a hashed version of the email address provided by the customer.

3. A clear campaign structure

Be clear about the role of each campaign and why it needs to be managed separately. Different markets, budgets or return targets can justify separate campaigns. However, every product or service does not necessarily need its own campaign.

If several campaigns can match the same search, that does not mean campaigns within your account are bidding up your own cost per click. Overlap can, however, make it harder to interpret traffic and results.

• Assess searches for your own brand separately from generic product or service searches. Someone searching for you by name is in a different position from someone still choosing a provider.
• Check whether you have spread your available budget and data across too many small campaigns.
• Only consolidate campaigns when their business goals and settings are compatible. A low conversion count alone is not a sufficient reason to merge them.

4. Search terms and negative keywords

Alongside the keywords you have selected, you need to review the actual searches that triggered your ads. The search terms report can reveal spending on people whose needs your business cannot meet.

Start by reviewing the available search terms from the past 30–90 days, sorted by cost. The more expensive terms can help you identify priorities quickly, but do not overlook irrelevant searches that keep recurring at lower costs.

• Always assess the full search query and the intent behind it. Words such as “jobs”, “free” or “used” only justify an exclusion when the search is genuinely irrelevant to your offer.
• Do not automatically exclude competitor names or place names either. First, consider whether someone making that search could be a relevant prospect.
• Use shared negative keyword lists for exclusions that apply across several campaigns. Assign them only to campaigns where those exclusions make sense.
• Choose the negative keyword match type carefully so that you do not block more searches than intended.

Adjust the frequency of these reviews to your traffic and spending levels. A new campaign or a major change may call for more frequent checks than an account that has been running steadily for some time.

5. Bidding strategies and realistic targets

Target CPA sets your desired average cost per conversion, while target ROAS sets your desired return on ad spend. If your target CPA is too low or your target ROAS is too high for what the campaign can achieve, both traffic and spending can fall sharply.

Base your targets on reliable performance data and your business requirements. Entering a lower number will not automatically make customer acquisition cheaper.

If you also need help planning your budget, I cover the cost of Google Ads advertising in more detail in a separate article.

• Check that your bidding strategy is optimising for the right conversions or conversion values.
• Consider how much data you have and how consistently it comes in. There is no universal monthly conversion threshold above which automation is guaranteed to work well; eligibility requirements can also differ between strategies.
• Adjust targets in considered steps, and avoid changing several interdependent settings at once.
• When assessing performance, account for the time between a click and a conversion. A few days of data can easily lead to the wrong conclusion, particularly when customers take longer to decide.

For more on this topic, read my article on the 2026 changes to target CPA and target ROAS.

6. Ad copy and assets

Your ad should make it clear what you offer, who it is for and why someone should click. Use headlines to communicate different aspects of your offer: several versions of the same sentence add little new information.

• Check that your headlines and descriptions remain clear and accurate in different combinations.
• Use relevant sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, call assets and image assets.
• Quality Score components can help you identify problems. If expected click-through rate, ad relevance or landing page experience is below average, investigate the reason.
• Check for disapproved or limited ads, as these issues can restrict delivery.

Look at actual performance alongside the ratings shown in the interface. What ultimately matters is whether the ad brings relevant prospects and business results.

7. Network settings and location targeting

These settings are easy to configure once and then forget about. During an audit, check whether they still reflect where you want to advertise and whom you want to reach.

• Check which networks your Search campaign runs on. If Display placements are enabled, review whether that was a deliberate choice and whether the results justify it.
• Evaluate search partner performance separately. Cheap clicks are not enough on their own: base your decision on conversions and lead quality.
• For a local service, targeting people who are in or regularly visit your service area will generally make sense. Including people who have shown an interest in the location can reach a wider audience.
• Review the actual geographic distribution of your traffic, along with language settings and ad schedules. If you rely on phone enquiries, for example, it matters when you can answer calls.

8. Reviewing Performance Max

Performance Max results also deserve a closer look. Even when overall return looks good, it is worth examining how much the campaign relies on people searching for your brand or on previous customers, and how much it contributes to acquiring new customers.

• If you manage branded searches separately, consider whether a brand exclusion is appropriate for your PMax campaign.
• Review Final URL expansion settings and the pages receiving traffic. Visitors should land on a page that matches their search and the campaign’s goal.
• Review the channel performance report to see where the campaign spends and which results are attributed to each channel.
• Keep asset group themes, copy, images and videos consistent. For an online store, also check product data accuracy and feed errors.

The share of spending allocated to each channel does not, by itself, tell you whether the campaign is performing well. You also need to understand the purchases or enquiries behind the reported conversions.

I discuss the role of different channels in more detail in my article on Google Ads channel prioritisation and Performance Max.

9. Landing pages and mobile usability

An ad can bring the right visitor to your website, but the page then needs to make your offer clear. If visitors struggle to find what they need or the form does not work, improving campaign settings will not be enough.

• Where possible, send visitors to the page for the specific product or service they are searching for. The homepage is a good choice only when it genuinely provides the best answer to their search.
• Check the page on mobile too. Does it load quickly? Is it easy to read? Is it immediately clear what you offer and how to take the next step?
• Forms should ask only for the information you need, phone numbers should be clickable, and the next step towards an enquiry or purchase should be obvious.
• Test the entire process through to submitting the form or placing an order. A broken field or payment step can easily go unnoticed if you only check the landing page.

10. Prioritising improvements

At the end of the review, assign a specific action to each issue. Set priorities based on how much harm the problem is causing, how confident you are in the finding and how much work the fix requires.

Faulty tracking, a broken form or clearly irrelevant traffic should be addressed promptly. Changes to campaign structure or bidding strategy need more planning so that you can assess the results afterwards.

• Record what you are changing, why you are changing it and what effect you expect.
• Note the date of each change and allow enough time and data to evaluate it.
• Once urgent issues have been fixed, avoid changing everything at once. This makes it easier to understand which adjustments helped.

An audit is useful when it leaves you clear about what to address first, what to test and what is already working well. The savings or additional revenue cannot be predicted in advance: they depend on the account’s condition and the problems identified.

If you would like an independent professional assessment of your campaigns, I would be happy to review your Google Ads account and help you decide on the next steps.

If you are still considering whom to trust with your campaigns, my article on choosing between a PPC specialist and a marketing agency can help you weigh up the options.