The Google Ads Audit Checklist We Run Before Touching Budget

Google Ads Audit Checklist: Tracking Before Anything Else

Start with measurement. If conversions are double-counted, fired on page load instead of a real action, or not firing at all, then every bidding decision downstream is being made on fiction. This is the single most common and most expensive fault we find.

Check that Google Ads and GA4 agree. If Ads reports forty conversions and GA4 reports twelve for the same period, find out which actions each is counting before you touch a bid.

• Google Ads conversion actions exist and are set to the right count (one vs every).
• The conversion action fires on a genuine outcome — form submit, call, purchase — not a page view.
• Enhanced conversions are configured and returning data.
• GA4 import, if used, is not creating duplicates.
• Offline or phone conversions are being uploaded where relevant.
• Consent mode is configured so tracking degrades gracefully rather than silently failing.

Structure, Campaigns and Match Types

Structure should mirror intent, not organisation charts. One campaign per unrelated product line, tightly themed ad groups, and ad groups narrow enough that a genuinely relevant ad can be written for them.

Watch match types closely. Broad match is not inherently wrong, but paired with an auto-apply recommendation and a loose conversion signal it will spend quickly on irrelevant queries. If the account relies on broad match, the negative keyword list has to be actively maintained — not reviewed quarterly.

• Campaigns split by intent, geography and margin — not by internal department.
• Ad groups are tight enough that one ad genuinely fits every query.
• Match types are a deliberate choice, not an inherited default.
• Auto-apply recommendations are reviewed and largely turned off.
• Search partners and the Display network are not silently absorbing display spend inside a search campaign.
• Geographic settings exclude locations you do not serve, rather than "people in or interested in".

Keyword Intent and Negative Keywords

The search terms report is where an audit pays for itself. Read the last ninety days of queries and mark every line that could not possibly become a customer. That list becomes your negative keywords, and it usually reveals a pattern — job seekers, DIY researchers, competitors, or free-tool searches.

Separately, check that each keyword actually matches the ad group it sits in. Keywords drift when campaigns are added to over months; a single keyword absorbing 60% of spend while sitting in the wrong ad group will show the wrong ad.

• Search terms reviewed for the last 90 days, not just last week.
• Negatives added at the correct level — account, campaign or ad group.
• Job-seeking, DIY and informational queries excluded from campaigns that need buyers.
• Competitor brand terms handled deliberately, with eyes open on cost.
• Unused or disapproved keywords cleaned up.
• Quality Score reviewed for keywords consistently at 4 or below.

Bidding, Budget and Waste

Bidding strategies need enough conversions to work. If a campaign generates four conversions a month, an automated target-CPA strategy has almost nothing to learn from and will often perform worse than a manual ceiling you set yourself.

Then look for structural waste: a keyword that has spent meaningfully with no conversions, an ad group with no impression share because the budget is exhausted by 9am, or geographic regions that consume spend but never convert.

• Each automated strategy has enough conversion volume to optimise.
• Budget is not being exhausted early in the day on low-intent queries.
• Keywords with spend above your threshold and zero conversions are paused or fixed.
• Impression share lost to budget is identified separately from lost to rank.
• Ad schedules reflect when your sales team actually answers the phone.

Ads and Landing Pages

A perfect campaign pointing at a slow or generic landing page still loses. Check that the message in the ad appears in the first screen of the landing page, that the form is visible without scrolling on mobile, and that the page loads quickly on a phone.

This is where most Google Ads audits end and where the cheapest wins are. Converting 1% more of the traffic you already pay for is usually cheaper than buying more traffic.

• Every ad has been updated in the last 90 days (RSA pinning and asset review).
• Ad copy mirrors the language used on the landing page.
• Landing page passes Core Web Vitals on mobile.
• The primary call to action is visible without scrolling.
• Call tracking or form tracking matches what Ads counts as a conversion.
• Extensions are present: sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, phone.

Google Ads for Ecommerce and Lead Gen Differ

Google Ads for ecommerce leans on product feeds, shopping structure, merchant centre diagnostics and margin-aware bidding. A feed with thin titles or missing GTINs will underperform no matter how good the campaign structure is.

Lead generation leans on offline conversion feedback. If your sales team knows which leads closed, feeding that back into Ads is usually the highest-leverage change available — it teaches the algorithm what a customer actually looks like rather than what a form fill looks like.