What to Expect from a Google Ads Audit

A lot of time, money and effort goes into running Google Ads campaigns. So when you’re not seeing the results you expect, it can be disheartening. You might think you’re doing everything right, refining your keywords, adjusting bids or testing new ad variations, but if performance still isn’t where it should be, it’s a prime opportunity to have a fresh pair of eyes audit your account.

This article will cover:

What is a Google Ads Audit?

A Google Ads audit is an in-depth evaluation of your entire advertising account. It looks at how your campaigns have been set up, where your budget is being spent and whether your activity is aligned with what your business actually wants to achieve. The purpose is to see how well everything is working together and where improvements can be made.

While it’s possible to carry out an audit yourself, it’s often more effective to bring in someone who isn’t involved in the day-to-day running of the account. A third-party audit removes bias and challenges the assumptions your campaigns may have been built on. It can also uncover areas of Google Ads that you didn’t even know existed.

When Should You Do an Audit?

You don’t have to wait until something goes wrong to review your Google Ads account. In fact, quarterly or biannual audits are the best way to make sure you’re always getting the most out of your budget. That said, there are specific moments when an audit becomes especially important:

Performance has plateaued

If conversions have dropped or you’re paying more for fewer results and you’re not sure why, an audit can help you find the cause. It could be that your best-performing keywords are no longer converting or your audience targeting has become too broad or tight.

You’re about to increase your ad spend

Scaling up your budget without reviewing what’s already in place first is risky and could waste money. An audit makes sure your account is in the best possible position so that any extra spend goes toward campaigns that are already working well, or are on the right path with a few strategic changes.

You’ve taken over an existing account

If you’re a new marketing manager, have recently switched agencies or taken PPC in-house, you need to know what you’re working with. An audit gives you a clean starting point, showing how the account has been structured, what’s working, what isn’t and what needs immediate attention.

You’re unclear where your budget is going

It’s surprisingly common for businesses to be spending thousands each month with little clarity on what that spend is actually achieving. A Google Ads audit breaks down your spend across campaigns, devices, audiences and keywords, showing what return it’s generating and where it could be better spent.

What Does an Audit Involve?

1. Account Structure

One of the first things a Google Ads audit will examine is the structure of your account. This includes how campaigns are organised and how ad groups are grouped and themed in relation to your business goals. Structure is more than a matter of tidiness. It directly affects how effectively your budget is spent, how easily performance can be reviewed and how relevant your ads are to the people you’re trying to reach.

Campaign and Ad Group Setup

A well-structured account follows a clear hierarchy: campaigns target high-level objectives (like promoting a service or targeting a location), while ad groups sit within those campaigns and focus on a single theme or product category. An audit will look at whether that hierarchy is logical and purposeful. For example, an online footwear retailer should have separate ad groups for “running shoes”, “formal shoes” and “boots”, each with their own set of keywords and ad copy. If the structure is too broad or inconsistent, it can dilute your message and reduce ad relevance.

Budget Allocation and Campaign Focus

An audit will also check how your budget is distributed across campaigns and whether that aligns with the commercial priorities of your business. If most of your spend is going to a consistently underperforming campaign, or if high-potential areas aren’t getting enough budget to work with, it could be that the structure needs attention. Overlapping campaigns or ad groups competing for the same traffic can confuse Google’s algorithm and water down your results.

Naming Conventions and Theming

If campaigns and ad groups aren’t clearly labelled or grouped by function, it makes performance reporting harder than it needs to be. An audit will examine how well the ad groups are themed. Ideally, each should be focused on a single intent. If one ad group contains keywords for five different services, you’re forced to write vague ad copy, which usually means weaker click-through rates and lower Quality Scores.

2. Keyword Targeting

Your ads are triggered when someone searches on Google using terms that match your chosen keywords. But if your targeting doesn’t reflect how people actually search, you risk wasting spend on irrelevant traffic. A Google Ads audit takes a look at your keyword strategy to see how well it aligns with user intent and whether it’s helping or hindering your campaigns.

Match Types and Intent Alignment

Every keyword in your account is assigned a match type: broad, phrase or exact. These determine how closely a user’s search must match your keyword for your ad to appear.

• Broad match casts a wide net, showing your ad for searches that are loosely related. It gives you reach, but can also lead to irrelevant traffic if not carefully managed.
• Phrase match gives more control, showing ads only when the search includes your keyword in a specific order (with some variation).
• Exact match is the most precise, triggering ads only when the query closely matches your keyword.

An audit will examine how these match types are used across your account. It’s not uncommon to find that broad match keywords are getting clicks but no conversions, which is often a sign they might be too loosely targeted. On the other hand, over-reliance on exact match can limit visibility and miss valuable long-tail searches. The most effective accounts use all three match types intentionally, based on keyword intent, competitiveness and performance.

Keyword Performance Analysis

Beyond match types, an audit will evaluate the performance of individual keywords using metrics like:

• Cost per click (CPC) – Are certain keywords costing more than they’re worth?
• Click-through rate (CTR) – Do your ads reflect what users are actually searching for?
• Conversion rate – Are the right keywords driving leads or sales?
• Impression share – Are your ads showing up as often as they could?

This analysis reveals which keywords are pulling their weight and which ones are draining your budget. It also uncovers “sleeper” keywords, which are those that may have low volume but consistently convert.

Keyword Coverage and Gaps

An audit will also assess whether there are gaps in your keyword coverage. This is especially important if you haven’t refreshed your keyword list in a while or if you rely on a narrow set of terms. For example, a law firm might be bidding on “solicitor in Exeter” but missing variations like “divorce lawyer near me” or “family legal advice Devon”. Keyword gap analysis, often done using tools like Google Ads’ Search Terms Report or third-party platforms like SEMrush, can identify new terms worth testing.

Negative Keyword Lists

An often overlooked but critical part of any keyword strategy is your negative keyword list. These are the terms you explicitly tell Google not to show your ads for. They help stop your budget being wasted on irrelevant clicks or low-intent traffic.

An audit will review your existing negative keyword lists and how effectively they’re being used. It will also look at whether you’re excluding poor-performing terms discovered in your Search Terms Report. If these haven’t been reviewed in a while, it’s likely that you’re still paying for traffic that has little to no chance of converting.

3. Ad Copy

Your ad copy is what makes the first impression. It’s the part users see in search results and it plays a crucial role in whether they decide to click or scroll past. If your messaging doesn’t speak to their needs or answer their questions, they won’t click, no matter how well-structured the rest of your campaign is.

A Google Ads audit looks at how well your ad copy is performing and whether it’s doing its job effectively.

Headline and Description Relevance

Google prioritises ads that closely match the user’s search query, so your messaging needs to reflect what people are actually searching for. An audit checks whether your ad copy:

• Aligns with your keywords
• Is clear, specific and benefit-led
• Matches user intent and speaks directly to the audience
• Feeds naturally into the content on the landing page

A disconnect between what someone searches for, what they see in your ad and what they land on leads to high bounce rates and poor conversion performance. This will hurt your Quality Score and increase CPCs.

Testing and Variations

A strong Google Ads account will continuously test different ad copy variations to find out what performs best. An audit checks whether your campaigns are running multiple ad versions, how well each variation is performing and whether old versions are still active despite poor performance.

Calls to Action (CTAs)

A good CTA tells users exactly what you want them to do and why they should do it now. Whether it’s “Book a free consultation”, “Get your quote today” or “Download our brochure”, the CTA should be clear, direct and linked to a meaningful outcome.

An audit will assess whether:

• Your CTAs are specific and action-oriented
• There’s consistency between CTA and the offer on your landing page
• High-performing CTAs are being reused across campaigns
• Poorly performing CTAs are being adjusted or removed

4. Bidding Strategies

How you bid in Google Ads directly affects how much you pay, how often your ads appear and how effectively those ads convert into leads or sales. A poorly matched bidding strategy can waste budget and hold back performance.

A Google Ads audit reviews the bidding strategies being used across your account to see whether they align with your goals and contribute to a positive return on ad spend (ROAS).

Manual vs Automated Bidding

• Manual bidding gives you direct control over individual bid amounts. It’s useful when you want to closely manage spend, but can be time-intensive.
• Automated bidding uses Google’s algorithms to adjust bids in real time based on how likely a click is to lead to a conversion. If configured correctly and regularly reviewed, automation can be more efficient.

An audit checks which bidding method you’re using and whether it’s the right one for your campaign type, conversion data and marketing goals.

Smart Bidding Strategies

If you’re using automated bidding, an audit will look at the selected Smart Bidding strategies in place. These might include:

• Target CPA – Google aims to get as many conversions as possible at or below a set cost per acquisition. Works best when you already have strong, consistent conversion data.
• Target ROAS – Google aims to maximise conversion value based on a return goal, ideal for e-commerce and high-value transactions.
• Maximise Conversions – Google automatically sets bids to get the highest possible number of conversions within your budget. Effective for lead generation campaigns with broad targeting.
• Maximise Conversion Value – Google focuses on driving the most revenue (rather than the highest number of conversions). Suitable for businesses with varying product or service values.
• Enhanced CPC (ECPC) – A hybrid of manual and automated bidding. Google adjusts your manual bids in auctions likely to lead to a conversion, but you still set the base bids yourself.

Each strategy has its strengths, but only when used in the right context. An audit evaluates whether you’ve got enough conversion data to support Smart Bidding and whether bidding strategies are delivering the outcomes they’re meant to.

Budget and Bid Efficiency

Bidding strategies rely on a healthy interaction between budget and data. If there’s not enough budget to allow Google’s automation to run properly, or if old limits are still in place, they can underperform.

The audit will look at:

• Whether your daily budgets are too tight for the strategy in use
• If outdated bid caps or conflicting settings are blocking performance
• Whether spend increases have been matched with strategy reviews

Bid Adjustments

Even with automation in place, Google still allows for bid adjustments by device, location, time of day/day of the week or audience. If bid adjustments haven’t been reviewed in months or are contradicting your overall strategy, they could be weakening campaign performance without you realising. An audit will review whether these adjustments are being used intentionally and whether they’re still relevant.

5. Conversion Tracking

Conversion tracking tells you whether people are taking meaningful actions after clicking your ads, like submitting a form, making a purchase or booking a consultation. A Google Ads audit checks how this tracking has been set up and whether the data can be trusted. This includes reviewing tags deployed via Google Tag Manager, hardcoded snippets or conversions imported from Google Analytics or your CRM.

Something as simple as a form thank-you page firing multiple tags or a contact form event not being tracked at all can distort your cost-per-conversion metrics and lead to poor decisions about where to allocate budget. An audit tests whether conversions are being recorded correctly and at the right time. If the data is inaccurate or incomplete, every other part of the campaign analysis become guesswork.

6. Landing Page Relevance

When someone clicks on your ad, the landing page is where their decision to buy, enquire, sign up or call actually happens. A Google Ads audit follows the user journey through to the landing page to see how well it supports conversions.

If someone clicks an ad for “free next-day delivery on trainers,” the landing page needs to back that up immediately. If the offer’s missing or the product is hard to find, users will leave. This hurts your conversion rate and affects your Quality Score over time, which can push up your cost per click (CPC).

An audit also reviews the fundamentals that affect user experience: mobile responsiveness, page load speed, clarity of messaging and strength of your call to action.

7. Performance Data Analysis

Finally, an audit examines impressions, click-through rate (CTR), average cost-per-click (CPC), Quality Score, cost per conversion and return on ad spend (ROAS) in relation to each other.

A drop in CTR on its own, for example, might not tell you much. But when it’s accompanied by a higher CPC and a declining Quality Score, it could be a sign that your ads are no longer as relevant or compelling to users.

This part of an audit essentially connects the dots between your setup and your results. It looks at how well each area (your keywords, bidding strategy, ad messaging, audience segments and landing pages) is contributing to your overall performance. Rather than just asking “What’s the cost per lead?” it’s asking why that cost is going up, where the inefficiencies lie and what to do about it.

What To Do Next After an Audit

Receiving your audit is only the beginning. While the audit itself provides a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t, unless those insights turn into action, nothing actually changes. A well-executed audit should give you a prioritised list of recommended actions, some that should be applied immediately and others that require a longer-term view.

Quick Wins

These are the low-effort, high-impact changes that can often be made within hours or days and start delivering performance improvements almost immediately. Examples include:

• Repairing broken or incomplete conversion tracking
• Pausing or refining underperforming keywords
• Refreshing stagnant ad creative

Strategic Adjustments

These are bigger-picture changes that reshape how your account is structured and how it operates. For example:

• Restructuring campaigns or ad groups to improve relevance and control
• Aligning budget with business priorities
• Re-evaluating bidding strategies
• Addressing landing page performance issues

Continuous Optimisation

We’ve already mentioned that making audits a regular part of your PPC strategy, ideally every quarter or six months, is one of the most effective ways to maintain and improve your campaign performance.

Even after you’ve implemented all the recommendations from an initial audit, Google makes constant adjustments to its ad platform. It updates its algorithms, introduces new campaign types, retires features and refines how ads are served. At the same time, your business and your customers are likely changing too. Search behaviour fluctuates with the seasons, new competitors enter the space and internal priorities change. Regular audits ensure your Google Ads activity continues to support all those changes, rather than operating on outdated assumptions.