The Google Ads Audit Checklist We Use on Every New Account

For each area you'll see what we check, what good looks like and the red flag that tells us money is leaking. You can run most of it yourself with standard access to the account. Where something needs a specialist eye, we say so.

What we find in most takeover audits

The same three problems turn up in almost every account we inherit when we take over Google Ads management, regardless of industry or spend.

1. Search terms nobody has reviewed. The keywords look sensible, but the searches actually triggering ads include job seekers, students, free-tool hunters and competitors' brand names. Without a regular search term review and a proper negative keyword list, a share of every day's budget goes on clicks that were never going to convert.
2. Tracking that counts the wrong things. Page views, button clicks or duplicate tags recorded as conversions. The account reports a healthy cost per lead, the sales team sees something very different, and automated bidding is busy optimising towards the wrong target.
3. Keywords that don't fit how the account bids. Broad match keywords running on manual bidding, the same keyword in several ad groups competing with itself, and long lists of keywords that haven't had an impression in months.

Under those sit the deeper settings that rarely get looked at after launch: device, location and ad schedule bid adjustments set years ago, location targeting left on the default "presence or interest", and Search campaigns quietly showing on the Display Network. None of these show up in a quick look at the dashboard, which is why they survive so long.

Our Google Ads audit checklist

We work through the account in this order, because each step depends on the one before it. There is no point judging bidding or ad copy until you know the conversion data is right.

1. Conversion tracking

In Goals, open the conversions summary and list every action. Check which are set as primary, because only primary actions feed bidding and the Conversions column. Then check the count setting: leads should usually count once per click, purchases every time. Finally, compare a month of reported conversions against what actually landed in the CRM or inbox.

Good: a small number of primary actions that match real business outcomes, each recording recently, with values attached where sales values differ.

Red flag: page views or "contact page visits" as primary conversions, the same form counted by both a Google Ads tag and a GA4 import, or reported leads well above what the sales team receives. If cookie consent went up and conversions dropped, Consent Mode needs checking too. That applies under UK GDPR and POPIA alike. If this is where your account falls down, start with our conversion tracking service.

2. Account structure and settings

Campaigns should be split where budget, targeting or goals genuinely differ: brand versus non-brand, separate services, separate regions. Ad groups should each hold one tight theme so the ad matches the search. Then open each campaign's settings.

Good: brand in its own campaign, location targeting set to "presence" (people in or regularly in your area), and Search campaigns running on Search only.

Red flag: one campaign doing everything, location targeting on "presence or interest" for a business that only serves one country or city, and the Display Network ticked inside a Search campaign.

3. Search terms and negatives

Open the search terms report for the last 90 days and sort by cost. Read the top of the list properly, not just the converters. Then check what negative keywords exist, at which level, and whether shared lists are applied to every relevant campaign.

Good: a maintained negative list covering jobs, training, free and DIY intent, competitor names you don't want, and anything the business doesn't sell, plus evidence that someone reviews new terms regularly.

Red flag: no negatives at all, or a list untouched since launch. High-spend search terms with no conversions and no obvious link to what you sell. Brand searches being picked up by non-brand campaigns at a higher cost.

4. Keywords and match types

Look at match type against bid strategy. Broad match can work well, but only with Smart Bidding and reliable conversion data behind it. Check for duplicates across ad groups, and filter for keywords with no impressions over the last 90 days.

Good: match types chosen deliberately for the bid strategy, each keyword living in one ad group, and Quality Score used as a diagnostic (expected CTR, ad relevance, landing page experience) rather than a target.

Red flag: broad match on manual CPC, the same keyword in three ad groups, and hundreds of dormant or "low search volume" keywords cluttering the account.

5. Bidding, budgets and bid adjustments

Check each campaign's bid strategy against its conversion volume. Target CPA and Target ROAS need a steady flow of accurate conversions to work, which is why tracking comes first. Then look at budget status and at every bid adjustment: device, location and ad schedule.

Good: a bid strategy that suits each campaign's data, the best-performing campaigns funded fully, and only adjustments that someone can explain.

Red flag: the strongest campaign "limited by budget" while a weak one spends freely. Old bid adjustments stacked on manual CPC campaigns, or set on Smart Bidding campaigns where Google ignores them, apart from a device set to -100%. Bid strategies changed every few weeks, so the account never settles.

6. Ads and assets

Each ad group should have at least one responsive search ad with headlines that reflect its keywords. Check for pinning, disapprovals and limited approvals, then review assets at account and campaign level.

Good: headlines that mention the service, a clear reason to choose you and a call to action. Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets and, where it fits, call and image assets all live and approved.

Red flag: every headline pinned, so Google has nothing to test. The same ad copy in every ad group. Disapproved ads nobody has noticed. Sitelinks pointing to pages that no longer exist.

7. Landing pages

Open the landing pages report and visit every page that gets meaningful spend, on a phone. Read the page as a searcher would: does it answer the search that brought them there?

Good: each ad group sends people to the most relevant page, the page loads quickly on mobile, the form or phone number is easy to find, and a test enquiry fires the conversion tag.

Red flag: all traffic going to the homepage, forms that break on mobile, final URLs returning 404 errors, and thank-you pages that load without the tracking tag.

What to do with the findings

You'll probably end up with a longer list than you expected. Don't try to fix it all at once, because changing tracking, structure and bidding in the same week makes it impossible to tell what worked. We sort findings into three groups and work through them in order.

1. Fix the measurement. Tracking problems go first, always. Every other decision in the account, yours and Google's, is based on the conversion data.
2. Stop the waste. Negatives, location settings, network settings and outdated bid adjustments. These are usually quick changes and the savings show up within weeks.
3. Rebuild for growth. Restructuring campaigns, rewriting ads, changing bid strategies and improving landing pages. These take longer and need the first two groups done so you can measure the result.

If the audit raises more questions than answers, or the fixes need more time than your team has, that's where an outside view helps. We run this same audit for UK and South African businesses before we take on any Google Ads management account, and we show you everything we find whether or not you work with us.

Start with our free audit tool for a quick check of your site speed and whether your Google Ads tracking is firing, or book a full account audit and we'll work through every item on this list with you.