Short answer
A Google Ads audit checklist should work through tracking accuracy, account structure, keyword and search-term hygiene, ad and asset quality, landing pages, bidding strategy, location and device performance, audience signals, and budget allocation, in that order — because errors early in the list invalidate the reliability of everything measured afterwards.
This is the checklist I work through on every Google Ads audit. It takes a couple of hours on a small account and reliably finds three or four things worth fixing — sometimes a lot more.
Work top to bottom. The earlier sections are worth more than the later ones, because a tracking fault or a structural problem invalidates the reliability of every metric you'd otherwise use to judge the sections below it.
1. Tracking and measurement
Nothing else on this list means anything if the numbers feeding it are wrong. This is always where I start, and where most audits find their first genuine problem.
- 1. Do conversion actions match real business outcomes, not vanity metrics?
- 2. Is every lead action counted once ("One" setting), rather than every submission?
- 3. Are conversion values set, even as estimates, rather than left at zero or a flat 1?
- 4. Are Enhanced Conversions enabled and passing hashed match data?
- 5. Are phone calls tracked with a minimum duration threshold applied?
- 6. Do platform-reported conversions reconcile with CRM records within roughly 10%?
2. Account structure
Structure determines how cleanly Smart Bidding can learn and how easily a human can audit the account again in six months. A tangled structure hides problems rather than surfacing them.
What good structure looks like
A stranger with PPC knowledge should be able to understand the account's logic within five minutes of opening it — which campaigns exist, why, and roughly how budget is split between them. If that takes longer, the structure is working against you, not for you.
- 7. Is each campaign built around a distinct service line, objective or geography, not a historical accident?
- 8. Are ad groups tightly themed around a small cluster of closely related keywords?
- 9. Is Search Partners and the Display Network usage a deliberate choice, not a default left switched on?
- 10. Are brand and non-brand campaigns separated so brand's inflated CTR and conversion rate don't mask non-brand performance?
3. Keywords and search terms
This is where wasted spend hides most visibly, and where quick wins are usually easiest to find and prove.
What a red flag looks like here
Above roughly 15% of total spend landing on search terms you wouldn't deliberately buy is a clear, quotable finding worth acting on immediately — it's almost always fixable within a day through negative keyword additions.
- 11. Any keywords spending steadily with zero conversions over the last 90 days?
- 12. Is there an active, regularly maintained negative keyword list, or is it a one-time setup from launch?
- 13. What share of total spend sits in search terms you genuinely would not choose to bid on if starting fresh?
- 14. Are match types appropriate to the account's actual conversion volume, rather than defaulted to broad without oversight?
- 15. Is brand impression share protected against competitor bidding and reasonable at 90%+?
4. Ads and assets
Assets are effectively free real estate inside the ad unit and are routinely neglected, especially in accounts that haven't been touched since initial setup.
- 16. At least two strong, genuinely differentiated responsive search ads live per ad group?
- 17. Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets and call assets all populated and current?
- 18. Is Ad Strength reasonable without sacrificing message clarity purely to chase a green rating?
- 19. Are the offer, pricing and proof points in the ad copy still accurate and current?
5. Landing pages and bidding
The click is only half the equation — where it lands and how bidding responds to conversion data both determine whether that click ever becomes revenue.
- 20. Does each ad group point to a genuinely relevant landing page, not a generic homepage?
- 21. Does the landing page load in under three seconds on mobile?
- 22. Is the bidding strategy appropriate to the account's actual monthly conversion volume?
- 23. Have targets (Target CPA, Target ROAS) been left stable for at least two to three weeks, avoiding constant resets that keep the campaign perpetually in a learning phase?
6. Location, device and audience signals
These settings are frequently left at platform defaults, which are rarely optimal for a specific business and geography.
- Are location settings set to "Presence" rather than the broader "Presence or interest" default, avoiding spend on people merely searching about your area from elsewhere?
- Is device performance reviewed and bid adjustments applied where mobile or desktop clearly under- or over-performs?
- Is day-part and time-of-day performance reviewed against actual staff availability to respond to leads?
- Are audience signals (in-market, custom segments, customer match) applied for observation rather than left completely blank?
7. Budget and account settings
24. Are budgets allocated to the campaigns actually producing qualified leads, or spread evenly across campaigns out of habit rather than evidence?
25. Are location targeting, ad scheduling and audience signal settings all deliberately configured rather than left as platform defaults from account creation?
| Score out of 25 | What it typically means |
|---|---|
| 22-25 | Well-maintained account; focus on incremental optimisation and testing. |
| 18-21 | Solid foundation with specific gaps; usually one or two structural fixes needed. |
| 12-17 | Meaningful efficiency being left on the table; a full audit and prioritised fix list is worthwhile. |
| Below 12 | Foundational issues across tracking or structure; treat as a rebuild, not a tune-up. |
Score it, then act on it
Score your account out of 25 using the six sections above, in order, and don't skip ahead to the sections that feel more interesting — tracking and structure genuinely matter more than ad copy, even though ad copy is more fun to review. Anything below 18 usually has double-digit percentage efficiency sitting on the table, and it's rarely one single fix; it's usually three or four compounding issues found across different sections.
For the tracking-specific checks in section one, the fuller build is covered in Google Ads conversion tracking setup and GA4 conversion tracking. If clicks are arriving but leads aren't, cross-reference this checklist against Google Ads not generating leads: 15 reasons why, and if cost per lead specifically is the concern, see reducing cost per lead without killing lead quality.
Get the audit done for you
If you'd rather have this run by someone who does it daily, with findings ranked by likely impact rather than presented as an undifferentiated list of 25 items, that's exactly what a paid media account audit delivers — a scored review plus a prioritised action plan. Book a 30-minute call and I'll tell you honestly whether your account needs a tune-up or a rebuild.
Frequently asked questions
- How often should I audit my Google Ads account?
- A full 25-point audit every quarter is reasonable for an actively managed account, with lighter spot-checks on tracking and search terms monthly. Always run a full audit after a major site redesign, a conversion tracking change, or a period of underperformance that's hard to explain.
- What's the single most common issue found in Google Ads audits?
- Tracking inaccuracy — usually conversion count set to "Every" instead of "One" for lead actions, or a conversion tag firing on a thank-you page load rather than a genuine success event. It's found in the majority of accounts I audit and it invalidates every other metric until it's fixed.
- Can I audit my own Google Ads account, or do I need an outside review?
- You can work through this checklist yourself and will likely find genuine issues. An outside review tends to catch more because it isn't anchored to the assumptions the original account builder made, and it benchmarks findings against patterns seen across many accounts rather than just your own history.
- What score should a healthy Google Ads account have on this checklist?
- 22 or above out of 25 indicates a well-maintained account where remaining work is incremental optimisation rather than structural repair. Below 18 usually means there's double-digit percentage efficiency available through fixes that don't require increasing budget at all.
- Does a Google Ads audit include Google Analytics or just the ads platform?
- A thorough audit checks Google Ads settings and structure directly, but conversion tracking accuracy inevitably touches GA4 and GTM as well, since the two are usually wired together. See analytics and measurement for how that reconciliation work is scoped.
- How long does a full Google Ads audit take?
- For a small to mid-sized account, a thorough manual pass through all six sections typically takes two to four hours. Larger accounts with many campaigns, or accounts with poor historical documentation, can take considerably longer to review properly.