Before increasing spend on any account, I work through this list. It takes about two hours and it almost always finds enough waste to fund the increase without adding a dollar.
Conversion tracking (checks 1–6)
1. Is every primary conversion a real business outcome? 2. Are page views or newsletter signups wrongly marked primary? 3. Are calls tracked with a minimum duration? 4. Is there duplicate counting between GA4 imports and the Google Ads tag? 5. Is the conversion window appropriate for your sales cycle? 6. Does a test submission appear in the platform?
Get these wrong and the remaining 24 checks are decoration. Most of the damage I find in accounts starts here — see conversion tracking setup.
Account structure (checks 7–11)
7. Are brand and non-brand separated? 8. Are Search and Display separated (no Display Network expansion on search campaigns)? 9. Does each campaign have a distinct purpose and budget? 10. Are ad groups tight enough that one ad can match every keyword in them? 11. Are Performance Max campaigns cannibalising branded search?
Keywords and search terms (checks 12–17)
12. Review 90 days of search terms for irrelevant spend. 13. Is there a shared negative keyword list applied to all campaigns? 14. Are money terms on phrase or exact? 15. Are there keywords with high spend and zero conversions? 16. Is there overlap causing internal competition? 17. Are competitor terms intentional or accidental?
Bidding and budget (checks 18–22)
18. Is the bid strategy matched to the data volume available? 19. Is Target CPA realistic versus actual? 20. Which campaigns are limited by budget and are they the profitable ones? 21. Are there recent strategy changes that reset learning? 22. Is ad schedule aligned to when leads can be answered?
Ads and assets (checks 23–26)
23. At least two responsive search ads per ad group with pinned headlines where needed. 24. Are sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets and call extensions all in place? 25. Does ad copy state a differentiator and a price signal? 26. Is the final URL a dedicated page, not the homepage?
Landing pages and reporting (checks 27–30)
27. Mobile load time under two seconds. 28. Form above the fold with minimum fields. 29. Message match between ad and headline. 30. Does reporting show cost per lead and cost per customer, not just clicks and impressions?
If more than five of these fail, pause budget increases and fix them first. A structured paid media audit works through exactly this list with your numbers attached.