Google Ads audit: method and priorities

What is a Google Ads audit and when should you do one?

A Google Ads audit is a full review of an account, set against the business goals. It differs from routine optimization: optimization adjusts every week, the audit resets the structure and the assumptions.

• when a new team or a new provider takes over an account;
• when the cost per acquisition drifts without explanation;
• before sharply increasing the budget;
• after a change of website, tracking or offer.

The basics of the account and the auction are recalled in how Google Ads works.

In what order should you run a Google Ads audit?

Order matters more than completeness. Each step determines how reliable the next one is. There is no point optimizing ads if the conversions that judge them are wrong. Here is an order of checks, from the most structural to the finest.

Step	Question asked	Where to look
1. Measurement	Are the conversions counted the right ones, and counted only once?	Conversion goals and actions, tag diagnostics
2. Settings	Do the ads show where you sell?	Locations, networks, languages, schedule of each campaign
3. Queries	Which searches are you actually buying?	Search terms report, negative keywords
4. Ads and pages	Does the ad keep the promise of the query, and the page that of the ad?	Ads, Quality Score, landing pages
5. Bidding and budget	Does the bid strategy have enough data, is the budget limiting?	Bid strategies, lost impression share
6. Competition	Who bids on the same queries as you?	“Auction insights” report

How do you check conversion measurement?

This is the most structural step: a measurement error distorts all the others. Google classifies each conversion action as primary, used for bidding, or secondary, observed only. A poor setup prevents Smart Bidding from optimizing correctly (Google Ads Help on conversion measurement).

• Does each primary conversion match an action that has value (purchase, qualified lead, call of a minimum duration)?
• Is the same action counted twice? For example through the Google Ads tag and through the import from Google Analytics.
• Do conversion values reflect revenue or the value of a lead?
• Is Consent Mode in place for visitors from the European Economic Area?

On this last point, Consent Mode passes each visitor’s consent status to Google. It then adjusts how the tags behave. It does not provide a banner: it relies on yours (Google Ads Help on Consent Mode). Setting up tracking is covered in our web analytics pillar.

What should you check in campaigns, queries and ads?

Campaign settings are quick to check and expensive when they are wrong. Check the location targeting option, partner networks included without your knowledge, languages and schedules. These settings are detailed in our page on Google Ads campaigns.

Next comes the search terms report: it shows what you are really buying. A few off-target queries sometimes account for a visible share of spend. Negative keywords fix this problem quickly. The detailed method is in keywords and ads.

For ads and pages, Quality Score gives a lead per keyword. It rates expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. How to read it is explained in our page on Quality Score. A slow or off-topic page is fixed on the website side: see conversion rate optimization.

How do you read lost visibility and competition?

Impression share shows the share of impressions you received out of those your ads were eligible for (Google Ads Help on impression share). Two additional columns tell you why you lose the rest:

Metric	What it means	Lever
Lost impression share (budget)	Share of the time the ad does not show because the budget is insufficient	Increase the budget or narrow the targeting
Lost impression share (rank)	Share of the time the ad does not show because Ad Rank is insufficient	Quality of the ad and of the page, then the bid

The “Auction insights” report compares you with the advertisers taking part in the same auctions. On Search, it shows impression share, overlap rate, outranking share and top of page rates. It stays empty below 10% impression share (Google Ads Help on auction insights).

Is your bid strategy automated? Check that it has enough conversions. Also check that no recent change has put it back into learning. The selection criteria are detailed in Smart Bidding. The specifics of Performance Max have their own page.

Should you follow Google’s optimization score?

The optimization score estimates, from 0 to 100%, how much of its potential an account is using. Google calculates it in real time from the statistics, settings and available recommendations (Google Ads Help on optimization score).

Auto-applying recommendations can be configured and turned off at any time. The History tab lists those already applied (Google Ads Help on auto-apply). When taking over an account, it is one of the first settings to check.

Some changes matter more than others: bid strategy, match type, a new landing page. For those, the “Experiments” page compares a trial version with the original campaign. Google advises forming a hypothesis and testing only one variable at a time. Choose the success metric before launch (Google Ads Help on the “Experiments” page).

1. Deliver prioritized findings: each problem with its estimated impact on cost or conversions.
2. Fix measurement first, then settings and exclusions: these are the quickest wins.
3. Test the rest: bidding, match types, ads and pages, one variable at a time.
4. Review after three months: compare cost per acquisition and conversion volume with the starting point.

A useful Google Ads audit ends with dated decisions, not with a list of a hundred points. To place this work within the lever as a whole, see our SEA guide.