The Complete Google Adwords Account Audit Checklist (for 2023)
When we hear the word "audit," we don't tend to think of increased conversions, sales, or even ROI.
However, there's a reason companies seek marketing and ad professionals to audit their current running campaigns.
Neil Patel, in particular, claims to have grown one client's company from 25 to 250 employees auditing Google Adwords.
In short, auditing allows you to discover what's not working and expand on what is.
In this Google Adwords account audit checklist, we'll cover the following:
- Determining your business goals
- How you structure your account
- Account settings to evaluate
- Organizing ad groups
- Keywords
- Ads and ad extensions
- Optimizing landing pages
- What to do with your audit report
But first, let's start with what a Google Adwords account audit is, and why you need one.
What Is a Google Adwords Account Audit?
A Google Adwords account audit is the process of analyzing the success of your Google Adwords account.
An audit might (painfully) uncover hidden issues that must be remediated.
Once you've recognized these concerns, you can start to work on improving more general account health and performance.
Many automated auditing products and services produce outcomes that do not meet or are unrelated to your marketing objectives.
The last thing you want to do is begin an unending audit with shifting objectives.
For that reason, it's critical to complete the audit process by presenting a report and results that you and your team can use as a follow-up tool.
If you're new to the topic of Google Ads, you can learn about the different ad types here.
Why Do You Need a Google Adwords Account Audit?
Regular audits work well to fine-tune your campaigns.
A Google Ads audit will help you detect areas of waste in your budget and identify new opportunities for growth.
The following is an outline for completing your own Google Ads account audit.
Going step-by-step through each topic below will reveal vital information along with significant methods to improve your ad campaigns.
In the end, a Google Ads audit is a powerful tool for maximizing PPC marketing ROI.
If you want to learn how to conduct an effective Google Ads campaign for lead generation, go here.
Business Goals
Each account typically has various conversion objectives, so understand what they are and what performance outcomes you want.
Once you've decided what you want your Google Ads account to achieve, you can use them to dive into the specifics of your campaign.
Some goal-determining questions to ask include:
- What are your company's conversion goals?
- Can you measure success other than for advertisements (such as for leads, revenue, or traffic)?
- What are your Google Ads conversion goals?
Account Structure
Having the correct hierarchy reduces the amount of time spent managing campaigns. It also allows you to produce more relevant data.
There are several methods to organize your campaigns and ad groups, including:
- Persona targets
- Logical business objectives
- Product or service lines
The way you create your account determines your control over the finer elements of the budget, bid, ads, and administration.
Questions to ask about the structure of your account are:
- Do the campaigns reflect several campaign-level segments?
- Is it simple to compare them and balance budgets across them?
Account Settings
Most of the time, you can evaluate your campaign settings quickly and move on.
However, you may need to return to these settings to make modifications depending on your audit evaluations.
For example, are you certain that the advanced location options for your audience are established correctly?
Is there any country or area in the "locations" tab that you don't want?
Are you utilizing dynamic search advertisements? If so, are you aware of it and applying it correctly?
Search and Display Networks
Make sure that none of your ads are targeting both the Search Network and the Display Network.
If they are, try splitting them up into different campaigns—search vs. display is an excellent place to start.
Mobile
Mobile data can vary dramatically between platforms. Advertisers and clients alike are often shocked by their mobile-to-desktop traffic ratio.
It's wise to separate campaign data by device and go through the campaign settings to make sure you're monitoring mobile performance.
Ad Groups
You might have the most well-organized keyword groups that Google Ads has ever seen, but they won't convert searchers into buyers if your ads and landing pages are an afterthought.
In other words, we place too much emphasis on keywords and ad groups before considering the searcher's intent.
The focus must be on landing pages, ads, quality score, ad rank, and, ultimately, giving your advertising efforts the best possible chance to convert.
To help you strike a happy balance, it's a good practice to make sure each ad group includes 10 or fewer keywords.
Topics
Examine the ad groups that are producing the highest amount of impressions, cost, and clicks. Groups that have high marks in these categories should center around the same topics.
Even smaller groups can become disorganized and ineffective when they're not tightly focused on a single goal.
Group Size
Consider any ad groups with more than 20-30 keywords. Think about how you can divide them into smaller ad groups that are more focused on one topic.
This will assist you in creating relevant ads that direct more qualified visitors to your landing pages.
Keywords
When auditing keywords, the name of the game is "granular."
Keep focused on each campaign's unique topic. Ensure keywords are broken down into the appropriate ad groups.
If your campaign runs across a broad range of topics, examine samples for patterns and flaws instead of evaluating each keyword individually.
A few key questions to help you are:
- Are there any keywords with low quality scores?
- Are there any keywords that are irrelevant to the subject matter or conversion goals?
- Are they out of sync with CPC, CTR, conversion, or conversion rate targets?
- Are there some keywords with no conversions but high impressions, clicks, and or spending?
Match Types
It can be challenging to choose the optimal match types for your keywords.
One of the first things to check for is the excessive use of broad-match keywords. Too broad, and you're losing out on the higher converting exact match keywords.
On the other hand, it's possible to have an overly restrictive phrase match for queries, which results in leaving out terms that would-be customers are searching for.
Negative Keywords
Negative keywords protect your campaign from wasted clicks and unqualified or irrelevant traffic.
Here are a few guidelines for auditing your negative keywords:
- Be sure that all your campaigns have negative keywords
- Ensure that all negative keywords are formatted correctly
- Negative keywords are properly managed to avoid redundancy and optimize work-flow
- Check for flaws in negative keyword match types. Undesirable search traffic may not be blocked.
Ads
Ads are typically either overly tested or left unchecked (especially if you have several accounts).
To efficiently test ads, set an even-numbered ad rotation so that each ad group has two ad versions.
Once you've determined the better-performing ad version, run it at more regular intervals.
Here are a few more strategies to audit your ads:
- Ads should be audited for two ad versions within each ad group
- Analyze the use of CTAs in headlines
- Check for ads with poor-quality scores
- Ensure the usage of dynamic keyword insertion and performance against static headlines
If you want to brush up on B2B-targeting Google Search ads, go here.
Ad Extensions
Google Ads can generate automated extensions for you, which you have no control over.
Each campaign should employ (at least) three different types of ad extensions:
Landing Pages
Landing pages don't always come to mind when auditing ad quality scores. However, landing pages directly influence campaign results.
Clear CTAs, copy, design consistency, and enjoyable user experiences are all essential for optimizing conversion rates.
Consider the following:
- Are headlines and CTAs clear and relevant?
- Are the forms working properly?
- Is a dedicated call tracking number available?
- Are customers being directed to thank you messages with tracking codes?
Performance Reports and Conversions
First, be sure that you or your clients have conversion tracking set up. From there you'll be able to optimize accordingly.
If you want to learn some of our techniques to optimize your Google Ads campaign, go here.
Once you know which parts of your account require development or expansion, you'll be able to improve upon the existing status quo.
You'll need to keep notes of the audit as you go through the different phases. It will then have to be shared with others, either internally or outside your business.
Putting your audit on paper, in a PDF, or template format turns it into an action plan. In the future, this will allow you to prioritize and address every issue in a single round, or incorporate the action plan into longer-term activities.
Conclusion
We've attempted to give you some understanding of how to analyze each area of your campaign, along with some guiding questions to ask.
However, there's simply no straightforward cookie-cutter Google Adwords account audit checklist. Audits take time, attention, and creative problem-solving from experienced advertisers.
If you want to discuss auditing your current campaigns to bring in qualified leads, schedule a free call with us here.
