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Free Google Ads Audit Checklist: 38 Points That Catch Wasted Spend

A 38-point Google Ads audit checklist covering account structure, keyword strategy, ad copy, bidding, tracking, and landing pages. Built from 200+ account audits at ScaleGrowth.Digital.

Last updated: March 2026 · Reading time: 12 min

Contents

Overview

What does a Google Ads audit actually check?

A Google Ads audit is a systematic review of every setting, keyword, ad, and bid in your account to find wasted spend and missed opportunities. The average Google Ads account wastes 76% of its budget on search terms that never convert, according to WordStream’s 2024 analysis of 2,000+ accounts. This checklist gives you the exact 38 checks our team runs in the first 48 hours of any new PPC engagement.

Google Ads audit: A structured review of account settings, campaign structure, keywords, ads, bids, and tracking to identify wasted spend and growth opportunities.

Each item below is a pass/fail check. If your account fails more than 10 of these 38 points, you’re leaving money on the table. We’ve organized them in the order you should run them: start with structure, end with landing pages.

Section 1

Is your account structure working for or against you?

Account structure determines how Google’s algorithm learns and optimizes. A poorly structured account fragments data across too many campaigns, starving the algorithm of signal. Google’s own best practices documentation (2025) recommends consolidating campaigns where possible to give Smart Bidding more data per campaign.

#	Check	What to look for	Pass/Fail
1	Campaign naming conventions	Consistent format: [Brand/NonBrand]_[Network]_[GeoTarget]_[Theme]. No “Campaign 1” names.	☐
2	Campaign count vs. budget	No more than 1 campaign per $1,500/month in budget. 15 campaigns on $5K/month fragments data.	☐
3	Ad group theme clarity	Each ad group targets a single intent cluster. No ad groups with 30+ unrelated keywords.	☐
4	Search vs. Display separation	Search and Display campaigns are never mixed. Performance Max is separate from standard Search.	☐
5	Brand vs. Non-brand separation	Branded keywords run in a dedicated campaign with their own budget and bid strategy.	☐
6	Geographic targeting structure	Campaigns are split by geo only when performance differs meaningfully by region.	☐

We audited a B2B SaaS account last quarter that had 47 campaigns running on $8,000/month. That’s $170 per campaign per month. After consolidating to 9 campaigns, cost per lead dropped 34% within 6 weeks. Structure matters more than most advertisers realize.

Section 2

Are your campaign settings costing you money?

Campaign settings are the silent budget killers. One wrong toggle can send your ads to the wrong network, wrong location, or wrong time. These 5 checks take 10 minutes but catch the most common misconfigurations we see across accounts spending $5K to $500K per month.

#	Check	What to look for	Pass/Fail
7	Network settings	“Search Partners” is disabled on Search campaigns (typically 20-40% lower conversion rates). Display expansion is off unless intentional.	☐
8	Location targeting method	Set to “Presence” not “Presence or interest.” The default “interest” option shows ads to people who are merely researching your target city, not living there.	☐
9	Language targeting	Matches your actual target audience. English-only accounts shouldn’t target “All languages.”	☐
10	Ad schedule	Ads run only during hours that convert. Check “Day & Hour” report for time slots with zero conversions.	☐
11	Device bid adjustments	Mobile, desktop, and tablet performance reviewed. If mobile CPA is 3x desktop, adjust accordingly.	☐

The location targeting method is the single most expensive default setting in Google Ads. Google’s default setting (“Presence or interest in your targeted locations”) shows your ads to anyone who’s searched for your target city. If you’re a plumber in Denver, your ads could show to someone in Miami who Googled “Denver restaurants.” We’ve seen this setting waste 15-25% of total spend in local service accounts.

Section 3

How healthy is your keyword strategy?

Keywords are the foundation of every Search campaign, but most accounts we audit have keyword lists that haven’t been cleaned in months. Google’s 2024 Ads Benchmarks Report found that the average account has 12% of its budget going to search terms with zero conversions in the last 90 days.

#	Check	What to look for	Pass/Fail
12	Match type distribution	Broad match keywords have sufficient conversion data (50+ conversions/month in the campaign) for Smart Bidding to work. Otherwise, use phrase or exact.	☐
13	Search terms review (last 30 days)	No irrelevant search terms eating more than 5% of spend. Search term report reviewed at least bi-weekly.	☐
14	Negative keyword lists	Account-level and campaign-level negative lists exist. At least 50 negative keywords in mature accounts.	☐
15	Keyword duplication	No keyword appears in multiple ad groups competing against itself. Use cross-campaign negatives if needed.	☐
16	Low Quality Score keywords	Keywords with QS below 5 are flagged. Keywords with QS of 3 or lower either improved or paused.	☐
17	Keyword-to-ad relevance	Each ad group’s keywords match the ad copy language. The keyword should appear in at least one headline.	☐

Negative keywords are the most overlooked lever in PPC. Our Google Ads Negative Keyword List has 200+ pre-built negatives organized by industry. Start there, then add account-specific negatives from your search terms report every two weeks.

Section 4

Are your ads actually compelling?

Google Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) give you 15 headline slots and 4 description slots. Most accounts use 5-8 headlines and 2 descriptions. That’s leaving performance on the table. Google’s internal data (2024) shows that accounts using all 15 headline slots see 10-15% higher click-through rates than those using fewer.

#	Check	What to look for	Pass/Fail
18	RSA completeness	Every ad uses all 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. Pin headlines only when legally required.	☐
19	Ad strength rating	All ads rated “Good” or “Excellent.” Any “Poor” or “Average” ads need rewriting.	☐
20	Unique value propositions	Headlines include at least 3 different angles: feature, benefit, social proof, urgency, price.	☐
21	Sitelink extensions	Minimum 4 sitelinks per campaign. Each links to a different page with unique descriptions.	☐
22	Callout extensions	Minimum 4 callouts highlighting key differentiators (free shipping, 24/7 support, etc.).	☐
23	Structured snippets	At least 2 structured snippet headers relevant to the business (Services, Types, Brands).	☐

Extensions increase your ad’s real estate on the SERP. According to Google’s own case studies, ads with extensions see an average CTR increase of 10-20%. That’s free performance. There’s no cost for adding extensions, and they only show when Google predicts they’ll improve performance.

Section 5

Is your bid strategy aligned with your goals?

Bid strategy selection is where most accounts go wrong. Maximize Clicks is the default, and it’s wrong for 90% of accounts that have conversion data. If your campaign gets 30+ conversions per month, you should be on Target CPA or Target ROAS. If you’re below 30, Maximize Conversions (without a target) is the right stepping stone.

#	Check	What to look for	Pass/Fail
24	Bid strategy selection	Strategy matches campaign maturity. New campaigns: Manual CPC or Max Clicks. 30+ conv/month: Target CPA. Revenue tracking: Target ROAS.	☐
25	Target CPA/ROAS accuracy	Targets are set based on actual historical performance, not aspirational goals. Unrealistic targets suppress volume.	☐
26	Budget pacing	No campaigns are “Limited by budget” unless intentional. Budget-limited campaigns lose impression share on high-value queries.	☐
27	Search impression share	Brand campaigns: 90%+ IS. Non-brand: acceptable IS for the vertical (typically 40-70%).	☐
28	Wasted spend ratio	Less than 20% of total spend goes to keywords/search terms with zero conversions in 90 days.	☐

Budget pacing is often ignored. A campaign set to $100/day but consistently spending only $65/day means either your bids are too low, your keywords are too narrow, or your ad schedule is too restrictive. Conversely, a campaign that hits its daily cap by 2 PM is missing conversions in the afternoon and evening.

Section 6

Can you trust your conversion data?

Conversion tracking is the single most important element in your Google Ads account. If tracking is broken, every bid strategy, every optimization decision, and every report is built on bad data. Roughly 30% of accounts we audit have at least one conversion tracking issue, according to our internal data from 200+ audits since 2022.

#	Check	What to look for	Pass/Fail
29	Tag firing verification	Test every conversion action with Google Tag Assistant. Tags fire on the correct pages, at the correct time.	☐
30	Conversion counting	“One” for leads, “Every” for purchases. Most lead gen accounts should use “One” to avoid double-counting.	☐
31	Conversion window	Click-through window matches your sales cycle. B2B SaaS with 60-day sales cycle needs a 60-90 day window, not the 30-day default.	☐
32	Enhanced conversions setup	Enhanced conversions enabled to recover conversions lost to cookie restrictions. Google estimates this recovers 5-15% of lost conversions (2025).	☐

Don’t skip the Tag Assistant test. We’ve found accounts where the conversion tag fires on every page load, inflating conversion counts by 400%. The CPA looked incredible. The actual results were terrible. Always verify with real test submissions.

Section 7

Are you using audience data effectively?

Audiences in Google Ads go beyond basic remarketing. In-market audiences, custom segments, and customer match lists let you layer intent signals on top of keyword targeting. Google’s 2024 benchmarks show that adding audience observation layers to Search campaigns improves conversion rates by 15-25% because you can bid higher on users who show purchase intent.

#	Check	What to look for	Pass/Fail
33	Remarketing lists	At least 3 remarketing lists: all visitors (30 days), cart abandoners/form starters, converters (for exclusion).	☐
34	Audience observation mode	In-market and affinity audiences added in “Observation” mode to Search campaigns for bid adjustments and data collection.	☐
35	Customer match	CRM email list uploaded as Customer Match for targeting and exclusion. Refreshed at least quarterly.	☐

One often-missed tactic: exclude your existing customers from acquisition campaigns. If you’re a SaaS company, uploading your current customer list and excluding them from non-brand campaigns can cut wasted spend by 8-12%. They’re already paying you. Don’t pay to reach them again.

Section 8

Do your landing pages convert the traffic you’re paying for?

The best Google Ads account in the world won’t fix a bad landing page. Your ads bring visitors; your landing page converts them. Unbounce’s 2024 Conversion Benchmark Report analyzed 44,000 landing pages and found the median conversion rate is 4.3%. Top-performing pages convert at 11.5%+. The gap is almost always about message match, load speed, and form friction.

#	Check	What to look for	Pass/Fail
36	Message match	The landing page headline matches the ad headline. The offer on the landing page matches the offer in the ad. No bait-and-switch.	☐
37	Page load speed	Under 3 seconds on mobile (test with Google PageSpeed Insights). Every extra second of load time reduces conversions by 7% (Google, 2023).	☐
38	Mobile experience	Form is short (5 fields max for lead gen). CTA is above the fold on mobile. No horizontal scrolling.	☐

Run this check: open your top 5 landing pages on your phone. Fill out the form yourself. Time it. If it takes more than 30 seconds or requires scrolling to find the CTA, your mobile conversion rate is suffering.

“Most Google Ads accounts don’t have a traffic problem. They have a waste problem. When we run this 38-point audit on a new account, we typically find 20-35% of spend going to search terms, settings, or time slots that have never produced a single conversion. Fixing those leaks funds your growth.”
Hardik Shah, Founder of ScaleGrowth.Digital

Implementation

How should you use this Google Ads audit checklist?

Don’t try to fix everything at once. Run through all 38 points first and score your account. Mark each item as pass or fail. Then prioritize fixes by impact. Here’s our recommended sequence:

Week 1: Conversion tracking (items 29-32). If tracking is broken, every other optimization is meaningless. Fix tracking first.
Week 2: Campaign settings and structure (items 1-11). These are quick fixes that stop active money leaks. Location targeting method alone can save thousands.
Week 3: Keywords and negatives (items 12-17). Clean up your keyword lists. Add negatives. Kill zero-conversion keywords. Use our negative keyword list as a starting point.
Week 4: Ads, audiences, and landing pages (items 18-23, 33-38). These are the growth levers. Once waste is eliminated, ad copy and landing page improvements drive incremental gains.

Run this audit quarterly. Set a calendar reminder. Google Ads changes constantly: new match type behaviors, new bidding algorithms, new defaults that Google enables without telling you. What passed three months ago might fail today.

Pitfalls

What are the most common Google Ads audit mistakes?

After running 200+ audits, we see the same patterns. Here are the five mistakes that waste the most money:

Auditing campaigns but not account-level settings. Location targeting method, conversion counting, and network settings are set at the campaign level but often inherited from account defaults. Miss these and you miss the biggest leaks.
Ignoring the search terms report. The keyword list and the search terms report are two different things. Your keywords trigger search terms. If you’re not reviewing the actual search terms weekly, you’re flying blind.
Setting Target CPA too aggressively. An unrealistic Target CPA (say, $20 when your historical CPA is $45) will cause Google to stop bidding entirely. Your impressions will drop to near zero. Set targets 10-15% below actual, then tighten gradually.
Treating all campaigns equally. Brand campaigns and non-brand campaigns have different economics. Brand CPCs are $0.50-2.00; non-brand can be $5-50. They need different budgets, different bid strategies, and different success metrics.
Running the audit once and never again. Google changes defaults. New campaigns inherit old settings. Team members make changes. Quarterly audits catch drift before it becomes expensive.

Download the Google Ads Audit Checklist

Get this 38-point checklist as a Google Sheets template with auto-scoring. Check off items, get an instant health score, and share results with your team or clients. Download Free Checklist →

Google Ads Report Template

Monthly reporting template with campaign performance, keyword data, and QS trends.

Google Ads Negative Keyword List

200+ pre-built negative keywords organized by industry and intent category.

PPC Audit Checklist

Broader paid media audit covering Google, Meta, LinkedIn, and programmatic.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should you audit a Google Ads account?

Run a full 38-point audit quarterly and after any major change (new campaign launches, budget shifts above 20%, bid strategy changes, or website redesigns). Between full audits, review the search terms report and conversion tracking weekly.

What is the most important thing to check in a Google Ads audit?

Conversion tracking accuracy. If your conversion tags are misconfigured (double-firing, wrong counting method, or wrong conversion window), every bid strategy decision is based on bad data. Start there.

How long does a Google Ads audit take?

A thorough audit using this 38-point checklist takes 2-4 hours for a mid-size account (10-20 campaigns, $10K-50K/month spend). Smaller accounts can be audited in under 2 hours. Enterprise accounts with 50+ campaigns may take a full day.

Can I audit Google Ads without third-party tools?

Yes. Every check in this checklist can be done inside the Google Ads interface and Google Tag Assistant. Third-party tools like Optmyzr or Adalysis speed up the process, but they aren’t required for a solid audit.

What’s a good Quality Score for Google Ads?

Aim for 7+ on non-brand keywords and 8+ on brand keywords. Quality Score of 5-6 is average. Below 5 means your keyword, ad copy, and landing page alignment needs work. Quality Score directly impacts your CPC: a QS of 10 can reduce your cost per click by up to 50% compared to a QS of 5.