Google Ads Account Audit: The 25-Point Checklist

Most Google Ads accounts waste 20-35% of their budget. That’s not a scare tactic. It’s what we find every time we open a new account for review. Mismatched keywords, broken conversion tracking, campaigns fighting each other for the same queries. The waste is predictable because the mistakes are predictable.

This 25-point checklist is how we audit Google Ads accounts at ScaleGrowth.Digital. It’s the same process we run before recommending a single change to campaign structure, bid strategy, or budget. Every item maps to a specific type of wasted spend or missed opportunity.

Run this yourself. Fix what you find. Or bring us in to do it.

How should you prioritize these 25 audit points?

Not all audit items carry equal weight. Some will immediately stop budget from draining. Others are optimization opportunities you can get to later. Here’s how we tier them:

Priority	Audit Items	Why This Tier
Critical (fix immediately)	Conversion tracking, budget allocation, keyword match types, negative keywords, bid strategy alignment	These directly control whether your money is wasted or working. Broken conversion tracking alone makes every other optimization meaningless.
Important (fix within 2 weeks)	Account structure, Quality Score, ad copy, landing page alignment, search term reports, geographic targeting, audience targeting	These affect cost-per-conversion and scale potential. You’re paying more than you should without fixing these.
Optimize (ongoing)	Ad extensions, device performance, dayparting, remarketing, Performance Max review, attribution model, competitor analysis, campaign settings	These are efficiency gains. They won’t stop bleeding, but they’ll get you 10-30% more from the same budget once the critical items are solid.

Start at the top. Don’t touch dayparting if your conversion tracking is broken.

1. Is your conversion tracking actually working?

This is item number one for a reason. We’ve audited accounts spending Rs 5 lakh per month where the primary conversion action was tracking page views instead of form submissions. Every optimization decision downstream was based on garbage data.

Check these specifics:

• Are your conversion actions set to “Primary” only for the actions that represent real business value (purchases, qualified leads, phone calls)?
• Is the Google Ads tag firing on the correct thank-you or confirmation page, not on the form page itself?
• Do your conversion numbers in Google Ads roughly match your CRM? If Google Ads says 50 leads and your CRM shows 12, something’s wrong.
• Are you using Enhanced Conversions? Google’s own data shows it improves reported conversion accuracy by 5-17%.
• Check your conversion window. A 90-day window for a product with a 3-day decision cycle inflates your numbers.

Without accurate conversion tracking, you’re flying blind. Every point below assumes this one is already fixed.

2. Does your account structure match your business goals?

Google Ads accounts tend to accumulate campaigns the way closets accumulate junk. Someone created a campaign for a product launch in 2022. It’s still running. Nobody remembers why there are three campaigns targeting the same service in different match types.

A clean structure looks like this:

• One campaign per distinct business objective (lead gen, brand awareness, remarketing, ecommerce)
• Ad groups with tight thematic keyword clusters (8-15 keywords per ad group, not 50)
• Naming conventions that any team member can understand six months from now
• No duplicate keywords across campaigns (unless intentionally segmented by match type with clear priority rules)

If you can’t explain why each campaign exists in one sentence, that campaign probably shouldn’t exist.

3. Are your campaign settings actually what you think they are?

Campaign settings are where Google quietly defaults to options that benefit Google’s revenue more than your performance. Check these:

• Network settings: Is Search Partners enabled? In most accounts, Search Partners traffic converts at 40-60% lower rates than Google Search. Turn it off unless your data says otherwise.
• Location targeting: Are you targeting “People in or regularly in your targeted locations” or “People in, or who show interest in, your targeted locations”? The second option (Google’s default) will show your Mumbai restaurant ads to people in Delhi who once googled “Mumbai restaurants.”
• Language settings: Should match your actual target audience, not be left on “All languages” by default.
• Ad rotation: “Optimize” is fine for most accounts. But if you’re actively testing ad copy, you want “Do not optimize” temporarily so Google doesn’t kill your test too early.

4. What’s happening with your keyword match types?

Google has pushed aggressively toward broad match over the past two years. Their argument: Smart Bidding plus broad match equals better reach at the same CPA. That’s sometimes true. Often it’s not.

Audit your match type distribution:

• What percentage of spend is on broad match vs. phrase match vs. exact match?
• For broad match keywords, are they paired with a smart bidding strategy (Target CPA or Target ROAS)? Broad match with manual CPC is almost always a budget fire.
• Are your exact match keywords actually getting exact match traffic, or has Google’s “close variants” expanded them into queries that don’t make sense?

“I’ve seen accounts where broad match ‘running shoes’ was matching to ‘how to run a shoe store.’ The intent gap is massive, and the advertiser was paying for every irrelevant click,” says Hardik Shah, Founder of ScaleGrowth.Digital.

Pull your actual search terms report before deciding whether your match type strategy is working.

5. When did you last review your negative keywords?

Negative keyword lists are the most neglected part of most Google Ads accounts. They get set up once and never touched again. Meanwhile, Google’s match type expansion keeps finding new creative ways to match your ads to queries you’d never want.

Your audit should check:

• Do negative keyword lists exist at both campaign and account level?
• When was the last time someone reviewed the search terms report and added negatives? If it’s been more than 30 days, you’re leaking budget.
• Are your negatives blocking any of your own target keywords? This happens more than you’d think, especially in accounts with complex structures.
• Have you added negatives for job-seekers (“jobs,” “careers,” “salary”), informational queries (“what is,” “how to” where they don’t convert), and competitor brand terms you don’t want to bid on?

We typically find 15-25% of search term spend going to irrelevant queries in accounts that haven’t been audited in 90+ days.

6. Is your ad copy doing its job?

Responsive Search Ads give Google up to 43,680 possible combinations from 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. That’s a lot of room for mediocrity.

Check:

• Does at least one headline include the primary keyword for that ad group?
• Is there a clear value proposition, not just feature statements?
• Does the CTA tell people what to do next? “Get a Free Quote” outperforms “Learn More” for lead gen, consistently.
• Are you pinning your most important headlines to positions 1 and 2? Without pinning, Google may show your weakest headline first.
• What’s the ad strength? “Poor” and “Average” ads don’t necessarily perform badly, but they get less reach. Aim for “Good” or “Excellent.”
• Do you have at least 2 active RSAs per ad group for testing?

Bad ad copy isn’t just an aesthetic problem. It tanks your Quality Score, raises your CPC, and costs you ad rank.

7. What are your Quality Scores telling you?

Quality Score is Google’s 1-10 rating of your keyword-ad-landing page relevance chain. A Quality Score of 6 means you’re paying roughly 25% more per click than an advertiser with a Quality Score of 8 on the same keyword.

Break it down by component:

• Expected CTR: Below average? Your ad copy isn’t compelling enough for that keyword, or the keyword doesn’t match user intent.
• Ad Relevance: Below average? Your ad copy doesn’t include the keyword or doesn’t match the search intent.
• Landing Page Experience: Below average? Your landing page is slow, not mobile-friendly, or doesn’t match what the ad promised.

Sort your keywords by Quality Score. Anything below 5 needs immediate attention or should be paused. Keywords between 5 and 7 are optimization targets.

8. Does your bid strategy match your actual goal?

This one’s surprisingly common: an account with a lead generation goal running Maximize Clicks instead of Maximize Conversions. Or an ecommerce account using Target CPA when Target ROAS would be more appropriate.

The quick guide:

• Maximize Conversions / Target CPA: Best for lead gen when you know your target cost per lead
• Maximize Conversion Value / Target ROAS: Best for ecommerce with variable order values
• Maximize Clicks: Only appropriate for brand awareness or when you have very few conversions (under 15/month) and need data
• Manual CPC: Rarely makes sense in 2026 unless you have a very small, controlled account and deep expertise

Also check: does the campaign have enough conversion data for smart bidding to work? Google recommends at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days. Below that, the algorithm is guessing.

9. Are your landing pages aligned with your ads?

This is where paid search and website teams often work in complete isolation. The ad says “Free 30-Minute Consultation” and the landing page says “Contact Us.” The ad promotes a specific product and the landing page is the homepage.

For each major ad group, verify:

• Does the landing page headline match the ad headline (or at least the intent)?
• Is the CTA on the landing page the same action the ad promised?
• Does the landing page load in under 3 seconds on mobile? Google’s data shows that 53% of mobile visitors leave a page that takes longer than 3 seconds.
• Is the landing page mobile-responsive? Not just “it technically works on mobile” but actually optimized for thumb-based navigation.
• Is there a clear conversion path above the fold?

A misaligned landing page can cut your conversion rate in half. It also hurts Quality Score, which means you pay more per click on top of converting less. Double penalty.

10. Who are you actually targeting?

Audience targeting in Google Ads has gotten more powerful and more confusing simultaneously. Your audit should cover:

• Are you using audience segments for observation or targeting? “Observation” lets you bid adjust without restricting reach. “Targeting” restricts who sees your ads.
• Have you added relevant in-market and affinity audiences?
• Are you using Customer Match with your existing email lists?
• Do your audience exclusions make sense? Existing customers shouldn’t see acquisition campaigns (unless you’re cross-selling).

If the answer to “who are your audiences?” is “everyone,” that’s a problem.

11. Is your budget going where the results are?

Budget allocation is where strategy becomes math. Pull a campaign-level report showing spend vs. conversions vs. cost per conversion for the last 90 days.

What you’re looking for:

• Campaigns with high spend and zero or few conversions. Why are they still getting budget?
• Campaigns with low spend but strong cost-per-conversion. These are being starved.
• Campaigns hitting their daily budget before 2 PM. They need more budget or better targeting to stretch further.
• “Limited by budget” warnings. Google shows this when your campaign could get more conversions with a higher budget. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes the “conversions” would be garbage.

Budget reallocation is usually the fastest win in any audit. Move money from what’s not working to what is. Simple.

12. What’s hiding in your search terms report?

Google now hides a significant portion of search terms. According to industry studies, advertisers can only see the actual search term for 60-70% of their clicks. But the portion you can see is still a goldmine.

Look for:

• Irrelevant terms eating budget (add as negatives)
• High-performing terms that should be their own exact match keywords
• Brand terms showing up in non-brand campaigns (segment these)
• Patterns that reveal intent mismatches (people searching for information when you’re selling a product)

We review search terms weekly for active accounts. Monthly is the absolute minimum.

13. Are you using all relevant ad extensions?

Google now calls these “assets.” Whatever you call them, they increase your ad’s real estate on the page and improve CTR by 10-20% on average.

Minimum extensions for every search campaign:

• Sitelinks: 4-6 links to key pages (pricing, case studies, contact, specific services)
• Callouts: Short proof points (“17 Years Experience,” “Free Audit,” “No Long-Term Contracts”)
• Structured snippets: Service categories, product types, course types
• Call extension: If you accept phone calls
• Location extension: If you have a physical presence
• Image extensions: Still underused by most advertisers, but they can increase CTR significantly

Missing extensions is like showing up to a job interview without a resume. You technically can, but why would you?

14. How are your campaigns performing across devices?

Device performance is one of those things that varies wildly by industry. B2B accounts often see desktop conversion rates 2-3x higher than mobile. Local service businesses see the opposite.

Check:

• Segment your campaign data by device (desktop, mobile, tablet)
• Compare conversion rates and cost per conversion across devices
• If mobile converts at a significantly higher cost, consider a bid adjustment. A -30% mobile bid modifier can be appropriate for some B2B accounts.
• If you’re spending 60% on mobile but 80% of your conversions come from desktop, you have a problem.

Don’t just adjust bids. Ask why mobile converts worse. Usually it’s a landing page problem, not a traffic quality problem.

15. Is your geographic targeting actually right?

Geographic targeting mistakes are expensive and invisible. They don’t show up unless you specifically look.

• Pull a geographic report. Are you getting clicks from locations you don’t serve?
• For local businesses: are your radius targets tight enough? A 50km radius around Mumbai includes areas you probably don’t service.
• For national campaigns: which cities or states are converting and which are just spending? Create location bid adjustments based on actual performance.
• Remember the campaign settings check from point 3. “Interest in” targeting is the default, and it will show your ads to people who aren’t in your area.

We’ve found accounts where 15-20% of spend was going to locations the business couldn’t even serve. That’s money gone.

16. Should you be using dayparting?

Dayparting (ad scheduling) lets you adjust bids or pause ads during specific hours or days. It’s not always necessary, but it’s always worth checking.

Pull your hour-of-day and day-of-week performance data:

• Are conversions concentrated during business hours? If you’re a B2B company and 90% of your leads come between 9 AM and 6 PM, spending the same amount at 2 AM doesn’t make sense.
• Is there a specific day of the week that consistently underperforms? Saturday might cost 2x per lead compared to Tuesday.
• Are you running call-only campaigns outside business hours when nobody can answer?

A word of caution: don’t over-optimize here. You need at least 90 days of data and statistical significance before making aggressive dayparting decisions. Small sample sizes lie.

17. Is your remarketing set up properly?

Remarketing should be a separate, intentional strategy. Not an afterthought bolted onto existing campaigns.

Audit checklist:

• Is the Google Ads remarketing tag (or GA4 audiences linked to Google Ads) firing on all pages?
• Do you have audience lists segmented by intent level? Someone who visited your pricing page is much warmer than someone who bounced from a blog post.
• What’s the membership duration? 30 days is standard, but for high-consideration B2B purchases, 90-180 days might be appropriate.
• Are you capping frequency? Showing the same ad 50 times to the same person doesn’t create conversions. It creates irritation. 3-5 impressions per day is a good starting point.
• Do your remarketing ads say something different from your prospecting ads? They should. This person already knows you exist.

18. Is Performance Max actually performing?

Performance Max campaigns are Google’s black box. They run across Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Discover. Google loves recommending them. Whether they work for you is a different question.

Key things to examine:

• What percentage of PMax conversions are brand queries? Use the “Insights” tab to see which search themes are driving results. If 70% is brand traffic, PMax isn’t finding new customers. It’s just cannibalizing your brand campaign at a higher cost.
• Are your asset groups well-organized with relevant creative and clear audience signals?
• Have you excluded your brand terms from PMax? This is now possible and should be done in most cases.
• How does PMax cost-per-conversion compare to your standard Search campaigns for the same product/service?

Performance Max is not a strategy. It’s a campaign type. If you can’t see what it’s actually doing, you can’t improve it.

19. Is your attribution model giving you accurate data?

Google retired first-click, linear, time-decay, and position-based attribution in 2023. You’re now choosing between last-click and data-driven attribution (DDA).

For most accounts with sufficient conversion volume, data-driven attribution is the better choice. It distributes credit across the touchpoints that actually influenced the conversion.

But here’s what to check:

• What attribution model is currently set? Some accounts were never migrated from the old models.
• If you’re using DDA, do you have enough conversion volume for it to work properly? Google recommends at least 300 conversions and 3,000 ad interactions in the last 30 days.
• Are you comparing attributed conversions to actual business outcomes? Attribution models are approximations. Your CRM tells you what actually happened.

20. What are your competitors doing?

You don’t optimize in a vacuum. The Google Ads Auction Insights report tells you who you’re competing against and how often.

Look at:

• Impression share: What percentage of eligible impressions are you actually winning? Below 50% for your core terms means competitors are outbidding or outranking you consistently.
• Overlap rate: Which competitors appear alongside you most often?
• Position above rate: Who consistently outranks you?
• Run some incognito searches for your top keywords. What are competitors saying in their ads? What landing pages are they using?

Competitor intelligence isn’t about copying. It’s about understanding the auction you’re bidding in. If a competitor consistently outranks you, understanding why helps you decide whether to compete harder on that term or find less competitive opportunities.

21. Are your ad groups too broad?

This is often a structural problem that shows up as a performance problem. When an ad group contains 40 keywords covering 5 different intents, the ad copy can’t possibly be relevant to all of them.

Signs of ad groups that need splitting:

• More than 15-20 keywords in a single ad group
• Keywords with very different search intent grouped together
• Low Quality Scores across the ad group despite decent ads
• Low CTR because the ad isn’t specific enough for half the queries

The fix is usually breaking one bloated ad group into 3-4 tighter groups, each with tailored ad copy. CTR goes up, Quality Score improves, CPC drops. Worth the 20 minutes it takes.

22. Are you tracking the right micro-conversions?

Primary conversions (purchases, form fills) tell you what happened. Micro-conversions tell you what’s about to happen.

• PDF downloads
• Pricing page visits
• Video views (50%+ completion)
• Add-to-cart without purchase
• Chat initiated

Set these as secondary conversion actions (not primary, so they don’t mess with your smart bidding). They’ll give you early signals about campaign quality before you have enough primary conversion data to make decisions.

23. Is your Google Ads account linked to everything it should be?

Quick checklist:

• Google Analytics 4 linked and sharing audiences?
• Google Search Console linked?
• Google Business Profile linked (if applicable)?
• Google Merchant Center linked (if ecommerce)?
• YouTube channel linked?
• CRM or offline conversion import set up?

Missing links mean missing data. Missing data means worse decisions. It’s a 5-minute fix that pays dividends permanently.

24. Are you acting on Google’s recommendations (selectively)?

Google’s Recommendations tab is a mix of genuinely useful suggestions and self-serving revenue grabs. The trick is knowing which is which.

Generally worth considering:

• Removing redundant keywords
• Adding audience segments for observation
• Fixing disapproved ads

Generally worth ignoring:

• “Raise your budget” (Google always wants you to spend more)
• “Switch to broad match” (unless you’ve tested it specifically)
• “Add more keywords” that are tangentially related at best
• Auto-applied recommendations you didn’t consent to. Check Settings > Auto-applied recommendations and turn off anything you haven’t explicitly approved.

Your Optimization Score is partly based on accepting these recommendations. Don’t chase the score. Chase actual performance.

25. When was your last full audit?

If you’re reading this checklist and the answer is “never” or “I don’t remember,” that’s your answer right there. Google Ads accounts decay. Match type expansion gets looser. New competitors enter. Conversion actions break. Landing pages change. What worked 6 months ago might be actively losing money today.

“We recommend quarterly audits for accounts spending over Rs 2 lakh per month, and at minimum twice a year for smaller accounts. The ROI on a proper audit is almost always positive because the waste is almost always there,” says Hardik Shah, Founder of ScaleGrowth.Digital.

What to do after the audit

Don’t try to fix everything at once. Prioritize using the table at the top of this post. Fix the critical items first, then move to important, then to ongoing optimization. Track your baseline metrics before making changes so you can measure impact.

Some of these items take 5 minutes. Others require structural rework across the account. That’s normal. The point isn’t perfection on day one. The point is knowing exactly where the problems are and having a plan to fix them.

If you want a professional team to run this audit for you, ScaleGrowth.Digital offers a comprehensive Google Ads audit that goes deeper than this checklist. We’ll pull your data, identify the waste, and give you a prioritized action plan. We also manage Google Ads campaigns for brands that want ongoing optimization, not just a one-time review.

Your ad budget is either building your business or funding Google’s. This checklist helps you make sure it’s the former.