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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
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.
After running 200+ audits, we see the same patterns. Here are the five mistakes that waste the most money:
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.
Monthly reporting template with campaign performance, keyword data, and QS trends.
200+ pre-built negative keywords organized by industry and intent category.
Broader paid media audit covering Google, Meta, LinkedIn, and programmatic.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Our PPC team runs this full 38-point audit plus competitive benchmarking, attribution analysis, and a 90-day optimization roadmap. Most accounts see 15-30% efficiency gains within the first month.