If you are spending money on Google Ads but are not sure where your budget is going, a Google Ads audit can show you what is working, what is wasting money, and what needs to change.
A proper audit looks beyond clicks and impressions. It reviews conversion tracking, campaign structure, keywords, search terms, negative keywords, ads, bidding, budgets, targeting, landing pages, and the quality of the leads or sales generated.
This guide explains how to audit Google Ads step by step, including what to check, which reports to use, and how to turn your findings into an actionable Google Ads audit report.
A Google Ads audit is a structured review of a Google Ads account to identify problems, wasted spend, tracking issues, targeting gaps, and opportunities for improvement.
A useful audit should answer three basic questions:
Google also recommends reviewing performance based on the actual advertising goal. For campaigns focused on conversions, conversion data and landing pages are important areas to review. For traffic-focused campaigns, clicks, CTR, keywords, and search terms become more relevant.
Google Ads accounts can change over time. New campaigns get added, budgets change, keywords accumulate, conversion actions are modified, and search behavior shifts.
An account that performed well several months ago may now contain:
A regular audit gives you a structured way to identify these issues instead of making random campaign changes.
The following process provides a practical Google Ads audit checklist you can use for a new account, an existing campaign, or an account you are taking over from another marketer.
Before looking at individual campaigns, select an appropriate date range.
For many accounts, the last 30 to 90 days can provide useful data. Larger accounts may require a longer period, while accounts with low conversion volume may need more historical data.
Compare the selected period with an earlier period when useful.
Review:
Do not judge an account from one metric alone. A high CTR does not automatically mean a campaign is generating valuable customers.
Conversion tracking is one of the most important parts of a Google Ads audit.
If Google Ads is recording the wrong actions, your performance data can lead you toward the wrong decisions.
Check whether the account is tracking the actions that actually matter to the business.
Depending on the business, these could include:
Then check whether conversions are being recorded correctly.
Look for:
For lead-generation businesses, also check whether recorded leads become genuine enquiries. Ten tracked conversions do not necessarily mean ten qualified leads.
Next, look at the account architecture.
Ask:
A clear structure makes it easier to understand where budget is going and which parts of the account require attention.
Do not restructure an account simply because it looks different from another account. The structure should support the business model, targeting, budget, and reporting requirements.
Campaign settings can quietly affect where and when ads appear.
Review:
For a local service business, confirm that ads are actually targeting the locations the business serves.
For example, a repair shop serving Milton and Oakville should not accidentally spend a large portion of its budget on users outside its service area.
Also check whether location settings match the campaign objective rather than assuming the default setup is correct.
Keywords should have a clear connection to the products or services being advertised.
Review:
Google recommends focusing investment on keywords that are relevant and producing useful results.
Look for keywords that spend money without producing meaningful results.
At the same time, do not remove a keyword simply because it has a low conversion count. Check its impressions, clicks, search terms, cost, conversion cycle, and role in the campaign before making a decision.
The search terms report can reveal what people actually searched before clicking an ad.
This is different from simply looking at the keyword list.
Search terms can help you identify:
Google’s documentation notes that search terms can be reviewed to identify relevant searches and add irrelevant terms as negative keywords.
Sort search terms by cost and conversions.
For example:
| Search term type | Possible action |
| Highly relevant and converting | Consider adding or retaining as a keyword |
| Relevant but no conversion yet | Monitor |
| Irrelevant | Consider a negative keyword |
| Informational only | Review against campaign intent |
| High spend with poor results | Investigate further |
Negative keywords help prevent ads from showing for searches that are not relevant to the business.
Google Ads supports negative keywords at different levels, including campaign and ad group setups.
During the audit, look for:
Be careful here. Adding too many negative keywords can also prevent relevant traffic from reaching your ads. Google specifically advises using negative keywords carefully.
Your ads should match the search intent and the landing page.
Review:
Ask:
Does the ad clearly answer what the searcher is looking for?
For example, if someone searches for “iPhone screen repair,” an ad focused mainly on general phone accessories may not provide a strong message match.
Check whether the landing page supports the exact service or offer mentioned in the ad.
A Google Ads audit should not stop inside the advertising platform.
Open the landing pages used by your campaigns.
Check:
A campaign can generate relevant clicks and still produce poor results if the landing page does not satisfy the visitor.
For lead-generation campaigns, test the complete journey from ad click to form submission or phone call.
Next, review the bidding strategy used by each campaign.
Check:
Do not change bidding strategies simply because another strategy is popular.
Ask whether the current strategy has enough useful data and whether it matches the campaign’s actual objective.
The audit should identify situations where bidding settings may be restricting performance or optimizing toward the wrong outcome.
Look at how the account distributes its budget.
Ask:
A simple budget review can reveal major differences between where money is being spent and where business value is being generated.
However, do not move budgets based only on CPA or ROAS. Consider conversion quality, sales value, margins, lead quality, and the role of each campaign.
Compare performance across:
Look at:
If mobile traffic generates many clicks but very few leads, inspect the mobile landing page and conversion process before making major targeting changes.
Location data is particularly important for local businesses.
Review performance by:
Check whether spending is concentrated in the locations that matter to the business.
A business that only serves a limited geographic area should investigate clicks and conversions from locations outside its service coverage.
Look at performance by day and hour.
You may find that:
Use this information alongside conversion volume. Avoid making scheduling decisions from very small samples.
Review audience settings and audience performance where relevant to the campaign type.
Look for:
The goal is to understand who interacts with the campaigns and whether the targeting supports the business objective.
If the account uses Performance Max, include it in the audit rather than reviewing only Search campaigns.
Check:
The exact audit process should depend on the campaign type. A Search campaign and an ecommerce Performance Max campaign should not be audited in exactly the same way.
Change History can help explain sudden performance changes.
Look for:
If performance suddenly changed, identify what changed around the same time.
This prevents you from treating a recent performance problem as if it has always existed.
Here is a simple Google Ads audit checklist you can use during your review:
| Audit area | What to check |
| Conversion tracking | Goals, tags, values, duplicate actions |
| Campaign structure | Organization, campaign themes, duplication |
| Settings | Locations, language, networks, schedules |
| Keywords | Relevance, match types, performance |
| Search terms | Intent, wasted spend, new opportunities |
| Negative keywords | Irrelevant traffic and exclusions |
| Ads | Headlines, descriptions, CTAs, assets |
| Landing pages | Relevance, mobile UX, forms, CTAs |
| Bidding | Strategy, targets, conversion data |
| Budget | Spend distribution and campaign priorities |
| Devices | Mobile, desktop, tablet performance |
| Locations | Geographic performance |
| Audiences | Targeting and exclusions |
| Campaign types | Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Display |
| Change history | Recent account changes |
This checklist can also form the structure of a reusable Google Ads account audit checklist for future clients.
You do not necessarily need a paid Google Ads audit tool to perform an account audit.
You can manually review the account using Google Ads reports and spreadsheets.
A basic free process is:
Google Ads itself provides reports and diagnostic information that can help identify campaign problems.
A free audit can be useful for smaller accounts. Larger accounts may require more advanced reporting, scripts, spreadsheets, or third-party tools to process data efficiently.
A simple Google Ads audit template can use these columns:
| Audit area | Finding | Evidence | Priority | Recommended action |
| Conversion tracking | Duplicate conversion | Conversion settings | High | Review conversion actions |
| Search terms | Irrelevant queries | Search terms report | High | Add suitable negatives |
| Keywords | High spend, no conversions | Keyword report | Medium | Investigate intent |
| Landing page | Weak message match | Landing page review | Medium | Align page with ad |
| Location | Unwanted traffic | Geographic report | High | Review location targeting |
| Budget | Uneven allocation | Campaign report | Medium | Reassess budget |
You can expand the template depending on the size and complexity of the account.
After completing the audit, turn your findings into a clear Google Ads audit report.
Do not simply export dozens of screenshots and call that a report.
A useful report should explain:
Give a short overview of the account and the main findings.
Explain whether conversion tracking appears to measure the right business actions.
Summarize campaign structure, settings, budgets, and performance.
Identify important keyword problems, useful search themes, and irrelevant queries.
Explain issues with ad relevance, messaging, assets, or calls to action.
Identify problems that could affect the conversion journey.
Separate findings into:
The purpose is to make the report useful for implementation, not simply to list every setting inside the account.
A strong report can contain:
For client work, add screenshots or exported data when they help prove a finding.
Consider a fictional phone repair business running Google Ads for screen replacement and battery repair.
The business receives clicks but reports that many enquiries are irrelevant.
During the audit, the following issues are found:
The recommended action plan would focus first on measurement and search intent, then on keyword exclusions, ad-to-page relevance, and the mobile conversion journey.
The point of the audit is not to change every setting. It is to identify the problems that can affect actual business results and address them in a logical order.
There is no single schedule that fits every account.
Consider a deeper audit:
For active accounts, smaller checks can happen more frequently while a deeper review is performed periodically.
The more important point is consistency. Search terms, budgets, conversions, and campaign settings should not be left unchecked for long periods.
A Google Ads analyzer can help automate parts of an audit by scanning account data and highlighting potential issues.
These tools may help with:
However, an automated audit should support human review rather than replace it.
A tool can flag a setting, but it may not understand the business’s margins, sales process, lead quality, service area, or commercial priorities.
Use automated findings as investigation points, then verify them against the actual account and business data.
A free audit and a paid audit can differ mainly in depth and scope.
A basic free review may identify obvious issues such as:
A paid audit may involve deeper analysis of:
The right level of analysis depends on the account size, advertising spend, business model, and goals.
Learning how to audit Google Ads gives you a repeatable process for finding problems before making campaign changes.
Start with conversion tracking, then review campaign structure, settings, keywords, search terms, negative keywords, ads, landing pages, bidding, budgets, audiences, devices, and locations.
The most useful audit is not the one with the longest checklist. It is the one that connects account data to real business outcomes and gives you a clear list of actions.
If you manage Google Ads for a business in Canada and want support with account analysis, campaign management, and paid search strategy, Web Market Solution provides Google Ads services for Canadian businesses. A structured audit can be the starting point for identifying where an account needs attention and what should be reviewed next.
