Google Ads Audit: A 12-Point Checklist, the Warning Signs and the Fixes

A Google Ads audit answers one question: is every euro or dollar spent bringing the result the business wants? Accounts drift. Default settings stay switched on, broad match picks up irrelevant searches, a tag breaks after a site update and automated bidding starts optimizing for the wrong goal. This checklist goes through the 12 areas in the order that matters, with the warning sign to look for and the fix for each, based on Google's own documentation. If you are new to the platform, start with our guide to paid search and how Google Ads works.

What is a Google Ads audit, and when do you need one?

An audit is a read-only review: you note problems and rank them before changing anything. Changing settings during the review makes it impossible to tell which fix worked. You need one in four situations:

• Cost per acquisition is rising with no change in the market.
• You take over an account from an agency, a freelancer or a colleague.
• Before raising the budget, to avoid scaling waste.
• After a site migration, a new checkout or a new form, when tracking often breaks.

Set a time window before you start: at least 30 days of data, ideally 90, so that results are not distorted by one week of noise. Export the change history too: it shows who changed what, and when.

The 12-point Google Ads audit checklist

1. Conversion tracking

Everything else depends on this. Check which conversion actions are set as primary (the ones bidding optimizes for) and that they reflect real business value: a purchase, a qualified lead, a booked call. Page views, scroll depth or clicks on a phone number shown on every page inflate results and mislead Smart Bidding. Then compare the conversions in Google Ads with your back office or CRM over the same period. Our guide to conversion tracking covers the setup, enhanced conversions and consent mode for European traffic.

2. Account structure

Campaigns should follow how you sell: by product line, service, region or margin, with brand searches in their own campaign. Mixing brand and non-brand terms hides the real cost of new customers, because brand clicks are cheap and convert well. Too many tiny campaigns are the other extreme: each one gets too little data for automated bidding to learn.

3. Campaign settings

Three default settings deserve a check in every Search campaign:

• Location options: "Presence or interest" shows ads to people outside your area who show interest in it. Local businesses usually want "Presence" only.
• Networks: Search partners and the Display Network can be enabled in Search campaigns. Check their results in the segment report before keeping them.
• Auto-applied recommendations: if they are switched on, Google can change keywords, ads or bids without asking. Review the list and keep only what you accept.

4. Keywords and match types

Look at the cost and conversions of each keyword over 90 days. Keywords that spend without converting need pausing, a lower bid or a closer landing page. Match types matter: broad match reaches the most searches and Google recommends pairing it with Smart Bidding, but it needs solid conversion data and strict negatives. Phrase and exact match give more control on small budgets. To check what a click is worth on each keyword, compare your cost per click with your margin.

5. Search terms and negative keywords

The search terms report is the most profitable part of the audit. According to Google Ads Help on the search terms report, it shows the actual searches that triggered your ads, and negatives added from it default to negative exact match. Negative keywords do not match close variants, so add singular, plural and common misspellings yourself. Look for job seekers ("jobs", "salary"), DIY searches ("free", "template", "how to"), competitors you do not want to pay for and locations you do not serve.

6. Ads

Each ad group should contain at least one responsive search ad. Google's responsive search ads documentation allows up to 15 headlines of 30 characters and 4 descriptions of 90 characters. Warning signs: few headlines, all saying the same thing, everything pinned to fixed positions, or ad copy that does not repeat the words people searched. Ads should state the offer, a proof point and a clear next step.

7. Assets

Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, images, call and location assets make the ad larger and give more reasons to click. Check that they exist at the right level (account, campaign or ad group), that sitelinks point to live pages and that promotions have not expired. Track click-through rate before and after: our CTR calculator helps compare ad groups.

8. Bidding strategy

The strategy must match the volume of data. Target CPA or target ROAS needs a steady flow of conversions per campaign; with only a handful per month, the algorithm guesses. Check that targets are realistic (a target CPA far below the historic level throttles delivery) and that strategies are not changed every few days, which restarts the learning period each time. For ecommerce, the ROAS calculator gives the break-even target based on your margin.

9. Budget and impression share

Two columns tell you where volume is lost: search lost impression share (budget) means you run out of money; search lost impression share (rank) means your Ad Rank is too weak. A campaign limited by budget that converts profitably deserves more; a campaign losing on rank needs better ads, pages or bids, not more budget. Our guide to Google Ads cost explains how to set a budget from your targets.

10. Quality Score

Add the Quality Score columns and their three components at keyword level. Low expected CTR points to the ad, low ad relevance to the link between keyword and ad, and below-average landing page experience to the page. The Quality Score guide explains what to change for each component. Treat it as a diagnostic, not a goal in itself.

11. Landing pages

Open the landing pages report and test each top page on a phone. The page should repeat the promise of the ad, load fast, show proof near the call to action and have a form that works and fires the conversion only once. A generic homepage used as the landing page for every keyword is one of the most common causes of poor conversion rates. See our checklist for a high-converting landing page.

12. Performance Max

Performance Max runs across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one campaign, which makes it harder to audit. Check that asset groups match real offers, that audience signals are filled in, that brand traffic is not inflating results, and that the final URL expansion setting sends people only to useful pages. Google now allows up to 10,000 campaign-level negative keywords per Performance Max campaign. For retailers, check the product feed and its errors in Merchant Center, and compare with dedicated Shopping campaigns.

Audit table: question, warning sign and fix

The optimization score shown in the interface is not an audit. Google describes it as an estimate of how well the account is set to perform, from 0 to 100%, based on its own recommendations; a high score does not prove profitability.

How often should you audit a Google Ads account?

The same method applies to Microsoft Advertising, where imported campaigns often copy Google's settings without anyone checking them.

Google Ads audits, SEO and AI answers

An audit often reveals that a large share of the budget goes to informational searches ("what is", "how to", "best") that convert poorly. Those queries are better served by content that ranks in organic results and gets cited in AI answers. Ads also now appear around AI-generated summaries: according to Google Ads Help on ads and AI Overviews, advertisers can neither target nor exclude that placement, so the only lever on what the AI says about your brand is the content it cites. AI mention tracking shows whether ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini name your brand on your customers' questions.

A good Google Ads audit cuts spend on searches that do not convert and moves that budget to the ones that do. For the informational queries you stop paying for, Sorank's article generator writes and publishes optimized articles on autopilot, so that organic search and AI answers take over. Plans and the 3-day free trial are on the pricing page.