Google Ads Audit Checklist: 27 Things to Check Before Spending Another Dollar
Many Google Ads accounts have fixable issues quietly draining budget. This checklist shows you exactly where to look — and what to do about what you find.
What You'll Learn
- The 27 most impactful Google Ads audit checks, organized by category so you can work through them systematically
- Which issues are critical (immediate revenue impact) versus which are medium-priority optimization opportunities
- What to look for in the Search Terms Report, and how to use it to build a proactive negative keyword strategy
- How to verify your conversion tracking is actually recording real business events — not just page loads
- A landing page checklist covering page speed, message match and mobile form usability
Account Settings
4 checksLocation Targeting: Presence vs. Interest
Confirm your campaigns target people "Present in or regularly in" your target location — not "Interested in." The default setting can serve your ads to people researching your city from across the country who will never become customers.
CRITICALDevice Bid Adjustments Are Intentional
Pull a performance breakdown by device (desktop, mobile, tablet). If mobile drives most of your clicks but converts at a much lower rate, that gap should be reflected in how you manage device bids, not silently eating budget. Device bid adjustments apply to manual bidding strategies; with Smart Bidding, the system already uses device as a signal in each auction, so check Google's current documentation for how your strategy treats them.
HIGH IMPACTAd Scheduling Matches Business Hours
If your business cannot take calls or accept leads outside certain hours, you should not be running ads at full bid around the clock. Review your hour-of-day performance report and use ad scheduling to align spend with available capacity. Time-of-day bid adjustments work with some bidding strategies, while Smart Bidding strategies set bids per auction, so on those you may need to exclude hours entirely or change targets instead. Check Google's current documentation for your strategy.
HIGH IMPACTSearch Network Only (No Display Opt-In)
The "Search Network with Display expansion" setting silently shows your ads on the Display Network when Google determines your Search budget is not spending efficiently. This typically produces low-quality, low-intent traffic. Run Search and Display as separate campaigns with separate budgets and goals.
CRITICALCampaign Settings
4 checksBidding Strategy Matches Data Availability
Smart Bidding strategies such as Target CPA and Target ROAS learn from your conversion history, and accounts with very little recent conversion data can see unstable results while they learn. Google publishes guidance on the data each strategy needs, so check its current documentation for your chosen strategy. If your account has limited conversion data, a simpler strategy or a broader conversion goal may work better until volume builds. Confirm your bidding strategy fits your current conversion volume.
CRITICALDaily Budget vs. Actual Spend Ratio
Check if campaigns are limited by budget (Google will flag this). If a campaign regularly spends 100% of its daily budget before noon, you are likely losing significant afternoon and evening impressions when intent remains high. Either increase budget or reduce bids to pace more evenly across the day.
HIGH IMPACTBranded and Non-Branded Campaigns Are Separate
If your brand name keywords share a campaign with competitive or generic service keywords, your brand terms are absorbing budget at low CPCs and artificially inflating campaign-level conversion metrics. Separate these immediately — they need different budgets and different performance benchmarks.
CRITICALRotation Setting: Optimize (Not Rotate Evenly)
Ad rotation set to "Rotate evenly" prevents Google from favoring higher-performing ads. For RSAs, this setting is largely irrelevant, but for any legacy ETA still running, confirm rotation is set to Optimize so Google can favor the better-performing ad.
MEDIUMKeywords
5 checksSearch Terms Report Reviewed in Last 7 Days
Open the Search Terms Report and look at what queries are actually triggering your ads. Sort by cost descending. Any query in the top 20 by cost that is not relevant to your business should become a negative keyword immediately. This single check is the highest-ROI action in most audit sessions.
CRITICALNegative Keyword List Exists and Is Applied
Every Search campaign should have a shared negative keyword list covering broad irrelevant terms. Check that your negative list is actually applied to all campaigns — not just created. A negative keyword list with 200 terms that is not applied to a campaign does nothing. Verify in Tools → Negative keyword lists → Applied campaigns.
CRITICALMatch Type Strategy Is Intentional, Not Default
Pull your keyword list and note the match type distribution. Broad match works best when strong conversion tracking and Smart Bidding help steer it, so if your account leans heavily on broad match without both, review your search terms closely. If everything is exact match, you may be missing relevant queries. Your match type strategy should be documented and deliberate.
HIGH IMPACTQuality Score Below 5 on High-Spend Keywords
Add the Quality Score column to your keyword view and sort ascending. Keywords with a low Quality Score that drive significant spend are worth investigating, because weak expected CTR, ad relevance or landing page experience can raise your costs or limit your reach. Look at the three sub-scores to see where the breakdown is occurring. Quality Score is a diagnostic, not a goal in itself.
HIGH IMPACTNo Cannibalizing Keywords Across Ad Groups
When the same or very similar keywords appear in multiple ad groups, they compete against each other in auction and can inflate your own CPCs. Use the Keyword Diagnosis tool and search for your primary terms to confirm they are only triggering ads from the intended ad group. Resolve conflicts with exact match negatives in the ad groups where the keyword should not be eligible.
MEDIUMAds & Extensions
4 checksRSA Ad Strength Is "Good" or "Excellent"
Open each RSA and check Ad Strength. A "Poor" or "Average" rating signals that your headlines lack diversity, are too similar in theme, or you have not filled enough headline slots. Address this by adding more unique angles across message categories: benefits, proof points, urgency, CTAs, and keyword-matched headlines.
HIGH IMPACTAsset Performance: Low-Rated Assets Removed
In the Assets report (Ads and Assets → Assets), filter for assets rated "Low." These are headlines and descriptions that Google has served enough times to determine they underperform relative to others in the same RSA. Remove them and replace with new angles. Do not keep Low-rated assets running out of attachment to the original copy.
HIGH IMPACTSitelinks, Callouts, and Structured Snippets Active
Ad extensions (now called Assets) take up more search results page real estate, can improve CTR, and have no separate fee (you pay for clicks as usual). Every Search campaign should have at minimum: 4+ sitelinks, 4+ callout extensions, and at least one structured snippet. Check the Assets tab to confirm these are approved and serving.
HIGH IMPACTCall Extension Active for Phone-Reliant Businesses
If your business model depends on phone calls, a Call extension is non-negotiable. It adds your phone number directly to the ad on mobile, enabling one-tap calling without a click to your landing page. Check that call reporting is enabled so you can attribute phone call conversions to specific campaigns and keywords.
MEDIUMLanding Pages
4 checksPage Speed Passes Core Web Vitals on Mobile
Test your landing page with Google PageSpeed Insights on mobile and, where available, look at real-user (field) data. Google's "good" thresholds are a Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 seconds or less, an Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less, and a Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less. Slow or unstable pages can hurt your landing page experience and lead more visitors to leave before they convert. The effect varies by site, so record your conversion rate before and after speed improvements and judge the result from your own data.
CRITICALMessage Match Between Ad and Landing Page
Click your own ads and audit what the first thing a visitor sees actually says. If your ad headline is "Emergency Plumber Available Now" and your landing page headline is "Welcome to ABC Plumbing," you have a message match failure. The landing page headline should echo the specific promise made in the ad. Test the change with an A/B test or a before-and-after comparison in your own account, and let your own conversion data show whether it helps.
CRITICALMobile Form Usability Check
Fill out your lead form on a real mobile device. Are the input fields large enough to tap accurately? Does the keyboard cover the submit button? Does the form auto-advance between fields? A form that frustrates mobile users costs you the clicks you already paid for. Test this on iOS and Android, not just desktop browser mobile simulation.
HIGH IMPACTConversion Tracking Records the Right Business Event, Once
Use Google Tag Assistant and the Conversions status column in Google Ads to confirm your conversion action records the actual business event: a completed form submission, a booked appointment or a qualifying call. Where that event fires depends on your setup. It may be a thank-you or confirmation page load, or an event triggered on successful submission (for example a form-success or booking-confirmed event sent through Google Tag Manager or GA4), which is common for forms that do not load a new page. Whichever you use, confirm the tag does not fire on every page view or on failed submissions, and that the same event is not counted twice when more than one method is in place (for example a Google tag plus an imported GA4 event). Keep one primary action per business event and set the conversion count appropriately, usually "One" for leads. If the event is missing, submissions go unrecorded and Smart Bidding has no signal.
CRITICALBidding & Budget
3 checksTarget CPA/ROAS Is Set Realistically
If your Target CPA is set far below your recent average CPA, Smart Bidding may reduce bids sharply to try to hit it, and you may see impressions and conversions drop. Consider starting near your recent average CPA and adjusting gradually as results come in, rather than starting with an aggressive target. Change targets in modest steps and allow time between changes to judge the result.
HIGH IMPACTBid Adjustments Are Based on Actual Data
Check your bid adjustments for location, device, and audience. Many accounts have bid adjustments that were set in the first month and never revisited. Pull 90-day performance data segmented by each dimension and compare actual CPA or conversion rate against the account average. Adjustments should reflect current reality, not initial guesses. Not every bidding strategy honors every bid adjustment, so check Google's current documentation for your strategy.
MEDIUMBudget Pacing: No Campaign Capped Before 3pm
Check your campaign-level delivery metrics by hour. If any campaign is exhausting its daily budget early in the day, you may be missing afternoon searches you would want to serve. Either increase the budget or reduce your max CPC / Target CPA to pace more evenly, accepting lower-position ads in exchange for all-day presence. Use your own hour-of-day conversion data to judge which hours matter most.
HIGH IMPACTTracking & Attribution
3 checksAll Conversion Actions Are Meaningful Business Events
Open Tools → Conversions and review every conversion action in the account. Remove or exclude any conversion that does not represent a real business outcome — page views, time on site, or newsletter signups should not be primary conversion actions for lead generation campaigns. Smart Bidding optimizes toward whatever you call a conversion, so if you include low-value events, you will get a lot of them at the expense of actual leads.
CRITICALConversion Value Is Assigned Where Applicable
For e-commerce or any business with different-value conversion events, conversion values should reflect actual business economics. Even for lead generation businesses, assigning a value to each conversion type (form submit vs. phone call vs. booking) enables value-based bidding strategies to prioritize your highest-LTV conversion actions over lower-value ones.
MEDIUMAttribution Model Is Intentional (Data-Driven Where Available)
Google Ads now supports two attribution models: Data-driven and Last click. Position-based, Linear, Time decay and First click have been retired, so do not switch to them. Last click gives 100% of conversion credit to the final ad click, which can undervalue keywords earlier in the conversion journey. Data-driven attribution spreads credit across ad interactions using your own account's conversion paths. Check which model each primary conversion action uses in its settings under Tools, then Conversions, and confirm what your account is eligible for. A model change alters how conversions are credited and can shift Smart Bidding, so make it deliberately and note the date before comparing performance.
MEDIUMHow to Score and Prioritize Your Findings
After working through all 27 checks, you will have a mix of critical issues, high-impact opportunities, and medium-priority items. The order of remediation matters as much as the identification of problems.
Fix Critical issues first — without exception. Broken conversion tracking (checks 21, 25), Display network opt-in on Search campaigns (check 4), and location targeting errors (check 1) silently destroy performance every single day they are left unfixed. A campaign with a broken conversion tag is not running blind — it is actively training Smart Bidding on wrong data, which gets harder to correct the longer it runs.
Sequence High Impact items by estimated dollar impact. Look at your largest-spend campaigns and apply the relevant High Impact fixes there first. A budget pacing issue (check 24) on a $200/day campaign has more impact than a bid adjustment error (check 23) on a $20/day campaign. Work largest spend first.
Medium priority items are ongoing optimization, not emergencies. Attribution model changes, ad rotation settings, and keyword cannibalization checks can be worked through over 4-6 weeks as part of regular account maintenance rather than emergency fixes. They compound over time — ignoring them has cost, but not the acute cost of a broken tracking tag.
Checks by Severity
- Critical (10 checks): Problems that can distort your tracking or send budget to the wrong traffic; fix these first
- High Impact (11 checks): Settings and structure that affect how efficiently your budget is spent
- Medium (6 checks): Ongoing optimization that adds up over time
Results vary by account. Ad Boost does not publish average improvement figures for these categories, so measure your own cost per conversion and conversion rate before and after each change.
How Ad Boost Handles the Audit
Our free audit covers all 27 points in this checklist — plus a competitive intelligence layer using Auction Insights to show you exactly who is beating you on impression share and why. Here is what the first 30 minutes look like when we access a new account.
Tracking Verification
We go straight to conversion settings and Tag Assistant. If tracking is broken, nothing else we find is reliable. We fix this before interpreting any performance data.
Search Terms Scan
We pull 90 days of Search Terms data, sort by cost, and identify the top irrelevant queries eating budget. We flag the irrelevant queries that should become immediate negatives.
Structure and Settings
Campaign settings, location targeting, device distribution, branded isolation — we check all structural issues that multiply in cost impact across every keyword in the account.
Findings Presentation
We present a prioritized list of findings with estimated cost impact per issue. You leave the call knowing exactly what to fix, in what order, and what the expected result is.
What Happens After We Find the Issues
Prioritized Action Plan Delivery
Every finding is documented with severity, estimated impact, and a plain-English description of the fix. No jargon, no ambiguity — just a clear ordered list of what to do.
Critical Fixes Implemented Within 48 Hours
Conversion tracking verification, negative keyword additions, and setting corrections go in first — before any creative or bidding work — so every subsequent action is built on accurate data.
Structural Improvements Over 30 Days
Campaign restructuring, ad copy rewrites, and landing page recommendations are implemented systematically over the first month to avoid disrupting the Smart Bidding learning period.
30-Day Performance Benchmark Report
At 30 days post-audit, we compare performance metrics against the pre-audit baseline. Wasted spend reduction and conversion rate improvement are quantified in dollar terms.
Ongoing Monthly Optimization Cycle
The audit is a starting point, not a one-time event. Monthly reviews cover the checklist items most likely to drift — Search Terms, Quality Score, asset performance, and budget pacing.
Frequently Asked Questions
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