Short answer: A good Google Ads audit checklist starts with measurement, not keywords. First confirm who owns the account and that conversion tracking counts real leads or sales. Then check settings that quietly waste money, such as locations, auto-applied recommendations and networks. After that, review search terms, campaign structure, bidding, ads and landing pages. Fixing tracking and settings first matters because every automated bidding decision depends on them.
Below is the order I recommend, with the specific things to look at in each step. You can run most of it yourself in an afternoon.
Step 1: Access, ownership and change history
Before judging performance, make sure you are looking at an account you control and that you understand what has been changed recently.
- Is the account in the business’s name, with at least one business owner holding Admin access? Google advises having more than one admin so access is not lost if one person becomes unavailable.
- Which manager accounts are linked, and does any of them have ownership?
- Open change history, which lists account changes from the past two years. Look for big edits just before performance changed: new bid strategies, budget cuts, paused campaigns or tracking changes.
Step 2: Conversion tracking, the first item on any Google Ads audit checklist
If tracking is wrong, everything after this step is built on bad data. Check the following:
- Primary conversions. Only actions that represent real value, such as purchases, qualified leads or booked calls, should be primary. Page views, scrolls and generic button clicks should not be.
- Duplicates. Look for the same purchase counted twice, for example by both a Google Ads tag and an imported GA4 event.
- Values. Compare conversion value in Google Ads with actual revenue in your shop or CRM for the same period. Large gaps need explaining.
- Enhanced conversions. Check whether enhanced conversions are set up. They supplement your tags with hashed first-party data such as email addresses.
- Lead quality. For lead generation, check whether the account learns which leads became customers, or only counts form fills.
My guide to Google Ads conversion tracking with GA4 and GTM walks through the setup in detail.
Step 3: Settings that quietly waste money
- Location options. Google’s default is “Presence or interest”, which can show ads to people who are interested in your area but not in it. Google’s page on advanced location options explains the difference. A local service business usually wants “Presence” only.
- Auto-applied recommendations. Check whether auto-apply recommendations are switched on, and look at the history of what was applied. Google says this can be turned on or off at any time.
- Networks. Search campaigns with the Display Network ticked can send cheaper but lower-intent clicks. Check whether that was a deliberate choice.
- Languages, schedules and devices. Make sure they match when and where your customers actually buy.
- Budgets. Look for campaigns limited by budget that are profitable, and campaigns spending freely that are not.
Step 4: Search terms and wasted spend
Pull the last 90 days of search terms, sort by cost, and look at everything that spent money without converting.
- Irrelevant searches: jobs, free, DIY, competitors you do not want, wrong locations.
- Missing negative keywords and negative keyword lists shared across campaigns.
- For Performance Max, the Performance Max search terms report, which Google says helps you find irrelevant searches for your negative keyword strategy.
- Brand exclusions, which keep campaigns from serving on branded queries you want to avoid, such as your own brand in Performance Max if a separate brand Search campaign covers it.
Step 5: Structure, campaign types and bidding
Now look at how the account is built.
- Is the structure simple enough for the data? Too many small campaigns split conversion data so thinly that automated bidding struggles to learn.
- Do campaign types overlap? Performance Max, Search and Shopping can compete for the same traffic. Know which one you want to win each type of search.
- Do bid strategies match goals? A target return on ad spend only makes sense if conversion values are reliable. A target cost per acquisition should match what a customer is worth.
- Are legacy features about to change? Google has announced that Dynamic Search Ads are being upgraded to AI Max, along with automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match. If the account uses these, plan the move rather than waiting for an automatic upgrade.
Step 6: Ads, assets and landing pages
- Do headlines match the main searches in each ad group, and do they state a clear offer?
- Are sitelinks, callouts, images and other assets in place and approved?
- Does each ad send people to the most relevant page, not just the home page?
- Do landing pages load fast on mobile, match the ad, and make the next step obvious?
- Check keyword-level Quality Score components to spot weak ad relevance or landing page experience.
How to read the results of your audit
Sort what you find into three groups and fix them in this order:
| Priority | Examples | Why first |
|---|---|---|
| Fix now | Broken or duplicate tracking, wrong primary conversions, no admin access | Every other decision depends on these |
| Fix this month | Location settings, wasted search terms, overlapping campaigns, unwanted auto-applied changes | Direct, measurable waste |
| Test over time | New ad copy, landing pages, bid strategy changes, AI Max | Needs data and patience to judge |
One warning: do not treat optimization score as your audit result. Google describes it as an estimate of how well the account is set to perform. A high score with broken tracking is still a broken account.
If the audit shows the account needs more time than you have, my comparison of a Google Ads specialist vs agency can help you decide who to bring in. Whoever you choose, a good Google Ads specialist should be able to explain each finding and why it is in that priority group.
Frequently asked questions
What should a Google Ads audit checklist include?
How often should I audit my Google Ads account?
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Need help auditing your Google Ads account?
If you would rather have an expert run this checklist, request a free ads audit and I will send you a prioritised list of fixes. If you want ongoing help after that, my Google Ads management service covers tracking, optimisation and clear monthly reporting.
Sources
- Google Ads Help: About change history
- Google Ads Help: About advanced location options
- Google Ads Help: About applying recommendations automatically
- Google Ads Help: About the search terms report in Performance Max
- Google Ads Help: Apply brand exclusions to Performance Max or Search campaigns
- Google Ads and Commerce Blog: We’re upgrading Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max