A useful PPC audit does more than produce a long list of platform settings. It shows whether paid search is generating worthwhile business outcomes, where budget is leaking and which fixes deserve attention first.
Start with conversion accuracy, then review what the budget actually bought: search terms, targeting and placements. Only after those checks should you judge account structure, bidding, adverts and landing pages. Finish with a ranked action plan—not an optimisation score.
Choose the depth of your audit
Check real conversions, highest-cost search terms, location settings, budget concentration and landing-page continuity.
Complete the 25 checks below and create a short list of high-confidence fixes.
Reconcile systems, test journeys, examine trends and revisit structure, economics and governance.
Record findings before changing the account. If you alter bids, targeting and adverts while investigating, you lose the baseline and make the result harder to interpret.
Before you open a campaign
Choose a period that reflects the buying cycle and available data. Ninety days is often useful, but note promotions, website outages, budget changes and seasonality before judging performance.
Write down an acceptable cost per qualified enquiry, customer or sale, then capture baseline spend, valid outcomes and the campaigns or queries consuming most budget.
| Priority | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Fix | Broken measurement, clear irrelevance, policy risk or spend with no defensible purpose. | Validate the evidence, assign an owner and act first. |
| Watch | A credible concern without enough data for a confident change. | Set a threshold, collect more evidence and review on a date. |
| Pass | Configuration and results are consistent with the commercial objective. | Document why it passes and monitor it. |
1–5. Measurement and commercial outcomes
- 1. Define the primary conversion. Qualified enquiries, booked consultations or completed purchases should be distinct from softer behaviour such as page views.
- 2. Test every conversion path. Submit forms and test telephone journeys; confirm the right event fires once, with the intended value.
- 3. Reconcile the totals. Compare Google Ads with analytics, the CRM and actual sales records. Document expected attribution or consent-related differences.
- 4. Import downstream outcomes. Where practical, return qualified leads, opportunities or revenue so bidding learns from quality, not merely form fills.
- 5. Ask the sales team. Identify which campaigns produce relevant conversations and which generate duplicates, spam or unsuitable prospects.
Suppose Google Ads reports 60 conversions while the CRM contains 22 genuine enquiries. Check whether one form submission fires twice, a GA4 import duplicates the Google tag, calls and button clicks are both counted as leads, or secondary actions are marked primary. Until the difference is understood, a lower reported cost per conversion is not evidence of better commercial performance.
Google explains that primary conversion actions can be used for bidding, while secondary actions are normally observational. Its guidance also covers enhanced conversions and the use of offline outcomes where a sale is completed later.
Audit the consent banner, consent signals and tag behaviour as well as the visible conversion total. Google states that relevant consent signals are required for users in the EEA, UK and Switzerland. Follow Google’s current consent guidance and obtain suitable privacy or legal advice for your organisation.
6–10. Campaign structure and settings
- 6. Give every campaign a job. Separate objectives, services or markets when they need different budgets, targets or reporting.
- 7. Check brand and non-brand traffic. Keep their economics visible rather than allowing inexpensive brand demand to flatter prospecting performance.
- 8. Verify location settings. Confirm that adverts reach people in places you serve and investigate spend outside the intended UK or EU market.
- 9. Review networks and placements. Segment Search partners, Display and automated-campaign inventory so weak traffic cannot hide inside a blended average.
- 10. Inspect schedules and devices. Compare performance with the team’s ability to answer calls and enquiries; avoid exclusions based on tiny samples.
11–15. Keywords, search terms and audiences
- 11. Sort search terms by cost. Read what people actually typed and flag irrelevant intent, jobs, training, support requests and unsuitable locations.
- 12. Review negative keywords carefully. Use shared lists where useful, but read each term before blocking it and check match behaviour.
- 13. Challenge broad matching. Broad match can work with sound conversion data and controls; the search terms must demonstrate that it is working here.
- 14. Find overlap and missing themes. Look for campaigns competing for the same intent and high-value language appearing in enquiries but absent from targeting.
- 15. Understand audience settings. Distinguish observation, targeting and exclusion; verify customer lists and remarketing remain appropriate and eligible.
A search term with spend and no conversion deserves investigation, not automatic exclusion. Consider relevance, data volume, buying cycle and tracking quality before adding it as a negative.
16–20. Adverts, assets and landing pages
- 16. Match message to intent. The advert should answer the likely need behind the query rather than rely on generic claims.
- 17. Make the offer specific. A consultation, assessment or genuinely useful resource gives the visitor a clearer next step than “learn more”.
- 18. Audit assets and claims. Check sitelinks, callouts, images, telephone numbers, destinations and any claim the business must be able to evidence.
- 19. Continue the promise on the page. The headline, service, location and offer should remain consistent after the click.
- 20. Complete the journey yourself. Test mobile and desktop forms, telephone links, validation, confirmation, CRM routing and response notifications.
21–25. Bidding, budgets and governance
- 21. Ground targets in business economics. Set CPA or ROAS expectations from lead quality, close rate, margin and capacity—not only the platform’s suggestion.
- 22. Find budget conflicts. Check whether credible campaigns are constrained while weaker campaigns underspend or consume budget without useful outcomes.
- 23. Respect the available signal. Judge whether the bidding strategy has enough reliable conversion volume and value data for its objective.
- 24. Read the change history. Identify who changed budgets, goals, settings or automated recommendations around material performance shifts.
- 25. Confirm ownership and access. The business should understand who controls the account, billing, linked data and what happens if an agency relationship ends.
The output is not a score or a catalogue of technically true observations. It is a short, prioritised set of findings, each with evidence, commercial significance, an owner and a way to verify the fix.
Turn the findings into an action plan
Fix duplicate or missing conversions and agree which business outcomes matter.
Resolve irrelevant traffic, incorrect locations, broken destinations and indefensible spend.
Rank targeting, offer, creative and landing-page ideas by impact, confidence and effort.
Record the baseline, owner and review date so every change can be judged fairly.
| Finding | Evidence | Priority and action | Owner and review |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is wrong or uncertain? | Campaign, date range, query, setting or test result. | Fix, Watch or Pass; next action and expected effect. | Named person, deadline and success measure. |
A practical PPC audit cadence
Major search terms, disapprovals, tracking alerts, budget pacing and sudden changes.
Lead quality, wasted spend, bid targets, budget allocation and controlled test results.
Re-verify tracking, structure, access, landing pages and alignment with business priorities.
Audit again after a website rebuild, tracking change, major service launch or agency handover. Match the cadence to spend, traffic and business risk.
PPC audit checklist FAQs
What is a PPC audit?
It is a structured review of paid-media measurement, spend, targeting, adverts, landing pages and governance. Its purpose is to identify wasted budget, unreliable conclusions and credible opportunities.
How long should a PPC audit take?
A 30-minute screen can expose major risks. The 25 checks here can form a 90-minute first pass, while a complex multi-market account requires deeper analysis and testing.
How often should a PPC account be audited?
Monitor urgent hygiene regularly and perform a broader review quarterly or after a material change. Higher-spend or rapidly changing accounts may need closer scrutiny.
Can I audit my own Google Ads account?
Yes. Use read-only investigation, reconcile conversions with real outcomes and document evidence before changing settings. Independent help can be valuable where tracking, automation or account history is unclear.
Should campaigns be paused during the audit?
Not automatically. Pause only where there is a clear and material risk. An audit should preserve what works while making deliberate, evidence-based changes.
What should a paid audit deliver?
Expect prioritised findings backed by account evidence, the likely commercial impact, recommended actions, ownership and a review method—not merely a generic score or sales presentation.
Get an independent view of your PPC account
Futuro Digital Consultancy combines PPC consultancy with CRM and measurement experience for UK and EU service businesses.