Google Ads audit
A Google Ads audit from someone with no incentive to flatter you
Most free PPC audits are sales documents: they find enough problems to justify a proposal and stop. This is a paid, fixed-scope account audit that ends with a prioritised list of fixes you own, whether or not you ever hire me again.
What a PPC audit usually uncovers
Different companies, different industries, and the same short list of problems. These are the ones that show up in most Google Ads audits I run, roughly in order of how much money they waste.
Conversions counted more than once
The same lead fires as a form submission, a thank-you pageview and a phone call. Your reported cost per lead is fiction, and Smart Bidding has been optimising towards the fiction for months.
Search terms nobody has read
In neglected accounts, a double-digit share of budget routinely goes to queries that will never convert: job seekers, students, competitors' brand names, the wrong country.
Structure built for the tool
Campaigns organised by match type or by whoever built them, instead of by margin, service line and geography, which is what you actually make decisions on.
Automation on defaults
Broad match with Smart Bidding and no negatives. Performance Max with no brand exclusion, quietly buying demand you already had. Auto-applied recommendations switched on.
Budget where the margin is not
The cheapest service to sell receives the most budget because it produces the most conversions, while the profitable one is capped. Correct by the platform's logic, wrong by yours.
Landing pages that leak
Ads promising one thing, pages offering another; forms that fail on mobile; call buttons that are not tracked. The account can be perfect and still lose here.
What the audit covers
- Measurement first. Every conversion action, its source, its counting method and its attribution setting. GA4 and Tag Manager configuration. Consent mode. Whether the numbers in Google Ads can be reconciled with the CRM. If this layer is wrong, nothing below it can be trusted, so it is checked before anything else.
- Search terms and negatives. Twelve months of search terms, with the last 90 days read line by line, against the negatives that exist, with the waste quantified. An estimate of the spend that produced nothing. Negative lists proposed by campaign and shared.
- Structure and settings. Campaign and ad group organisation against the business, location and language settings, network settings, ad schedules, device adjustments, and the change history that explains how the account got here.
- Bidding and budgets. Strategy per campaign against its data volume, target settings, budget-limited campaigns that should not be and unlimited ones that should, portfolio strategies and their side effects.
- Ads, assets and Performance Max. Ad strength as a symptom rather than a goal, asset coverage, brand exclusions, asset group logic, feed quality for Shopping.
- Landing pages and conversion path. Message match, speed on mobile, form and call tracking, what happens after the lead arrives.
A worked example on an illustrative account shows the checks in order and what the verdict looks like. The deliverable is a written document with findings ranked by financial impact, each with the fix, who should do it and how to confirm it worked, plus a short call to walk through it. Accounts on Microsoft Advertising or Meta can be added to the same audit; see PPC management and Meta Ads.
Why the audit is paid
A free audit has to be paid for somehow, and it is paid for by the retainer it is designed to sell. That shapes what it finds. A paid audit can say "the account is in decent shape, fix these three things and keep your current setup", and I have written exactly that more than once. Many clients take the audit, implement it themselves or with their existing team, and never hire me for management. That is a good outcome, not a failed sale.
The price is fixed for your account and set from three things: monthly spend, the number of campaigns, and how many platforms are in scope. Send the form and you get the figure by email within one working day, without a call, and it is credited in full against the first month if management follows. It is the same price whether or not you go on to work with me.
Questions people ask before hiring
How much does a Google Ads audit cost?
The price is fixed for your account and set from three things: monthly spend, the number of campaigns, and how many platforms are in scope. Send the form and you get the figure by email within one working day, without a call, and it is credited in full against the first month if management follows. See pricing for the models.
How long does a PPC audit take?
Five to seven working days from receiving access, for a typical single-platform account. Larger or multi-platform accounts take longer and the quote says so up front.
What access do you need?
Read-only access to Google Ads, GA4 and Google Tag Manager, and ideally a CRM export or a conversation with whoever handles the leads. I do not change anything during an audit.
Do I have to hire you afterwards?
No. The report is yours to implement however you like. A meaningful share of audit clients implement it in-house and that is fine.
Can you audit Meta Ads or Microsoft Advertising too?
Yes. Each platform adds scope and a bit of time, and it is worth doing them together because the tracking layer is shared.
Will you tell me if my agency is doing a good job?
Yes, in writing. I have no retainer to win by criticising them, and a fair audit that confirms the agency is competent is still useful: it tells you where the remaining gains are.
Related services
Get the audit quoted
Spend band, platforms and what you suspect. You get a fixed price and a delivery date in the reply.