Buyers searching for a Google Ads account audit already run ads and suspect they're underperforming. An audit offer here should promise specific, actionable findings — wasted spend, targeting issues, quality score problems — rather than a vague "we will take a look." The specificity of what you'll find signals genuine expertise.
What a Google Ads Audit Should Find
Wasted spend identification: Are match types configured too broadly, capturing irrelevant search queries and spending on traffic that has zero chance of converting? A search query report analysis reveals exactly which actual searches triggered your ads — often revealing significant spend on irrelevant terms that negative keyword additions could eliminate.
Keyword structure problems: Are campaigns structured by product or service category in a way that allows meaningful bid management and performance analysis? Ad accounts where everything is in one campaign with one bid strategy tend to under-optimize because performance differences between product categories can't be acted on.
Quality Score issues: Low Quality Scores (below 5-6) on important keywords indicate misalignment between the ad copy, the landing page, and the searcher's intent — leading to higher CPCs than competitors with better-aligned campaigns pay for the same keywords.
Ad copy performance gaps: Which ad variations are running, and are the best-performing variations actually running most of the time? Many accounts have ad groups where a strong performer and a weak performer share impressions equally because responsive search ad asset reporting hasn't been used to pause underperformers.
Bidding strategy alignment: Is the bidding strategy (manual CPC, target CPA, target ROAS, maximize conversions) aligned with the campaign's actual goal and conversion data volume? Automated bidding strategies require a minimum conversion volume to function effectively — running target CPA bidding with only 5 conversions in a month will underperform manual bidding.
Conversion tracking accuracy: Are all meaningful conversion actions tracked? Are there double-counting issues (every page view being counted as a conversion)? Is offline conversion import configured for businesses with phone-based or in-person sales? Accurate conversion tracking is the foundation of effective campaign optimization — everything else is built on it.
The Audit Output That's Actually Useful
A useful Google Ads audit delivers: a prioritized list of the specific changes that would have the highest impact on account performance, estimated spend savings from eliminating wasted budget, and projected performance improvement from structural and optimization changes. Not a list of 40 minor issues — a clear roadmap of the 5 things that matter most.