We’re a few decades out since the launch of ads on Google Search, and the world is changing faster than ever. Iterative growth is the name of the game, and a well-run Google Ads account is still one of the best ways to get there.
But before we can grow, we need to cut what isn’t working, double down on what is, and honestly assess where the next opportunity lives. That’s what a good audit is about. It’s not busywork. It’s not a checklist for the sake of one. It’s about understanding what’s driving performance, what’s holding it back, and where to go next.
You can ask AI for help on some of the process, but not all of it. Think of it less as a rigid checklist and more as a framework. Not every account will have every issue covered here, but every account should be asking these questions regularly.
STEP 0: Ask: When Did You Last Actually Look at This Thing?
Google Ads is no longer a platform where you can launch campaigns, monitor click-through rates and impression share on occasion, and expect to stay competitive. In 2026, a decade’s worth of change is happening at once. Performance Max now shows channel-level breakdowns. Broad match targeting has evolved. Ads in LLMs are coming. And many accounts are still running campaigns built on assumptions made years ago.
Before changing anything, understand what you’re working with today, not what worked in 2022. You need to establish a solid understanding of what you have active before you can start thinking about any changes.
STEP 1: Identify Objectives
Before evaluating performance, define what success looks like.
This sounds obvious, but it’s one of the most common issues we find. Accounts accumulate new campaigns, conversion actions, and goals over time. It reaches the point where nobody is entirely sure what they’re actually trying to accomplish. A campaign generating low-cost leads might be a massive success for one business and a complete failure for another.
Ask:
- What are we actually trying to accomplish?
- Are campaign settings and bid strategies aligned with that goal?
- If we have multiple goals, which ones do we care about most?
- Are we sending traffic to the right landing page based on the intent behind the search?
The rest of the audit sits on this foundation. If goals are unclear, every optimization becomes harder to evaluate.
STEP 2: Consider Bid Strategies
Ask:
- What bid strategies are currently running, and how often are we changing them?
- Are we giving campaigns enough time through the learning phase (typically two to three weeks) before drawing conclusions?
Constant intervention creates a cycle where campaigns never stabilize. You end up measuring turbulence, not performance.
Most retailers should be on target ROAS. If your goal is revenue and you’re not using tROAS, that’s the first thing to fix. And make sure different conversion actions are weighted accordingly. A mailing list sign-up and a high-value purchase should not carry the same signal.
For lead gen accounts, try moving to tCPA once you’re hitting 30+ independent conversions within 30 days. Below that threshold, tROAS with assigned values is often the better call.
STEP 3: Confirm Conversion Tracking
Before evaluating anything else, confirm the data feeding your campaigns is accurate. Smart bidding is only as good as the signals you give it. Bad inputs lead to bad outputs.
Ask:
- What’s being tracked as a conversion, and does that list actually reflect business impact?
- Are there duplicate conversions inflating the numbers?
- Are enhanced conversions enabled?
- Are GA4 events firing correctly?
- For lead gen: are offline conversions imported so Google knows which leads actually became customers?
The goal isn’t more conversion tracking. It’s the right conversion tracking.
STEP 4: Vet Search Term Quality
Search terms are where strategy meets reality. Keywords, audiences, and automation all matter, but the search term report shows what people actually typed before clicking your ads.
Ask:
- Which terms are getting the most impressions, spend, and clicks? Are those terms aligned with your goals?
- How much spend is going to branded terms, and is any of that brand spend leaking into non-brand campaigns?
- Are irrelevant terms being added as negatives consistently, and are old negatives accidentally blocking traffic you want?
- If AI Max is live, what search terms is it generating, and are they creating real opportunity or just spending money in new places?
STEP 5: Check Keyword Quality and Coverage
Keywords no longer control the account the way they once did, but they still give Google direction. A messy keyword set creates messy traffic.
A solid structure: Exact + Phrase Match for all search campaigns, with each keyword carrying both match types for coverage. Phrase match needs supervision. If a keyword can mean three different things, Google will likely find all three.
Ask:
- What are your top keywords by impressions, spend, clicks, and conversions?
- Are you seeing thematic patterns, not just individual winners and losers?
- Are negatives applied at the right level: account, campaign, or ad group?
STEP 6: Perform Geographic and Placement Review
Geographic performance can quietly reshape an account. Spend may look efficient at the account level while a handful of locations are doing all the work or wasting all the money. It’s worth a periodic look, especially for businesses with regional inventory, store locations, or uneven margins.
Confirm your targeting settings are set to “Located in targeted locations” if you don’t want interest-based geographic targeting pulling in users outside your service area. (But if you do, we have our own way of doing that!)
STEP 7: Check Your Ad Copy
Ask:
- When was the last time copy was refreshed?
- Do all ads have 12-15 headlines, maxed-out descriptions, and long headlines in the case of Performance Max?
- Which headlines are getting the most impressions, and which ones are barely showing? If an asset is achieving no delivery, ask why.
Don’t change copy for the sake of change. Start with what’s working and build variations around it. Look for patterns: are price-focused messages winning? Trust-based messages? Product-specific ones? Understanding why something works is more valuable than knowing that it did.
STEP 8: Review Your Landing Page Experience
The best campaign can only perform as well as the page waiting on the other side of the click.
Ask:
- Is load time under 5 seconds?
- Does the landing page message match the ad copy?
- How is the mobile experience on an actual device, not a desktop preview?
STEP 9: Study Auction Insights
Your performance doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Auction Insights tells you who you’re competing against and how that competition is changing over time.
Ask:
- Who overlaps with your campaigns most, and has that changed recently?
- Are competitors appearing on your branded searches?
- What is your impression share? How much traffic are you losing due to budget limitations, and how much just to rank?
If you’re losing competitiveness due to budget, the fix is simple. If you’re losing due to rank, evaluate bids, ad relevance, and landing page quality first.
STEP 10: Performance Max
We can finally see where PMax spend is going, and that visibility changes how we audit it.
Ask:
- Are PMax search terms different from what’s running in Search? If not, is it actually creating incremental value or just cannibalizing existing traffic?
- How much brand spend is sitting inside PMax?
- What channels are getting the most budget?
Define what you want PMax to do before judging it. A bottom-funnel, feed-linked Shopping machine looks nothing like an upper-funnel awareness play, and they shouldn’t be evaluated the same way.
For retailers: PMax works best with a strong product feed, accurate conversion tracking, and a clear understanding of profitability. For lead gen: pay close attention to lead quality. More conversions doesn’t mean better conversions.
STEP 11: Review Demand Gen
Demand Gen is where the real opportunity is right now. YouTube is Google’s biggest competitive investment, highlighted explicitly at Google Marketing Live 2026. This is where they’re taking on Meta and TikTok, and where their resources are going.
Unlike PMax, Demand Gen gives you actual channel control. You can run Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Display, and Discover together or individually. You have more flexibility with bid strategies, not just max conversions or max conversion value.
Ask:
- Which placements are receiving the most spend?
- Are YouTube placements driving real engagement?
- Are we using creative assets built specifically for these placements, not repurposed search assets?
- Is this campaign introducing new users, or just reaching people who would have converted anyway?
Don’t judge Demand Gen exclusively on last-click conversions if its job is upper-funnel. Measure it against the role it’s supposed to play.
STEP 12: Check Budget Allocation
Zoom out. Where is the money actually going, and does that reflect your current strategy or just historical habit?
Ask:
- Which campaign types are getting the most spend, and which are driving the most value?
- Are you over-indexed on branded traffic?
- Is PMax absorbing budget that would perform better elsewhere?
- If you had additional budget tomorrow, where would it create the greatest impact?
A healthy account typically runs Search for intent capture, PMax for coverage expansion, Demand Gen for new audience development, and remarketing to close the loop. Every account balance looks different, but the reasoning behind it should always be intentional.
Every dollar is an opportunity cost. Budget allocation is a strategic decision, not an accounting exercise.
If this still feels like a lot, that’s because a real account is a lot. The goal isn’t to work through this in one sitting. It’s to have the right questions ready, so nothing important goes unreviewed.
Want to dig in with someone who does this every day? Reach out using our contact form or connect with us on LinkedIn.
