What is a Google Ads Account audit?
It’s simple to think of an audit as a type of financial investigation in which an external or internal auditor examines a company’s financial statements to ensure they are accurate and error-free. A specific function, procedure, or phase in the production process may be the focus of an audit rather than the entire business. Some audits are conducted for specific organizational goals, such as document, risk, or performance audits, or to monitor the status of completed remedial actions.
Depending on how participants interact, an audit may also be considered internal or external. Internal audits are carried out by company personnel. An outside party conducts external audits. Internal audits are commonly referred to as first-party audits, whereas external audits might be either second or third-party.
What is the need for an Account Audit?
Regular Google Ads audits are essential because they provide you with the chance to assess the success of your Google advertising accounts and pinpoint areas that need to be improved. The goal of the audit is to find your areas of weakness so that you may strengthen your performance and lower the cost of your Paid Digital Advertising. Account audits for Google Ads (AdWords) are crucial for small businesses attempting to manage a top-notch Paid Digital Advertising campaign. The issue is that AdWords audit software, pay-per-click audit tools, and pay-per-click audits can be costly and time-consuming.
One of the most important steps in the management process is auditing your pay-per-click campaigns. Additionally, it is a must when you are taking over a client’s account or assuming a new position at work. After all, before you start implementing constructive changes, you need to be aware of the current situation. Your Google ads audit is essentially a much more thorough examination of how things are operating. In your typical management responsibilities, you want to look for problems and possibilities that you might overlook.
Where to start from?
The five main goals of a Google advertisements audit are as follows:
- Recognize and cut wasteful spending.
- Find fresh opportunities.
- Change the management procedures.
- Identify practical insights.
- Find proof to support your assumptions.
You now need to consider how you will carry out this checkup while keeping the objectives of your Google Ads audit in mind. Your Google Ads account has numerous layers, and each one is important for effective pay-per-click marketing.
Because of this, your Google Ads audit checklist must cover every last nuance of your account. Don’t forget anything, please!
The brief list of actions required to carry out a free Google Ads audit that is recommended by the best PPC agency in India is as follows:
- Account level audit.
- Examine the organization and applicability of your campaigns.
- Examine your objectives and conversions.
- Examine your ad retargeting and bidding.
- Review your performance-enhancing tactics.
Whether Google Ads accounts are self-managed or outsourced to the largest agency in the world, money is frequently wasted and development possibilities are missed. It’s crucial that you routinely audit your Google Ads account and find those seemingly unavoidable faults early on, either yourself or with the help of a trusted third party. Still confused? Connect with us today and let us do it for you. We at Clickites, have the most efficient team to make your auditing journey a lot simpler!
Steps to Audit Google Ad Account
Use this pay-per-click auditing checklist to ensure that you obtain the information you need:
1. Look at the conversion tracking
Checking the conversion tracking should be your initial action. Conversions can be imported from Google Analytics or configured through Google Ads. Additionally, confirm that the Ads and Analytics accounts are connected. It can appear that the account has been converted.
Thinking that an account is fantastic merely because it has conversions is a mistake. Conversions are frequently recorded incorrectly. Check the specified conversions to ensure everything is in order on your account.
2. Choose the account structure
You must respond to these inquiries to audit a pay-per-click campaign:
- In how many campaigns has the account been set up?
- How many campaigns are running right now, according to the audit?
- What values guide the creation of the campaigns?
Account structure is crucial for optimization since a poor structure results in ineffective budget spending. It’s crucial to comprehend the ideas around which your account was founded for this reason. You’ll probably discover both strengths and flaws, but you’ll also quickly spot areas for improvement.
3. Learn how the campaigns are structured
How many words are in each ad group? Make sure each group contains no more than 15 to 20 people. In actuality, 5 to 10 keywords are the ideal range. If you notice any ad groups in your account with more than 20 keywords, split them up into more manageable groups.
Why is the size of the keyword group so crucial? At first look, it can appear that the quantity of keywords does not significantly affect a campaign’s effectiveness. Google Ads are configured with identical settings for each keyword, though. The possibility that the keywords in a Google ad retargeting group would cover disparate themes increases with the number of keywords in the group, which reduces the relevancy of the advertising and consequently lowers quality scores.
4. Check Each Campaign’s Settings
Display advertisements are typically configured to “Display Network Only,” whereas search campaigns are frequently set to “Search Network Only.” However, if the campaign isn’t getting much traffic, you can start a test campaign to see how one does on the other’s network.
It’s crucial to utilize the “All Features” setting for both. This enables you to make use of all available features and reporting for the best campaign optimization.
5. Default Location Target should be modified
Users who “search for or who demonstrate an interest in my targeted place” will see advertisements by default, according to location settings. This will result in several impressions and clicks from unrelated places. Campaigns for clients in the US and Canada, for instance, will see impressions from Pakistan and India.
Select the “Dimensions – User locations” option to get statistics broken down by location. When you notice that the campaign was configured to the default, review this report immediately. You can learn important lessons. Use the setting “People in my intended location” nevertheless, virtually always.
The audit’s final checklist for Google Ads
- ROI/ROAS
- Conversion volume
- CPA
- Conversion tracking accuracy.
- Account structure: the total number of ad campaigns in the account; the total number of ad campaigns that were active at the time of the audit; the structure and logic of the campaigns.
- Campaign structure: the number of keywords in the group, the variety of advertising in the group, the grammar, and the caliber of the landing pages.
- Campaign settings include the following:
The types of campaigns, network search partners, devices, locations, variations in location, languages, bidding strategy, ad extensions, rotation settings, automatic rules, scripts, and bid adjustments.
- Keyword quality score:
Match types; search phrases; branded terms; negative keywords; search term volume.
- Additional checks include IP exclusion and change history.
It might be difficult to manage a Google Ads or other paid digital advertising campaign when you also have to worry about running the rest of your business.
Do business with Clickites! We have a whole team dedicated to developing, maintaining, and optimizing search campaigns for companies exactly like yours, with years of experience in digital advertising.
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