I’ve audited 247 Google Ads accounts over eight years. Eighty-three percent of them were bleeding money on at least four preventable problems. Most business owners had no idea.
Google gives you an “Optimization Score” that’s completely useless. It’ll tell you to add broad match keywords and increase your budget — because that’s good for Google, not for you. Meanwhile, your conversion tracking is broken, you’re bidding on competitor names that don’t convert, and half your ad spend is going to searches that have nothing to do with your business.
This checklist is for business owners and marketers running their own Google Ads accounts. If you’re spending more than $2,000 a month and your cost per lead keeps climbing while your phone stays quiet, keep reading.
I’m going to walk you through the same 20-point audit I run on every account that comes through my door. Score yourself honestly. The problems you can see and fix yourself are usually not the ones killing your ROI — but they’re a good start.
Campaign Structure & Setup (5 Points)
1. Brand and non-brand campaigns are separated
Open your campaigns list. You should see clear separation — “Brand Search,” “Non-Brand Search,” “Competitor Search” as distinct campaigns. If everything is mixed together in one “Search Campaign,” that’s your first problem.
Bad: One campaign targeting both your company name and industry terms.
Good: Separate brand campaign with exact match on your company name, separate non-brand campaign for industry keywords.
Fix: Create new campaigns, move keywords accordingly, adjust budgets to prioritize brand protection.
2. Each campaign has a single, clear objective
Every campaign should answer the question “What is this supposed to do?” in one sentence. If you’re mixing lead generation keywords with purchase-intent keywords in the same campaign, the bidding algorithm gets confused.
Bad: One campaign targeting both “commercial epoxy contractor” and “epoxy flooring cost estimate.”
Good: Separate campaigns for high-intent searches vs. informational searches.
Fix: Review keywords and group by user intent — separate information seekers from buyers.
3. Ad groups contain tightly related keywords (max 10-15 per group)
Click into your ad groups. If you see 40 keywords in one ad group covering completely different topics, your ad relevance is suffering.
Bad: Ad group with “commercial flooring,” “industrial coatings,” “warehouse floors,” and “parking garage repair.”
Good: One ad group for commercial flooring, separate group for industrial coatings.
Fix: Split broad ad groups into themed groups, write specific ads for each theme.
4. Campaign budgets align with opportunity size
Check your campaign budget allocation. Brand campaigns should get enough budget to capture all brand searches. Non-brand gets the growth budget.
Bad: Brand campaign limited by budget while non-brand campaign has excess budget.
Good: Brand campaign never loses impression share due to budget, non-brand campaign gets expansion budget.
Fix: Pull impression share lost due to budget report, reallocate accordingly.
5. Bidding strategies match campaign goals
Review your bid strategies. New campaigns should start with manual CPC or maximize clicks until you have conversion data. Automated bidding needs at least 30 conversions in 30 days to work properly.
Bad: Target CPA bidding on a campaign with 8 conversions last month.
Good: Manual bidding until data volume supports automation.
Fix: Switch to manual CPC, build conversion volume, then test automated bidding.
Conversion Tracking & Data Quality (4 Points)
6. You’re tracking the actions that actually matter
Go to Tools > Conversions. Look at what you’re counting as a “conversion.” If you’re optimizing toward newsletter signups or PDF downloads instead of actual leads or sales, Google is optimizing for the wrong thing.
Bad: Counting page views of your services page as conversions.
Good: Tracking form submissions, phone calls, and actual appointments booked.
Fix: Set up conversion tracking for actions that lead to revenue, not engagement metrics.
7. Conversion values reflect actual business value
Check if your conversions have different values assigned. A phone call from a “commercial flooring quote” search should be worth more than a contact form from “flooring types” search.
Bad: All conversions assigned the same $1 value.
Good: Phone calls worth $50, quote requests worth $75, appointment bookings worth $100.
Fix: Assign values based on your actual close rates and average deal sizes.
8. Attribution windows make sense for your sales cycle
Review your conversion attribution settings. If your sales cycle is 30 days but you’re using 1-day attribution, you’re undercounting conversions and making bad optimization decisions.
Bad: 1-day click attribution for a B2B service with 45-day sales cycles.
Good: 30-day click attribution that captures your actual conversion timeline.
Fix: Analyze your sales data to determine actual conversion timeline, adjust attribution accordingly.
9. Duplicate conversion tracking is eliminated
Check for multiple conversion codes on the same pages. If Google Analytics goals and Google Ads conversions are both firing on the same action, you’re double-counting.
Bad: GA4 goal and Google Ads conversion both tracking the same form submission.
Good: One conversion source per action, properly configured.
Fix: Audit your tracking setup, remove duplicates, pick one source of truth per conversion.
Keyword Strategy & Match Types (4 Points)
10. Broad match keywords have tight negative keyword lists
If you’re running broad match (and you probably shouldn’t be), check your negative keyword lists. Pull a search terms report for the last 30 days and count how many irrelevant searches triggered your ads.
Bad: Broad match keywords with no negative keyword management.
Good: Broad match only for proven winners, with extensive negative keyword lists.
Fix: Add negatives for irrelevant themes: jobs, free, DIY, competitor names you don’t want.
11. Search terms report is reviewed and acted on regularly
Go to Keywords > Search Terms. Look at the actual searches that triggered your ads in the last 30 days. If you haven’t looked at this report in months, you’re wasting money.
Bad: Search terms report shows “flooring jobs,” “free flooring estimate,” “DIY epoxy” triggering your commercial contractor ads.
Good: 90%+ of triggered searches are relevant to your business.
Fix: Review weekly, add irrelevant terms as negatives, add valuable new terms as keywords.
12. Keyword match types follow a strategic hierarchy
Your highest-converting searches should be exact match with higher bids. Use phrase match for variations. Only use broad match for discovery, with lower bids.
Bad: Everything on broad match because “Google’s AI knows best.”
Good: Exact match for proven converters, phrase for close variations, broad for testing only.
Fix: Start with exact and phrase match, add broad match only after proving keyword performance.
13. Competitor keyword performance is tracked separately
If you’re bidding on competitor names (which usually doesn’t work), track those keywords separately so you know what they’re actually costing vs. delivering.
Bad: Competitor terms mixed in with your industry keywords, no separate performance analysis.
Good: Competitor terms in separate campaigns or ad groups with isolated tracking.
Fix: Either eliminate competitor bidding or isolate it for proper ROI analysis.
Ad Copy & Landing Page Alignment (3 Points)
14. Ad copy matches landing page content
Click through your own ads. Does the headline in your ad match the headline on your landing page? If someone clicks “Get Free Commercial Flooring Quote” and lands on your generic services page, they’re bouncing.
Bad: Ad promises “Free Quote” but landing page has generic “Contact Us” form.
Good: Ad copy and landing page messaging directly align.
Fix: Create dedicated landing pages that match your ad promises.
15. Landing pages are built for conversion, not information
Your landing pages should have one clear action. If your ad sends people to your homepage, you’re making them work too hard to convert.
Bad: Ads sending traffic to homepage or generic service pages.
Good: Dedicated landing pages with clear calls-to-action matching the ad promise.
Fix: Build focused landing pages for each campaign objective.
16. Mobile experience is optimized
Check your ads and landing pages on mobile. If your phone number isn’t clickable or your forms are hard to fill out on mobile, you’re losing conversions.
Bad: Desktop-focused landing pages that don’t work on mobile.
Good: Mobile-optimized pages with click-to-call buttons and simple forms.
Fix: Test your conversion flow on mobile, fix any usability issues.
Budget & Bidding Optimization (2 Points)
17. Budget allocation matches performance data
Pull your campaign performance report. Are you spending the most money on the campaigns that generate the most profit? Or is budget going to campaigns that “feel” important?
Bad: Equal budget distribution across all campaigns regardless of performance.
Good: Budget weighted toward highest-ROI campaigns and opportunities.
Fix: Analyze profit per campaign, shift budget toward winners.
18. Impression share lost due to budget is monitored
Check your impression share metrics. If your best campaigns are losing impression share due to budget while poor performers have excess budget, you’re leaving money on the table.
Bad: High-performing campaigns losing 40% impression share due to budget constraints.
Good: Top campaigns capturing 90%+ of available impression share.
Fix: Increase budgets on high-performers, decrease on poor performers.
Quality Score & Account Health (2 Points)
19. Quality scores are consistently above 7
Go to Keywords and add the Quality Score column. If most of your keywords are below 7, you’re paying more for the same clicks and getting worse ad positions.
Bad: Quality scores of 3-5 across most keywords.
Good: Quality scores of 7-10 indicating strong relevance.
Fix: Improve ad relevance, landing page alignment, and expected click-through rates.
20. Account shows consistent month-over-month improvement
Pull a 6-month performance report. Are your key metrics (cost per conversion, conversion rate, return on ad spend) trending in the right direction or flat?
Bad: No clear performance trend or declining metrics over time.
Good: Steady improvement in efficiency metrics over time.
Fix: Implement regular optimization schedule and track progress monthly.
Your Score
Count up your checkmarks:
17-20 points: Your account is well-managed. Focus on advanced optimization and scaling.
13-16 points: Solid foundation with room for improvement. You’re probably leaving 15-20% on the table.
9-12 points: Major inefficiencies. You’re likely wasting 30-40% of your ad spend on fixable problems.
8 or below: Stop running ads until you fix the fundamentals. You’re burning money.
This checklist catches the obvious problems — the stuff that’s easy to see once you know where to look. The stuff that really kills accounts is invisible in a self-audit. Attribution gaps where conversions get credited to the wrong campaigns. Audience overlap causing you to bid against yourself. Search term themes that convert at 2% getting the same bids as themes that convert at 15%.
That’s what a professional audit uncovers. The systematic inefficiencies you can’t see from inside the account.
If you scored below 13 or want someone to find the hidden problems, I run comprehensive account audits for $800. Takes me 3-4 days, covers everything from tracking accuracy to competitive positioning. You get a 40-page report plus a recorded walkthrough of every issue and exactly how to fix it.
Most clients recover the audit cost within the first month just from eliminating waste.