Google Ads audit checklist: what to check before you spend more

Before you spend more on Google Ads, check five things: tracking, settings, search terms, ads and landing pages, and budget. Most wasted spend in small business accounts comes from a handful of settings and habits, not from the ads themselves. Use this checklist to audit your own account in about an hour.

Go through it in order. There is no point tuning keywords if the account cannot tell a real enquiry from a page view.

1. Is your tracking counting real enquiries?

• Every way a customer can contact you is tracked: form submissions, WhatsApp taps, phone taps on the website, and calls from ads.
• Lead conversions are set to count One, not Every.
• Only real enquiries are primary conversions. Page views and scrolls are secondary.
• No action is tracked twice, for example by both a Google Ads tag and an imported GA4 key event.
• Every conversion action shows as active, not “Unverified” or “No recent conversions”, unless that is expected.
• Conversions in Google Ads are roughly in line with the enquiries you actually received last month.

If any of these fail, fix them first. Everything below depends on it. I wrote a full guide on tracking WhatsApp clicks as conversions.

2. Are your campaign settings costing you money?

• Networks: in Search campaigns, Search Partners and the Display Network are switched off unless you have tested them and they bring enquiries at an acceptable cost.
• Locations: targeting covers only the areas you serve, and the location option is set to “Presence” (people in or regularly in your area) unless you deliberately want people searching from elsewhere.
• Languages: include the languages your customers’ browsers and searches use. In Malaysia that is often English and Malay, and sometimes Chinese.
• Ad schedule: if nobody answers the phone or WhatsApp at night, consider lowering bids or pausing ads at those hours.
• Auto-applied recommendations: you know which ones are switched on. Some change keywords, bids or budgets without asking.

3. Are you paying for the wrong searches?

• You have looked at the search terms report in the last two weeks.
• Irrelevant terms are added as negative keywords, for example “job”, “free”, “course”, “DIY”, “salary” and competitor names you do not want.
• Broad match keywords are only used with smart bidding and solid conversion tracking.
• Each ad group covers one service or theme, so the ad and page can match the search.
• Keywords exist in the languages your customers search in, not only English.

4. Do your ads and pages match the search?

• Each ad mentions the service people searched for, a reason to choose you, and what to do next.
• Assets are added: sitelinks, callouts, a call asset and, where relevant, image and location assets.
• The landing page talks about the exact service in the ad, not your home page in general.
• The page loads fast on a phone with mobile data. Test it with Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
• WhatsApp and call buttons are visible without scrolling on a phone.
• The offer on the page matches the ad. If the ad says “free quote”, the page should make getting one obvious.

5. Is your budget and bidding set up to learn?

• Campaigns are not “limited by budget” every day while spending on weak keywords. Fix the waste before adding budget.
• The bid strategy fits your data. Smart bidding such as Maximise conversions needs reliable conversion tracking to work well.
• Budget is split by priority. Your best service or area is not starved because a weaker campaign spends first.
• You know your target cost per enquiry, based on what a customer is worth to you.

How often should you audit a Google Ads account?

A full audit like this one every quarter, and a quick weekly check of search terms, budgets and conversions. Weekly attention is what stops small leaks from becoming expensive ones.

What should you do with what you find?

Write down every issue, then sort them into three groups: tracking problems, waste (searches, networks, locations), and growth ideas (new keywords, better pages). Fix tracking first, cut waste second, and only then add budget or new campaigns.

If you would rather have someone go through it for you, my free Google Ads audit covers this checklist and gives you a prioritised fix list within 2 working days.

Sources: Google Ads Help Center articles “About location targeting”, “About the search terms report”, “About negative keywords”, “About conversion counting options” and “About auto-applied recommendations”.