Free Google Ads Audit Template & Checklist

Start with the business outcome the account should support. An ecommerce review might focus on profitable purchases, while a service business may need qualified enquiries that turn into customers.

Choose the campaigns, markets and review period. Note any recent changes to budgets, bidding, tracking or landing pages so you can interpret performance in context.

Allow for the time between an ad interaction and a conversion. Recent results can look weaker while purchases or enquiries are still being recorded.

Before reviewing the account, gather:

Check what each conversion action actually measures. A purchase, completed enquiry, phone-button click and page visit represent different levels of customer intent.

Review which goals each campaign uses for bidding. Check the primary and secondary settings, along with any custom goals, rather than relying on the conversion action’s name alone. Actions included in custom goals can be used for bidding even when marked secondary.

For ecommerce, check purchase values, currency and duplicate transactions. For lead generation, compare recorded enquiries with lead quality and sales outcomes where that information is available.

The aim is to understand whether the account is measuring the outcomes the business needs—not simply whether conversions are being recorded.

Look at the role of each campaign before recommending changes. Separate campaigns serving different products, services, markets or customer needs where that distinction matters to the review.

Check whether budgets and bidding goals support those priorities. Review location settings and exclusions against the customers the business can realistically serve.

For Search campaigns, examine keyword coverage, ad groups, ads and landing-page relevance. Where Shopping or Performance Max campaigns are used, include product-feed issues, assets, destination pages and the available performance reports.

Record campaign-specific checks as not applicable when they do not relate to the account. The audit should reflect the business you are reviewing, not force every account into the same setup.

Follow the customer’s journey from search to landing page. Does the query match the offer? Does the ad describe it accurately? Can the visitor find the information needed to buy or enquire?

Use the available search-term reports to investigate relevance and performance. Some queries are omitted for privacy reasons, so the report is not a complete record of every search.

Connect each recommendation to a specific finding before changing targeting, exclusions or messaging. Look for patterns such as:

Turn the review into a practical plan. For each issue, record what is affected, why it matters, the proposed change and who will implement it.

Start with problems that undermine measurement or prevent customers from completing an important action. Then assess other improvements using their likely business impact, implementation effort and dependencies.

Keep commercial outcomes in view. Revenue-based ROAS does not account for every business cost, and a low cost per enquiry is only useful if those enquiries have value.

Use the Google Ads ROAS and Budget Waste Calculator to explore the economics alongside your account findings.

After implementation, check that the change works as intended and allow an appropriate period to assess performance.