The audit we run before taking on any Google Ads account: search terms, conversion integrity, structure, automation settings and budget concentration.
Every Google Ads account we take over gets the same audit before we change anything, and the same five areas explain almost every wasted pound we find. This is the checklist we actually use, in the order we use it, so you can run it on your own account this week.
1. Search terms: what are you actually paying for?
Not the keywords you bid on, the queries you matched to. Pull the search terms report for the last 90 days and sort by cost. In most accounts we inherit, a meaningful share of spend sits on queries that could never convert: careers searches, competitors' returns policies, information queries with no buying intent. Broad match plus smart bidding has made this worse, because the matching is more expansive and the waste hides inside averages. If more than a small fraction of your spend sits on irrelevant terms, negatives are your fastest win.
2. Conversion integrity: is the number Google optimises against real?
Smart bidding is only as good as the conversion it optimises towards. We check what is counted as a conversion, whether duplicates are inflating it, whether it fires reliably, and whether the value passed reflects margin or just noise. We have audited accounts where a newsletter signup and a five-figure enquiry counted the same, which means the algorithm was optimising for the cheapest possible thing to get. Fix the measurement before judging the campaigns; our measurement work exists because this problem is so common.
3. Structure: can budget flow to what works?
Over-segmented accounts starve the algorithm of data; over-consolidated accounts hide losers inside winners. We look for campaigns split by legacy logic (old match types, tiny geographies, ancient product splits) and for a structure that no longer matches how the business makes money. The test is simple: can you tell, in one view, which parts of the account are profitable?
4. Automation settings: who is actually in control?
Auto-applied recommendations, broad match defaults, and asset automation can each quietly change an account. We check what Google has been allowed to change on its own and when. Automation is not the enemy; unsupervised automation is. Our position on this is set out in how we run AI and automation governance for paid accounts.
5. Budget concentration: where does the next pound go?
Finally we map spend against margin, not revenue. It is common to find the majority of budget defending branded terms that would convert anyway, while unbranded categories with real headroom are capped. This is where an audit stops being hygiene and becomes strategy: the same demand mapping we run on media strategy engagements.
What to do with the findings
Sequence matters. Measurement first, waste second, structure third, growth last. Changing bidding strategy on top of broken conversion data just teaches the algorithm the wrong lesson faster. If you would like a second opinion on your own account, ask us and we will tell you where we would focus, and why: speak to us. If your search spend is split between paid and organic, read our thinking on when to pay for a click you already rank for.
