Auditing Your Google Ads Account

Auditing your Google Ads account can be helpful whether it’s performing well or not. A quick audit can identify opportunities for improvement and optimizations to get the best performance for your investment. These are some of the things we recommend including in every Google Ads account audit.

1. Start with your account structure

• Are your campaigns broken up by logical categories (product lines, geo-targets, call-to-actions)?
• Are there too many ad groups within each campaign?
• Are all your steps of the funnel covered within your structure? Remember that your ultimate call-to-action on your ads and landing page should match the step of the funnel your audience is in and that can be identified by keywords they are searching.
• Are you utilizing scheduling/day-parting, geo-targeting, and device bidding in your structure?
• Are branded and non-branded terms separated?

2. Use keyword reporting to identify opportunities

• Look at Search Term reports to see if there are keywords that should be included as an exact match.
• Identify search terms that are matching multiple keywords across different ad groups and campaigns. Eliminate this by changing terms to exact or adding negatives to ad groups where it makes sense.
• Check the quality scores on your keywords. This may result in reorganizing your keywords so they match more closely to your ad and landing page or you may realize the need to change your ad text and/or landing page. You can get more information on low-quality scores by including the columns “Ad relevance” and “Landing page exp.” In your report.
• Look for search terms that have a high spend but no conversions. Reevaluate your keyword and make sure your landing page is showcasing your conversion point. If you still can’t make it convert, consider pausing it and allowing the budget to be spent on more successful keywords.

3. Identify opportunities to target by device type.

Almost every view and report in Google Ads can be segmented by device type. If you find your mobile traffic and desktop traffic performance to be different enough, you can separate your targeting into different campaigns and change your tactics. For example, you might find that mobile traffic responds better to more direct value propositions and call-to-actions within your ad text than desktop. This may also dictate the landing page you direct your mobile visitors to.

4. Same goes for day-parting…

Segment your reports by days of the week and hours to look for times when your spend is being less successful in bringing in quality traffic. If you find your campaign is “limited by budget”, this is a good way to remedy that without throwing more money at it.

5. Evaluate your bid strategies and conversions.

There are multiple bid strategies based on impressions, clicks, and conversions backed by Google’s AI to get the most out of your money. However, if you don’t tell Google what you want then you’re not going to get a successful outcome from any of these strategies. For example, if you’re not happy with the traffic you get from your advertising, then continuing with a maximize click strategy is probably not a good idea. Switching to a conversion-based strategy seems like a no-brainer, but make sure you review what you have set up as a conversion point within Google Ads before doing so. If you have page views as a conversion point but you’re trying to drive form fills, Google will keep directing traffic your way that gets page views and not necessarily form fills. Consider narrowing your conversion points to exactly what you want more of before moving to a conversion-based bid strategy.

Performing an audit with these items included should give you a good idea of optimizations you can do to get your account in tip-top order. Just remember that these findings shift with every search and search trends will change over time so it’s important to look at them periodically. If you need help with your account, Top Floor can perform an audit and develop an action plan to get it running efficiently. Just contact us for more information!