Google Ads audit

What a Google Ads audit is for

A Google Ads audit answers one question: is this account spending money in a way that makes sense for the business? Most accounts I review aren't disasters. They're slightly wrong in a dozen places, and together those small issues add up to a large share of the budget going to searches, places or people that will never become customers.

I do audits for three kinds of owners: those who run ads themselves and suspect they're missing something, those whose agency reports look good while the phone stays quiet, and those about to hire someone and wanting a clean starting point. In all three cases, the outcome is the same: a list of fixes ranked by how much money is at stake.

Tracking comes first

Almost every audit starts and often ends with conversion tracking. If Google counts a contact page visit, a duplicate form submission or a three-second call as a lead, then reported cost per lead is fiction and automated bidding is chasing the wrong goal. I compare conversions in Google Ads with real enquiries in your inbox, phone log or CRM. When they don't match, that's the first fix, before anything else. If tracking needs a rebuild, a GA4 and Tag Manager setup is the clean way to do it.

Settings that quietly cost money

Some of the most expensive problems sit in settings nobody looks at after launch:

• Location set to people “interested in” your area rather than present in it.
• Search partners and Display switched on inside a Search campaign.
• Auto-applied recommendations adding broad keywords or rewriting ads.
• Ad schedule running at hours when nobody answers the phone.
• Geography mismatches, for example ads showing far outside the area you serve.

Each takes minutes to fix once found.

Keywords and search terms

I read through the search terms that actually triggered your ads over the last few months. This is where waste becomes visible: job seekers, DIY questions, competitor names, products you don't sell, cities you don't serve. I also look for missing keywords, ones you should be bidding on and aren't, and for overlap between campaigns that makes you compete against yourself.

The landing page and the follow-up

An ad can only promise what the landing page delivers. I check how the page loads on a phone, whether it repeats what the ad said, whether the phone number is clickable and the form short. Then I look at what happens to leads: how fast someone replies, and whether missed calls get a callback. Slow follow-up is one of the most common reasons good campaigns look bad. My article on missed calls and lost leads covers this in more detail.

What you get

A written list of findings, each with what's wrong, why it matters, how much budget it likely affects and how to fix it. Then a Zoom walkthrough where I explain it in plain language and answer questions. You can apply the fixes yourself, pass them to your current specialist, or hand the account to me for monthly management.

Pricing and what happens next

The first look is a free 30-minute call with your account on screen, which often reveals the top problems straight away. A full account audit is billed at my consultation rate of $70 an hour, and I tell you the estimated hours before starting. If you want every channel reviewed, the marketing audit and strategy covers ads, website, SEO and more for $2,400. I don't rebuild other people's websites, but I regularly rescue ad campaigns. For a broader view of what I do in Google, see the Google Ads services page.