10 signs your Google Ads campaign needs an audit

You do not need an expert to tell you an account has a problem. The account tells you, if you know what to listen for. Here are the ten signs that come up most often when a small business brings us an account that has been running on its own for a while, what each one usually turns out to mean, and the quick way to check.

1. The spend is steady but the enquiries are not

The budget goes out at the same rate every week. The enquiries arrive in a burst, then stop, then burst again. That pattern is a sign the campaign is finding customers by accident rather than by design: the bidding is chasing something other than enquiries, or the search terms it wins vary wildly week to week.

Quick check: compare conversions by week for the last three months against cost by week. If cost is flat and conversions are not, audit.

2. Google's number and your inbox disagree

Google Ads reports 30 conversions. You can count 9 real enquiries. That gap means the account is counting something that is not a customer, and optimising toward it.

Quick check: open Conversions, see what each action actually is, and submit your own form to see which actions it triggers.

3. You cannot remember opening the search terms report

If nobody has read the list of what people actually typed before clicking, there is waste in it. There always is.

Quick check: open Search terms, sort by cost, read the top twenty.

4. The cost per click has crept up without a reason

Clicks that cost $4 a year ago cost $7 now, and nothing in your business changed. Often it is Quality Score drifting down as ads and pages went stale, or new competitors arriving while your bids stayed on autopilot.

Quick check: add the Quality Score column to your keywords. Anything below 5 on a main keyword is costing you a premium.

5. Most of the budget is on one campaign and you are not sure why

Budget drifts. A campaign set up for a one-off promotion is still spending; the campaign for your main service is limited by budget. The split made sense once.

Quick check: sort campaigns by cost and by conversions. If the order is different, the money is in the wrong place.

6. Clicks are coming from places you do not serve

A different city with the same name. A state away. Another country. The location report will show it, and the default location setting usually explains it.

Quick check: open Locations and switch to user location. Look for anywhere you would not drive to.

7. Nobody has changed anything in months

Change history is empty since the account was set up. Search terms, competitors, Google's own defaults and your own prices have all moved since then. An account that has not been touched is an account that has drifted.

Quick check: open Change history and look at the date of the last human change.

8. Google keeps recommending things and you keep accepting them

The recommendations tab is useful and it is also Google's sales channel. Adding broad match, expanding reach and raising budgets all appear there regularly. If the account has grown through accepted recommendations, it has grown in Google's direction, not yours.

Quick check: look at Change history for changes made by "Google Ads" rather than by a person, and check whether auto-apply is on.

9. Your ads are rated Average or Poor

Google grades each responsive search ad. Average and Poor ads are shown less and charged more. It is the easiest grade in the account to improve and the one most often ignored.

Quick check: in the Ads table, add the Ad strength column.

10. You feel you are paying an agency for a monthly report

If the main thing you receive is a PDF, and the changes made each month are a few bid tweaks, the retainer is buying reporting rather than management. An audit is how you find out what the account would look like with the weekly work actually done.

Quick check: ask for the change history for the last 90 days and count the changes.

Three signs is enough

Any one of these can have an innocent explanation. Three together almost never does. The 25-point audit checklist walks through what to check and in what order; it takes an afternoon by hand.

Or let the software do it. The free check below reads your website and shows what would be fixed first, and connecting the account gives you the full audit, every fault priced in dollars a month, at no cost.