Here are some signs of incorrect tracking:

• Your click count is identical to the conversion count. There are only two things that can explain this: either your products are out of this world or the conversion tracking code was added to the landing page instead of the order confirmation page.
• Your conversion rates are extremely high despite dismal sales numbers. This happens when you are tracking visits to a product page/homepage rather than measuring order confirmations.
• Your conversion count is abysmally low, which could mean that you are perhaps missing conversions. It’s like that you have not been implemented call tracking or perhaps you haven’t added tracking code to any new landing pages.

If your account does not register any conversions, then the first step is to generate and adding the conversion tracking code to your account. With that, your first step of the Google Ads audit has been completed.

Google Ads Audit Step 2 – Review Targeting Settings

Setting the campaign targeting settings takes no more than five minutes but even a tiny mistake in this process could have a huge impact on your campaign performance.

This is a huge mistake that can prove to be costly.

That’s why our Google Ads audit specialists will look at all of your campaigns and look at the targeting settings to ensure they are right for your business.

Here are some of the important things to check as part of this step:

• Network settings – The Search Network is completely different from GDN in every respect from goals and expectations to performance. The audit and optimisation process will depend on the network you are targeting.
• Mobile bid adjustments – Do you want to display your ads on mobile devices? Then you must ensure the bid modifiers are high enough so you can gain visibility in mobile searches. To that end, you must categorise your performance by device to review how effective your current mobile bids are. If you are not yet ready for mobile traffic, simply set the bids to -100% until your mobile landing pages and mobile ads are up to mark. Given that almost half the traffic these days comes from mobile devices, it’s important to prioritise this step.
• Target locations – Make sure that you are actively servicing the regions that your account is targeting. Next, it’s time to review the geo-reports. If you find that a specific geo-location is performing extremely well (or poorly), it’s important to fine-tune your campaign to prioritise that location.

That wraps up the second step of your basic Google Ads audit process.

Google Ads Audit Step 3 – Check Ad Group Structure and Relevancy

The structure of your ad group allows you to simplify your Google Ads account, making it a lot easier to use. It’s difficult to update or navigate poorly created ad groups.

So begin this stage of your Google Ads audit by answering these questions:

• How many keywords does each ad group contain?
• How similar are these keywords?
• Can you filter the ad groups and group keywords in several different ad groups?
• Can you use single keyword ad groups?

As a rule of thumb, each ad group must feature no more than 15 to 20 keywords. Ideally, limit your ad group to no more than 5 to 10 keywords.

Now review your account to check for groups with more than 20 keywords. These are the groups that will need some work.

So why shouldn’t an ad group have any more than 20 keywords? In reality, the number of keywords in an ad group does not affect performance. But it’s important to note that you will be displaying the same ad sets for each keyword in an ad group. So if your keyword list is large, it’s likely to contain different themes, which means your ad copy will be generic.

Your focus should instead be to create an ad group with keywords that share the same theme semantically. This way, you can create extremely specific ad copy for each of your ad groups, ensuring that your ads match the search intent of your target audience.

Specificity is a crucial part of Google Ads and refining your ad groups can boost your quality scores significantly.

Here are some actions to take:

• Restrict ad groups to 5 or fewer relevant keywords.
• Create single keyword ad groups where possible for the best results.

Google Ads Audit Step 4 – Check the Number of Ads in a Group

Writing ad copy is no mean feat.

Squeezing your message into a tight character limit is no fun and can take a lot of time, especially if you are managing multiple ad campaigns with tens of ad groups.

However, ad copy can make or break your Google Ads campaign. Most accounts make do with one ad copy. However, that’s a huge mistake.

If each ad group has only one ad, it means you are not testing different variations of your ad, which can significantly lower the efficacy of your campaign.

Ideally, you should be testing 3 to 5 ads per ad group. To begin with, aim for 2 to 3 ad variations for each ad group. This is a manageable number for split testing. Once the winning ad copy has been identified, you can put a pause on the other ads and begin testing new variations.

That’s the secret of a successful Google Ads campaign. It’s not really a secret. But it calls for a lot of patience and perseverance. Our digital marketing specialists and copywriters specialise in split testing. We will keep testing new ad copies for each of your ad groups and challenge the winning copy with newer variations to maximise your ROI.

Google Ads Audit Step 5 – Review Keywords

There are different keyword types including exact, broad, broad match modifier, phrase and negative. Broad keywords have a wider reach, which is useful for niche products/services that are hard to describe. However, this can result in irrelevant clicks, costing you a lot of money.

If your Google Ads account is primarily targeting broad match keywords, we highly recommend pausing those keywords immediately. Instead, go for broad match modifier keywords or better yet phrase match keywords for tighter targeting.

When auditing your keywords, it’s easy to lose focus. There’s a lot of ground to cover with factors such as search intent, match types, negative keywords and more. However, the focus of your keyword audit process should be on finding trends and patterns.

And remember, it’s an audit process. So don’t be quick to begin making the changes as you find opportunities for improvement.

When reviewing your keywords, focus on the main topic of your campaign and dig deeper into the ad groups. By benchmarking against your goals, you can then assess the intent and performance of the keywords in the ad group.

As part of your free Google Ads audit, our PPC consultants will review samples to identify patterns & issues instead of just judging each keyword. Extensive sorting and sample is needed to identify optimisation and performance issues.

Here are some important aspects of the keywords that we review as part of the audit:

Are negative keywords being used?

You should include negative keywords in your ad groups as they help keep your ads from showing for irrelevant keywords.

If you do not block your ads to show for irrelevant search queries, you will reach people who will click on your ads and arrive on your landing page only to realise this is not what they are looking for.

You will pay for clicks that will never have a chance at converting those visitors into leads or sales. By not turning on negative keywords, you will continue paying for bad clicks.

If you are not sure what this even means, fret not! Our digital marketing specialists will audit your account to identify those clicks that are not generating any results for you and carry out in-depth research to identify negative keywords to minimise wasted ad spend.

Are there any keywords with low-quality scores?

This is an important aspect to review in your Google Ads audit.

If your account has a low quality score, you are not only paying more for each click but you are also running the risk of your ads not showing up.

With a quality score of 2 or 3 out of 10, you can’t expect to see any results.

Improving the quality score of your account is the best way to maximise your ROI. If your campaigns have a low quality score, find out what’s missing:

• Does your ad copy match the search intent?
• Is your offer relevant to your keyword?
• Does your landing page message match with your ad copy?

Are you implementing individual bids for the keywords?

If you are not using individual bids for keywords, you can’t expect to maximise your results. Avoid using the ad group defaults. That’s a huge mistake!

By adjusting your maximum cost per click (CPC), you can expect to lower the average CPC. You can generate better results by adjusting the max CPC for each keyword.

Do you know your best-performing keywords?

Another great way to maximise ROI is to mine the search terms reports to find your best-performing keywords.

If you are using broad match modifier type keywords (or broad match for that matter), you will have a lot of data that you can leverage.

The search terms report in your Google Ads account will show the new keywords that are bringing in the conversions. And you will even discover negative keywords that you could add to your campaign.

Mining the search term report is a great way to optimise your campaign for maximum results.

Google Ads Audit Step 6 – Check Ad Extension Relevancy

Ad extensions are a great way to boost the efficacy of your ads and improve your click-through rates (CTR). In fact, Google acknowledges that the use of ad extensions increases the average CTR of ads by 10% to 15%.

However, just because ad extensions exist, you shouldn’t end up slapping endless extensions in the hope of massive conversion boosts and CTR increases. Simply adding ad extensions won’t do much.

It’s equally important to use only those extensions that are right for your business. For instance, if you cannot dedicate staff to answer the phone, it makes no sense to use the phone call ad extension. You will only be wasting money on calls that you can’t answer.

A lot of marketers fail to make the right use of ad extensions. More often than not, they end up either overusing or abusing ad extensions hoping to boost their CTR.

So in this step of your Google Ads account audit, check to ensure you are using only those extensions that match with your goal or your call to action.

Relevancy is extremely critical.

If you are looking for website traffic, opt for sitelink extensions. If you want people to call you, make use of call extensions, and so on.

When auditing your Google Ads extensions, take your time to review the extensions report in the dashboard. You may find opportunities you are missing or mistakes you’re making.

For example, you may notice that a particular sitelink extension is generating a ton of conversions. Consider creating a separate ad group using that page as the landing page.

Our online marketing specialists recommend and implement the following essential actions:

• Check the different ad extensions in your report.
• Check how each ad extension is performing.
• Assess how you are using ad extensions for every ad campaign.
• Weed out irrelevant or underperforming ad extensions.
• Limit extensions to 1 to 3 types for each ad. Overloading your ad with too many extensions can distract the prospects.

Google Ads Audit Step 7 – Ensure You are Using Unique Landing Pages for Each Ad Group

The quality score of your ads has a great impact on the success of your Google Ads campaign. And a PPC account audit is an excellent way to identify opportunities to improve your quality score.

Landing pages are an important factor that affects your Google Ads quality scores. Unique and specific landing pages that are irrelevant to your ad copy will boost your conversions whereas poorly designed, irrelevant or generic landing pages will have the opposite effect.

It’s important to use a dedicated landing page for each ad group. If you are sending your prospects to a generic homepage, you are wasting your ad spend.

For instance, if you are launching an ad group for “little black dress”, you should send your visitors to a landing page with nothing but little black dresses. It should not send your visitors to the homepage or the main store link.

Give the users what they are looking for and you will see a significant improvement in conversions. That’s the power of “message match”. If you are not matching your message with search intent, you are setting your ad campaign on the path of failure.

Message match is all about delivering on the promise you made in your ad. If the search user is using the search phrase “free Google Ads account audit“, they expect to see ads that include their search phrase.

They will look at the headline to see if the ad has what they are looking for. So when they click, they will obviously expect the page to be about a free Google Ads audit, right?

Absolutely!

So instead of directing users to a generic page about Google ads or the homepage, the ad should send users to the page about Google Ads audit, either providing information about how to get one or how to go about doing it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

So as part of this stage of your Google Ads account audit, these are the actions to take:

• Make sure you are using a unique landing page for each ad group and the different keywords.
• Make sure your message matches with the search intent to boost conversions.

If during our PPC audit, our Google Ads consultant finds that there’s a message mismatch or that your landing page is not unique or specific, we will recommend creating a landing page that can deliver on the promise you are making in your ad.

Google Ads Audit Step 8 – Ad Audits

If you have implemented A/B testing, you must ensure you are sending enough traffic to each ad variation.

The recommended rotation setting is to “rotate indefinitely”. When it is set at “optimised”, Google might not send traffic to one of the versions even before you can collect sufficient data to be able to make an informed decision.

And make sure that each ad group has two versions of your ad – version “A” and version “B”. At regular intervals, you can then identify the winning variation and introduce a new “B” version to test.

Here are some of the things to ensure during your ad audits:

• Are you using 2 ad variations for each ad group?
• Are you using calls to action in the headlines? Are they effective?
• Are you using dynamic keyword insertion?

Google Ads Audit Step 9 – Ensure the Landing Page is Mobile-Friendly

You don’t have to be a web designer to understand the importance of a mobile-friendly website. A mobile-friendly website is crucial in today’s times given that almost half the search users are on mobile devices.

Visit your Google Ads account and choose Landing pages on the left-hand side of the dashboard to see how your website performs on mobile devices.

If the mobile-friendly performance rating is low, you must hire a professional web design agency in Hamilton to create a mobile responsive website for you.

Google Ads Audit Step 10 – Review Your Ad Copy

Compelling ad copywriting is at the heart of a successful Google Ads campaign. When performing your Google Ads audit, look at these critical points:

• Does your copy overcome some of the most common objections that prospects may have about your product/service?
• Are you using all the characters available at your disposal?
• Where applicable, are you using prices, numbers or percentages in the copy?
• Are your ads addressing the biggest pain points your users are struggling with?
• If you are promoting an offer, are you highlighting how much money the user can save?
• If you are a local business, are you highlighting your location in the ads?
• Are you using active calls to action and creating a sense of urgency?
  • Use verbs such as “Call”, “Buy”, “Enroll” or “Save”.
  • Create a sense of urgency with words like “Today”, “Now”, “While Stocks Last”, etc.