Google Ads audit checklist: 25 things to check before you hire an agency

Hiring an agency to run your Google Ads is a big decision — you're handing over both budget and trust. The problem is that most business owners don't know what "good" looks like inside an account, which makes it hard to tell a strong partner from a smooth talker.

This checklist fixes that. Use it to audit your own account, or to interrogate any agency before you sign. If they can't give clear answers to these, keep looking.

Start with measurement — because everything depends on it

If the tracking is wrong, every other number in the account is fiction. This is always where we start in a free account audit, and it should be where any honest reviewer starts too.

• Is conversion tracking actually installed, and firing correctly?
• Are the conversions meaningful (purchases, qualified leads) or vanity events (page views, clicks)?
• Is each conversion counted once, not double-counted across tags?
• Do the conversion numbers reconcile with your back-end sales or CRM?
• Is enhanced conversions or server-side tracking in place to recover lost data?

Weak measurement is the single most common — and most expensive — problem we find. If you're unsure where yours stands, our guide to tracking and analytics walks through getting it right.

Account structure and settings

Messy structure makes optimisation almost impossible and quietly wastes money on the wrong searches.

• Are campaigns organised logically by goal, product or margin — not just dumped together?
• Is Search separated from Display (a classic default that bleeds budget)?
• Are the location, language and network settings correct for your market?
• Is there a healthy, regularly updated negative-keyword list?
• Are you bidding on your own brand sensibly, and is that reported separately?

Keywords and search terms

• Do the keywords match real buying intent, or just loosely related traffic?
• Has anyone actually read the search-terms report recently? You'll often find money going to irrelevant queries.
• Is match type used deliberately, or is everything broad and hoping for the best?
• Are wasteful, never-converting terms being added as negatives over time?

Ads, assets and landing pages

• Is there more than one ad per ad group, so something is being tested?
• Are all the relevant assets (sitelinks, callouts, images) in use?
• Do the ads actually speak to the searcher's intent and pre-qualify clicks?
• Does each ad send people to a relevant, fast, conversion-focused page — not just the homepage?

Bidding, budget and Performance Max

• Does the bidding strategy match the goal, and does it have enough conversion data to work?
• Is budget allocated toward what performs, or spread evenly out of habit?
• If Performance Max is running, is it given the structure and data it needs to behave?
• Are brand searches being quietly absorbed by PMax and inflating its apparent results?

A quick gut-check: ask whoever runs the account to explain, in one sentence, what they changed last month and why. A good manager will have a clear answer. Silence tells you a lot.

Reporting and communication

• Do you get regular reports tied to business results — cost per acquisition, return on ad spend — not just clicks and impressions?
• Can you understand the reports without a translator?
• Does someone explain what changed, why, and what's next?
• Are you locked into a long contract, or is the relationship built on performance?

What to do with this list

You don't need to be an expert to use these questions — you just need to ask them and listen carefully to the answers. Vague, defensive or jargon-heavy replies are a red flag. Clear, specific answers backed by data are exactly what you want.

If you'd like a second pair of eyes, this is precisely what our free account audit delivers: an honest review of where your budget is leaking and what to fix first, with no obligation. And if you decide you'd rather run it yourself with expert guidance, that's what our marketing consulting is for.