Google Ads Audit Checklist

At minimum, run a structured audit quarterly. Accounts spending £5,000+/month benefit from a monthly light-touch review plus a deep quarterly audit. Search Terms and negatives should be reviewed weekly on active accounts regardless of audit cadence.

The top recurring issues are weak negative keyword coverage, Display Network opt-in on Search campaigns, mis-configured or duplicated conversion tracking, broad match without smart bidding, and CPA targets set too aggressively for the account's data volume. Together these typically account for 20-40% of wasted spend.

You can run a self-audit using this checklist — especially if your spend is under £3,000/month. Above £5,000/month, an expert audit usually pays for itself within the first month because experts catch compounding issues (like bidding strategy mismatches or attribution leaks) that self-audits often miss.

A thorough self-audit using this 50-point checklist typically takes 2-3 hours. A professional audit on an account with 5-10 campaigns takes 4-8 hours of expert time, including account analysis, search term deep dives, and a written findings report with prioritised actions.

An audit checks what's currently configured against best practice — the tactical layer. A strategy review questions whether the current campaign structure, channel mix, and objectives match your business goals — the strategic layer. Most accounts need both, but an audit is where you start because you can't fix strategy on top of broken tactics.