Google Ads audit checklist: check measurement before cutting bids

Start with access and a comparison window

Use appropriate account access, not shared passwords. Record recent budget, creative, tracking and landing-page changes. Compare periods long enough to reflect your sales cycle and conversion lag. Segment brand and non-brand traffic so existing demand does not hide weak acquisition performance. Keep an unchanged baseline export before editing settings.

Check the conversions bidding is learning from

Inspect each conversion action, its source, status, counting method and primary or secondary setting. Verify which goals each campaign uses. A duplicate event or an accidental page-view goal can make reported efficiency misleading. Test a real permitted conversion path and reconcile form submissions with received CRM records.

• Separate inquiry, qualified lead and customer outcomes.
• Check duplicates between imported analytics events and Ads tags.
• Review conversion windows and delayed reporting.
• Check consent handling and permitted offline conversion processes.

Review intent, search terms and US coverage

Inspect search terms for relevance to the offer, not only click cost. Review keyword match types and negatives together; overly broad negatives can block suitable demand. For US-only acquisition, inspect location targeting options and actual user-location reports. Presence and interest settings answer different questions, so do not assume the selected country alone proves geographic fit.

Inspect ads and landing pages as one journey

Match the promise in the ad to the page’s offer and form. Check mobile usability, load behavior, contact details, qualification questions and the confirmation step. Review search ad assets and policy status. Compare results by device and landing page while allowing for small samples; do not call a variation a winner after only a few conversions.

Connect spend to lead quality

Join campaign identifiers to accepted leads, opportunities and closed deals where your tracking and consent allow. Compare raw CPL with cost per qualified lead. Imported qualified or converted-lead outcomes can provide a better signal than every form fill, but only if CRM definitions and data delivery are consistent.

• Track rejection reasons such as poor fit, duplicates and unreachable contacts.
• Check sales response times before blaming acquisition.
• Review budget allocation after allowing for conversion delay.
• Do not change tracking, targeting and bidding at once if you need to learn what worked.

Turn findings into a prioritized change list

Label each issue with evidence, likely impact, owner and a way to verify the fix. Repair broken measurement and lead delivery first, then address waste and conversion friction. Make controlled changes and annotate them. A high platform optimization score is not a substitute for profitable, qualified pipeline.

Paid audit service and an adjacent channel case

Explore Paid Acquisition and the paid Google Ads Audit page. The linked case study concerns LinkedIn—not Google Ads—and is included only as an adjacent example of connecting paid acquisition to CRM outcomes. It is not proof of Google Ads performance.

• Paid Acquisition / Performance Media
• Paid Google Ads Audit
• LinkedIn paid acquisition case study