Google Ads audit checklist

A good Google Ads audit asks one question: is every dollar going to searches and placements that can produce a customer? Start with conversion tracking, because every bid depends on it. Then check budgets, bidding, Quality Score, search terms, ads and Performance Max, and finish by tying spend to CRM pipeline.

Each item below says what to check, where to find it and why. Running LinkedIn or Microsoft Ads too? The cross-channel paid media audit shows how the pieces fit together.

1. Conversion tracking

Check this first. If tracking is wrong, Smart Bidding optimizes toward the wrong thing and every other number is suspect.

Primary vs secondary actions

Go to Goals > Conversions > Summary and look at each action’s goal setting.

• Primary actions appear in the Conversions column and drive bidding.
• Secondary actions appear only in All conversions and don’t drive bidding.

Google explains this in its article on primary and secondary conversion actions. Watch for the real lead action set to secondary while a page view is primary. Smart Bidding then chases the wrong signal.

Counting: One vs Every

Each conversion action counts either One conversion per click or Every conversion. Google recommends One for leads, because a second form fill from the same click rarely adds value. Use Every for purchases. If conversions per click suddenly jump two to five times, look for a lead action set to Every or a tag firing twice.

Status

Google now shows one of these statuses for each action:

Anything other than Active on a primary action is a priority fix. After an outage, apply a data exclusion for the affected dates so Smart Bidding ignores them; our conversion tracking stopped guide covers the steps.

Offline and CRM conversions

If you import qualified leads or opportunities from your CRM, check the upload history. From June 15, 2026, Google moved offline conversion imports and enhanced conversions for leads to the Data Manager API, so older connectors may have stopped sending data.

2. Account structure

• Campaigns split by goal. A common starting point is separate brand and non-brand campaigns, each with its own budget. Otherwise cheap brand clicks can hide expensive non-brand ones.
• Tight ad groups. Each ad group should cover one theme, so the ad can mirror the search. Google lists this as a way to raise the ad relevance part of Quality Score.
• Location option. In campaign settings, check whether you target “Presence or interest” or “Presence: People in or regularly in your included locations”. Google suggests the second when leads arrive from outside your target area.

3. Bidding and learning

• Strategy fits the goal. Target CPA, Target ROAS and Maximize conversions need working conversion tracking. Maximize clicks on a lead campaign buys traffic, not leads.
• Learning status. Look for Learning in the bid strategy status column. Google says learning typically takes one to two conversion cycles; Performance Max needs at least six weeks. Don’t judge or re-edit a campaign mid-learning.
• Enough data. Google suggests evaluating Target CPA over 30 days with at least 30 conversions. Target ROAS on Search needs at least 15 conversions in 30 days.
• Limited statuses. “Limited by budget”, “Limited by bid ceiling” and a constrained bid strategy each point to a different fix. A Target CPA set below what the market will bear quietly stops spend.
• Recent change. From Aug 17, 2026, budget-limited Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns can pace toward their target. CPA drifting up toward the target is expected on those campaigns.

4. Budgets and lost impression share

Google can spend up to twice your average daily budget on a single day, but monthly charges are capped at 30.4 times the daily budget. Judge pacing over the month, not a single day.

Then open the impression share columns. Google’s guide to impression share data defines the two loss columns:

If a campaign spends less than its budget and lost IS (budget) is near zero, budget isn’t the problem. Look at rank, bid status and policy instead. Our guide to why Google Ads isn’t spending walks through each cause.

Campaigns with high lost IS (budget) that convert well are where spare budget should go.

5. Quality Score

Quality Score runs from 1 to 10 at the keyword level. Google says it is a diagnostic, not an input to the auction. Its value is in the three parts, each rated Above average, Average or Below average against advertisers who showed for the same searches over the last 90 days. Google’s About Quality Score page explains the method.

Add the three component columns to your keyword view and sort by cost:

Fix the keywords with the most spend first.

6. Search terms and negative keywords

Open Insights and reports > Search terms, set the range to 90 days and sort by cost. Look for spend with no conversions and for themes that can’t produce a buyer.

For B2B accounts, a common starting list of waste themes is: jobs, careers, salary, hiring, internship, free, template, course, certification, login, download, definition and “what is”. Treat it as a heuristic to test, not a rule.

• Add proven waste as negatives at the campaign level or in a shared list.
• Don’t over-exclude. Google warns that too many negatives cut reach, so check old negatives don’t block searches you now want.

7. Match types

Google advises using broad match only with Smart Bidding, because broad match relies on conversion signals to find the right searches.

The best recent evidence is Optmyzr’s match type study of 30,000 Google Ads accounts, using February 2026 data. Exact match led on efficiency across non-brand accounts, though its share of spend fell 9.5% between 2022 and 2026. In lead generation accounts, phrase match held the largest share of spend and conversions. Broad match lost more ground there, which the study ties to lead gen accounts sending no conversion value.

What to check:

• Broad match keywords running on Manual CPC or Maximize clicks.
• Broad match in lead gen campaigns with no value or qualified-lead signal.
• Cost per conversion by match type for each campaign, over at least 30 days.
• If you use AI Max, review its search terms on their own.

8. Responsive search ads

• Assets. An RSA takes up to 15 headlines (30 characters) and 4 descriptions (90 characters). The minimum is 3 headlines and 2 descriptions. Use most of the slots so Google has combinations to test.
• Ads per ad group. Google recommends at least 2 RSAs rated Good or Excellent per ad group.
• Pinning. Pinning limits combinations. If you must pin, pin two or three alternatives per position.
• Ad Strength. Ad Strength isn’t used in the auction. Use it as a checklist, then judge ads on CTR and conversions.
• Approval. Disapproved ads serve nothing. “Eligible (limited)” serves only part of the time.

9. Performance Max

• Placement. Open the channel performance report from Insights and reports. It splits impressions, cost and conversions across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail and Search partners. Heavy Display spend with few conversions needs a closer look.
• Brand. Add brand exclusions if Performance Max is buying your own brand searches that a cheaper brand campaign would win.
• Lead quality. Google suggests bidding toward a deeper goal such as Qualified lead or Converted lead, adding qualifying questions and reCAPTCHA to forms, and using negative keywords to filter junk. Compare Performance Max leads with search leads in your CRM, not just in Google Ads.

10. Display moving to Demand Gen

Google is moving Display campaigns to Demand Gen, a transition it expects to complete by 2027, with a migration tool to guide it. Check now:

• Which Display campaigns you still run and what they produce.
• Whether they rely on frequency caps. Google says frequency capping isn’t supported in Demand Gen.

11. UTMs and pipeline

Google Ads reports conversions; your CRM reports revenue. The audit isn’t finished until they agree.

• Auto-tagging on, so every click carries a gclid.
• Final URL suffix or tracking template with utm_source=google, utm_medium=cpc and ValueTrack parameters such as {campaignid}, {adgroupid} and {keyword}. There is no ValueTrack parameter for campaign name, so use the ID.
• Consistent spelling. UTMs are case-sensitive, so “Google” and “google” become two sources.
• Hidden form fields for UTMs and gclid on every form, including embedded ones.
• Pipeline by campaign. In your CRM, count opportunities and pipeline by campaign, then divide spend by opportunities. Cost per opportunity often ranks campaigns differently from cost per lead.

B2B deals arrive months after the click, so judge pipeline over your own lead-to-opportunity window.

How often to audit Google Ads

Run a full audit like this at least quarterly, and whenever an account changes hands. But waste doesn’t wait for the quarter. A tag breaks on a Tuesday. A new broad match keyword starts buying job searches.

A practical rhythm to start from:

How PipeHalo runs this every morning

PipeHalo checks every Google Ads campaign in your connected accounts every morning. It looks for under-pacing and over-pacing on campaigns with a daily budget, cost per click spikes, spend with no conversions, and conversion tracking that may be broken. Connect HubSpot or Salesforce and it adds broken or missing UTMs, spend with no pipeline and low-quality leads.

Each problem lands in the Action Center, ranked by severity and the money at stake from your own numbers. It comes with “What to try” steps in Google Ads. With Apply turned on, you approve the fix and PipeHalo makes it, or your team makes the change itself. Either way, PipeHalo keeps checking afterward. Nothing changes in your account without your approval. See every check on the features page.

Every plan starts with an audit of your connected accounts, and an Ad Check shows your top 3 issues before you choose one. Try the live demo or see plans.

Related questions

What should a Google Ads audit include?

Conversion tracking first, then structure, bidding, budgets and lost impression share, Quality Score, search terms, match types, ads, Performance Max, and UTMs tied to CRM pipeline.

What’s the difference between lost impression share (budget) and (rank)?

Lost IS (budget) is the share of searches where your ad didn’t show because the budget ran out. Lost IS (rank) is the share lost because Ad Rank was too low. The first calls for budget changes; the second calls for better quality or bids.