PPC account audit in 30 points: go through it yourself
Most of what a paid audit finds, you can find yourself in an afternoon. Here is the checklist in the order we work through it — from the numbers that decide to the details that come last.
- Start with measurement and economics. Campaign settings come after — otherwise you are tuning against the wrong numbers.
- Three findings repeat in almost every audit: conversions that do not match orders, brand not split out, and dead range in the feed.
- An audit that ends with an unprioritised list is useless. It should end with three things to do this week.
A PPC audit is a discipline where it is easy to produce a fifty-page document nobody uses. Order matters more than completeness: if you do not first check that the numbers in the account reflect reality, everything else is being tuned against fiction.
This is the checklist we use. It runs from what tends to have the biggest impact.
A. Measurement and data (1–6)
- Do conversions match orders? Compare count and value in the ad system with real orders over the same period. A gap above fifteen per cent for a short purchase cycle is worth investigating.
- Is there only one main conversion? If add-to-cart or a contact-page view feeds optimisation, the algorithm produces those events, not business.
- Is the conversion value truthful? Excluding VAT and shipping, ideally after returns.
- Does Consent Mode work correctly? Default state denied, correct update after consent, all four parameters. See Consent Mode v2.
- Are enhanced conversions enabled? The best ratio of effort to benefit in the whole measurement chapter.
- Are offline outcomes being sent? Essential for enquiry-driven firms; without it you optimise for forms.
B. Economics (7–11)
- Does the company know its gross margin? In currency per order, after shipping, fees and returns. Without it nothing else can be judged.
- Is the target derived from margin? Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ margin. The target belongs above it, not at a historical average.
- Do categories with different margins have different targets? See margin by category.
- Do you know your close rate? Mandatory for services: the cost of a customer is the cost of an enquiry divided by this number.
- Is the budget near marginal return? Compare marginal CPA (average ÷ saturation exponent) with margin per conversion. See the calculator.
C. Structure and brand (12–16)
- Is brand separated? Its own campaign, negatives in non-brand campaigns, and brand exclusions in Performance Max.
- How much of the result is brand? When nobody knows, the report says nothing.
- Is the account split too finely? Count conversions per campaign over 30 days. Most below ten means merge.
- Does the split follow commercial logic? Budget, target, territory — not an alphabet of categories.
- Is anything running that nobody knows about? Forgotten campaigns, old remarketing, last year’s tests.
D. Queries and targeting (17–21)
- When did anyone last read the search terms report? Go through the queries with the highest spend and no conversion.
- Do shared negative lists exist? Or is every campaign different? See negative keywords.
- Do negatives collide with keywords? A frequent reason a campaign does not show.
- Are existing customers excluded from acquisition? An immediate saving with repeat purchase.
- Is geographic targeting set to “presence”? Otherwise you also target people who merely read about your location.
E. E-commerce and feed (22–25)
- What share of the range got at least one impression in 30 days? Below fifty per cent, half the shop is closed.
- How many products are disapproved and why? Most often a price mismatch or missing shipping data.
- Do product titles match how people search? See product feeds.
- Are custom labels filled in? Without them you cannot manage by margin.
F. Site and customer journey (26–28)
- Do the ten most expensive keywords lead to a relevant page? Not to the homepage.
- Does a purchase or enquiry work on mobile without a snag? The whole journey, including checkout and form.
- Is there a price or range on the page? The most commonly missing information in services. See landing pages.
G. Governance (29–30)
- Is there a change history? Who, what, why, and when it gets reviewed. Without it you can establish nothing six months later.
- Has anyone verified incrementality? At larger budgets once a year, at least for brand and remarketing. See incrementality.
A list of thirty findings helps nobody. At the end pick three things for this week, three for this month, and mark the rest as “known”. For each, write the expected impact and how you will know it worked.
Three findings we see almost every time
- Conversions do not match orders and nobody had checked. Everything else is then built on sand.
- Brand is not separated, so the account looks better than it is and decisions get made against a distorted average.
- A large share of the range does not appear and the budget concentrates on a handful of products.
None of those three requires access to any paid tool.
What to take away
An audit is not a hunt for misconfigurations; it is a check that the account does what the business needs. Work through sections A and B — measurement and economics — and if something there is off, leave the rest alone for now. It is boring, and it is the part where the money gets decided. The mistakes audits most often turn up are summarised in the most common mistakes in PPC.
Common questions
How do I audit a PPC account myself?
Work through it in order of impact rather than in the order of the interface. Start with measurement: compare conversions and their value with real orders, check that optimisation runs on one main conversion and that consent handling works. Then economics: gross margin, a target derived from break-even, close rate for services. Only then structure, brand, the search terms report, the feed and landing pages. At the end pick three things for this week rather than listing thirty findings.
How often should a PPC audit be done?
A full audit once or twice a year, and always when changing provider or after a significant change in the business. In between, regular hygiene is enough: weekly the search terms report for the most expensive campaigns, monthly a comparison of conversions with real orders and the share of range receiving impressions, quarterly a review of targets against current margin. At larger budgets, add a yearly check of incrementality for brand and remarketing.
What do you most often find in someone else’s account?
Three things repeat almost every time. Conversions in the ad system do not match real orders and nobody had checked, so optimisation runs on distorted numbers. Brand queries are not separated, so the account looks better than it is and budget decisions are made against a distorted average. And in online shops a large part of the range never appears because of feed problems, so the budget concentrates on a handful of products.