If your Google Ads campaigns are burning through budget without delivering the results you expect, you’re not alone. Many Australian businesses invest in paid search without ever stepping back to review whether their account is actually set up for success. A thorough Google Ads audit is one of the highest-ROI activities a digital marketing agency, or an in-house team, can perform.
At Amire, we’ve been specialising in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Google Ads management since 2002. In that time, we’ve audited hundreds of accounts across e-commerce, financial services, retail, and B2B, and we see the same issues over and over again. This guide walks you through exactly how to conduct a Google Ads account audit, whether you’re a business owner reviewing your own spend or a marketer evaluating a new client account.
Key Takeaways:
- Structure comes first. A poorly structured account leads to wasted budget before a single ad is even clicked. Clean campaign naming, tight ad groups, and correct geo-targeting are the non-negotiables.
- Your search term report is a gold mine. Filtering for queries with 5 or more clicks and zero conversions is the fastest way to find wasted spend. Those terms should be set as negative keywords immediately.
- Conversion tracking is everything. If your tracking is broken or double-counting, every decision you make is based on bad data. This is the most critical step and the one most often overlooked.
- Smart bidding needs data to work. Applying Target CPA or Target ROAS without at least 30 to 50 monthly conversions per campaign will do more harm than good. The strategy has to match the account’s maturity.
- Quality Score directly affects what you pay. A low Quality Score means you are paying more per click than your competitors for the same position. Landing page relevance and load speed are the quickest levers to pull.
- Ad copy is often set and forgotten. Most accounts have stale ads with no active testing. At least 2 to 3 variations per ad group, with proper asset coverage, is the baseline for a healthy account.
- Audit frequency matters. Weekly check-ins, monthly search term reviews, and quarterly full audits are the rhythm that keeps a Google Ads account performing at its best.
💡 What is a Google Ads Audit?A Google Ads audit is a systematic review of your paid search account to identify wasted spend, missed opportunities, structural issues, and optimisation gaps. A good audit covers campaign settings, keyword strategy, ad copy, bidding, landing pages, and conversion tracking, and results in a prioritised action plan. |
Step 1: Review Account Structure
The foundation of any well-performing Google Ads account is a logical, clean structure. Poor structure leads to keyword cannibalisation, irrelevant ad serving, and wasted budget, which are issues we see constantly in accounts that have never been properly audited.
What to check:
- Campaign naming conventions: are campaigns named consistently so you can quickly filter and report?
- Ad group granularity: each ad group should contain tightly themed keywords (ideally 5 to 20 keywords) that map to a single topic or product.
- Campaign types: are you using the right mix of Search, Display, Performance Max, Shopping, and Video campaigns for your goals?
- Geo-targeting: for Australian businesses, are you targeting the right states, cities, or radius areas? Are you excluding irrelevant locations?
Step 2: Audit Your Keyword Strategy
Keywords are the engine of your Google Ads account. A keyword audit reveals whether you’re targeting the right search terms, at the right match types, with the right negative keyword lists in place.
Key areas to audit:
- Search term reports: review your actual search terms (not just your target keywords). Are there irrelevant queries burning budget? These need to become negative keywords immediately.
- Match type distribution: a heavy reliance on Broad Match without smart bidding can lead to significant budget waste. Review the balance of Exact, Phrase, and Broad in your account.
- Negative keyword lists: does every campaign have comprehensive negative keyword lists? Are they shared across campaigns where relevant?
- Keyword cannibalisation: are multiple ad groups or campaigns bidding on the same keywords, driving up your own CPCs?
- Low-performing keywords: identify keywords with high spend but no conversions. Pause or significantly reduce bids on these terms.
🔍 Pro Tip from Amire’s SEM Team One of the fastest ways to find wasted spend in any Google Ads audit is to filter the search terms report to show queries with 5 or more clicks and zero conversions over the last 90 days. This list almost always reveals significant budget waste and quick wins for your negative keyword list. |
Step 3: Evaluate Ad Copy and Creative
Your ad copy is what convinces a searcher to click. Poor ad copy wastes impressions, lowers your Quality Score, and drives up your cost-per-click. This part of the Google Ads audit looks at whether your creative is working as hard as your budget.
What to review:
- Responsive Search Ads (RSAs): are all active ad groups using RSAs? Check the Ad Strength ratings. Aim for Good or Excellent.
- Ad variation testing: does each ad group have at least 2 to 3 ad variations being tested? A/B testing headlines and descriptions is essential for continuous improvement.
- Ad extensions and Assets: are you using all relevant asset types including Sitelinks, Callouts, Structured Snippets, Call extensions, and Lead Forms where applicable?
- Relevance: does your ad copy include the target keyword? Does it match the intent of the search and the messaging on the landing page?
- Click-through rate (CTR) benchmarks: compare your CTR against industry averages. For Australian search campaigns, a CTR below 2% on brand terms or below 1% on non-brand is a warning sign.
Step 4: Assess Bidding Strategy and Budget Allocation
Bidding strategy is one of the most commonly misconfigured areas in Google Ads accounts. The wrong bid strategy, or a smart bidding strategy applied without enough conversion data, can dramatically undermine campaign performance.
Questions to ask:
- Are smart bidding strategies (Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximise Conversions) being used where there’s sufficient conversion volume (minimum 30–50 conversions per month per campaign)?
- Is the budget being allocated to the highest-performing campaigns? Are budget-constrained campaigns limiting your best performers?
- Are bid adjustments being used appropriately for device, location, time of day, and audience segments?
- What is your impression share? Are you losing share due to budget (addressable immediately) or rank (requires Quality Score or bid improvement)?
Step 5: Review Conversion Tracking and Data Quality
This is arguably the most critical step in any Google Ads audit. If your conversion tracking is broken or inaccurate, every other optimisation decision you make is built on sand. We’ve seen accounts where clients thought they had a 5% conversion rate, but in reality, conversions were being double-counted.
Conversion tracking audit checklist:
- Are all primary conversion actions (purchases, leads, calls, form fills) being tracked correctly in Google Ads or via Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?
- Is Google Tag Manager (GTM) implemented correctly, and are tags firing on the right conditions?
- Are conversions being imported from GA4 with the correct attribution model?
- Are there duplicate conversion actions inflating your reported conversion numbers?
- Is Enhanced Conversions enabled to improve conversion measurement accuracy, particularly post-iOS privacy changes?
Step 6: Landing Page and Quality Score Review
Your Quality Score is Google’s rating of the relevance and quality of your keywords, ads, and landing pages. A low Quality Score means you pay more per click for a lower ad position. Improving it has a compounding positive effect on your Google Ads performance.
- Identify keywords with a Quality Score below 5, as these are costing you significantly more per click.
- Audit landing page relevance to ensure your landing page content closely matches the keyword intent and ad messaging.
- Check page load speed, as Google factors this into Expected Landing Page Experience. Use Google PageSpeed Insights or Core Web Vitals data.
- Review mobile experience, as the majority of Australian search traffic is now on mobile, and a poor mobile landing page experience is a major conversion and Quality Score issue.
How Often Should You Audit Your Google Ads Account?
For most Australian businesses spending $5,000 or more per month on Google Ads, we recommend:
- Weekly: Review key metrics including spend, conversions, CPA, and impression share.
- Monthly: Check search term reports, pause underperforming keywords, and review ad copy performance.
- Quarterly: Full structural audit covering all six steps above.
- Annually: Comprehensive strategy review, including competitor analysis and budget allocation.
Ready to Audit Your Google Ads Account? Amire has been delivering expert Google Ads management and SEM strategy to Australian businesses since 2002. Our certified team has audited accounts across financial services, e-commerce, retail, and B2B, and we know exactly where the hidden opportunities are. |
