How to Audit a Google Ads Account in 30 Minutes

Whether you've inherited a Google Ads account, suspect your current agency isn't performing, or simply want a health check on your own campaigns, knowing how to audit an account quickly is an essential skill. A thorough audit can reveal thousands of pounds in wasted spend, missed opportunities, and structural issues that silently erode performance.

This guide gives you a structured 30-minute audit framework that covers the most impactful areas. You won't catch everything in half an hour, but you'll identify the biggest problems and quick wins that make the largest difference.

Before You Start: Gather Your Benchmarks

Before diving into the account, establish what "good" looks like for this business. Pull the following data for the last 90 days:

• Total spend vs. budget allocation
• Overall CPA (cost per acquisition) or ROAS (return on ad spend)
• Conversion volume and conversion rate
• Impression share and lost impression share (budget vs. rank)

Compare these against industry benchmarks and the business's own targets. This context frames everything you find during the audit — a 5% conversion rate might be excellent for one industry and terrible for another.

Minutes 1–5: Account Structure

Start with the big picture. A well-structured account is easier to manage, optimise, and scale. Look for these issues:

Campaign Organisation

• Are campaigns logically grouped? Check that campaigns align with product lines, service areas, or customer segments — not random groupings
• Are Search and Display mixed? Search and Display should almost always be separate campaigns with separate budgets and strategies
• Is there a clear naming convention? Consistent naming (e.g., "Search | Brand | UK" or "Display | Remarketing | All Visitors") makes management dramatically easier
• How many campaigns are active? Too few suggests poor segmentation; too many suggests over-fragmentation that limits data and learning

For a deeper dive into optimal structure, see our Google Ads campaign structure guide.

Ad Group Structure

• Are ad groups tightly themed around specific keyword clusters?
• Do ad groups contain 5–20 keywords each, or are they bloated with 50+?
• Does each ad group have at least 2–3 active responsive search ads?

Minutes 5–10: Quality Score Analysis

Quality Score directly impacts your CPCs and ad positions. Pull a keyword report with Quality Score columns visible and look for patterns:

• What's the average Quality Score? Aim for 7+ on brand keywords and 5+ on non-brand
• Which component is weakest? Check Expected CTR, Ad Relevance, and Landing Page Experience separately
• Are high-spend keywords below 5? Low Quality Scores on your top keywords cost you the most — these should be priority fixes

Quick Fixes for Low Quality Scores

• Low Ad Relevance: The ad copy doesn't closely match the keyword. Rewrite headlines to include the exact keyword or close variants
• Low Expected CTR: The ad isn't compelling enough. Improve your value proposition, add numbers, and use stronger calls to action
• Low Landing Page Experience: The landing page doesn't deliver on the ad's promise. Ensure relevance, speed, and mobile-friendliness

Minutes 10–15: Search Terms Report

The search terms report reveals what people actually searched for when your ads triggered. It's the single most revealing report in the entire account. Filter for the last 30 days and look for:

Irrelevant Search Terms

These are searches that triggered your ads but have nothing to do with your business. Common culprits include informational queries ("what is...", "how does..."), competitor names, job-related searches ("salary", "careers"), and geographic mismatches.

Every irrelevant click is wasted money. Add these as negative keywords immediately. If you find a large number of irrelevant terms, the keyword match types are probably too broad or negative keyword lists are inadequate. See our guide on reducing wasted ad spend for systematic approaches.

High-Spend, No-Conversion Terms

Sort search terms by cost (descending) and identify any terms that have spent significantly without converting. These might need to be added as negative keywords, or they might indicate a landing page or offer problem rather than a keyword problem.

Missing Opportunities

Look for converting search terms that aren't in your keyword lists. These are opportunities to create dedicated ad groups with tailored ads and landing pages, which will improve Quality Score and conversion rates.

Minutes 15–20: Ad Assets and Extensions

Ad extensions (now called "assets" in Google Ads) significantly improve CTR and ad real estate. Check that the account is using all relevant asset types:

• Sitelink extensions: At least 4 sitelinks per campaign, linking to relevant pages
• Callout extensions: Highlighting USPs, offers, and trust signals
• Structured snippets: Categorised information about services, brands, or products
• Call extensions: Essential for businesses that want phone enquiries
• Image extensions: Visually enhance search ads — underused but effective
• Location extensions: Critical for businesses with physical locations

Check for disapproved or underperforming assets. Google shows asset performance ratings (Best, Good, Low) — replace any rated "Low" with new variations.

Minutes 20–25: Conversion Tracking

This is arguably the most critical part of the audit. Faulty conversion tracking undermines everything else — your bidding, reporting, and optimisation decisions are all based on conversion data. If it's wrong, every decision built on it is wrong too.

Verification Checklist

• Are the right actions being tracked? Ensure primary conversions reflect genuine business value (purchases, leads) not soft signals (page views, video plays)
• Is conversion counting correct? Leads should be "one per click" while sales can be "every"
• Are conversion values accurate? For e-commerce, check that dynamic values match actual order values
• Is the tracking tag firing correctly? Use Google Tag Assistant to verify tags fire only on actual conversions
• Are there duplicate conversions? Multiple tags tracking the same action inflate conversion numbers and mislead the algorithm
• Is enhanced conversions enabled? This improves measurement accuracy, especially with cookie restrictions

Inaccurate conversion tracking is the single most common problem we find during audits at Spires Digital. It's often the root cause of apparently "mysterious" performance issues.

Minutes 25–30: Wasted Spend Analysis

Finally, look for the most obvious sources of wasted budget:

Geographic Targeting

Go to Locations and check both targeted locations and the "Matched location" report. Are you spending money in regions you don't serve? Is the setting on "Presence" (people physically in the location) or "Presence or interest" (the looser default that often wastes money)?

Device Performance

Check performance by device. If mobile has a significantly worse conversion rate but receives most of the budget, apply negative bid adjustments or create device-specific campaigns with tailored landing pages.

Time of Day and Day of Week

Review the ad schedule report. Are campaigns running 24/7 when conversions only happen during business hours? Apply bid adjustments to reduce spend during low-converting periods.

Paused but Draining Campaigns

Check for campaigns or ad groups that were paused but still accumulated spend due to shared budgets or scheduling errors.

What to Do After the Audit

Create a prioritised action plan with three categories:

• Urgent (fix this week): Conversion tracking errors, major wasted spend, broken landing pages
• Important (fix this month): Structural improvements, Quality Score fixes, extension gaps
• Optimisation (ongoing): Ad copy testing, bid adjustments, negative keyword expansion

If the audit reveals significant issues, consider whether the account needs a full restructure rather than incremental fixes. Sometimes it's faster and more effective to rebuild from a clean foundation.

At Spires Digital, we offer complimentary Google Ads audits that go far deeper than a 30-minute check. We analyse every aspect of your account and provide a detailed action plan with projected impact. Book your free audit via our Calendly and get an honest assessment of your account's health — no obligations, no sales pressure, just actionable insights.