Google Ads audit checklist, ordered by what actually costs money
A free 28-row Google Ads audit checklist: tracking, search terms, structure, bidding, ads and landing pages, with a pass condition for every row.
A Google Ads audit should start with what counts as a conversion, then move to the search terms report. Google Ads bids towards whatever you marked as a primary conversion action: those actions are “reported in the ‘Conversions’ column in your reports and used for bidding” (Google Ads Help). If that action fires on a page view, the account is bidding for page views, and every figure further down the audit describes something other than customers.
The checklist below has 28 rows in that order. In the accounts we audit, tracking and search terms are the two areas where we find the largest waste, so they sit at the top of the file.
The short version
- Check conversion tracking before anything else. Google Ads uses primary conversion actions for bidding, so a conversion that fires on a page view or a button click trains the account on the wrong thing.
- Read 90 days of search terms, sorted by cost. The search terms report shows how your ads performed when triggered by actual searches, which is not the same list as your keywords.
- Write wasted spend down in currency. A percentage is easy to ignore. An amount of money is not.
- Mark every row Pass, Warning or Fail. A Critical row is never a Warning: it passes or it fails.
- Structure, bidding and ad copy come third. They matter, and they depend on the two areas above being right.
- The file is a free CSV with 28 rows across seven areas. No email address is asked for.
Download the file
Download the CSV. No email address, no gate. Open it in any spreadsheet or text editor.
| Who it is for | Time to use |
|---|---|
| Anyone with a live Google Ads account who wants to know where the money is going. Assumes you can see the conversion settings and the search terms report. | Two to three hours for a single account, in our experience |
What should a Google Ads audit check first?
Tracking, then search terms, then everything else. Each area depends on the ones above it, which is why the file is worked from top to bottom.
| Order | Area | Rows | Critical rows | What a fail here means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tracking | 5 | 2 | The account is counting, and bidding towards, something other than real enquiries |
| 2 | Search terms | 4 | 2 | Budget is going to searches you could not have served |
| 3 | Structure | 4 | 0 | Campaigns with different intent or margin share one budget |
| 4 | Bidding | 3 | 0 | The bid strategy does not match the goal, or has too little data to learn from |
| 5 | Ads | 5 | 0 | Ads are missing assets that cost nothing to add |
| 6 | Landing pages | 4 | 1 | The click was paid for and the page lost it |
| 7 | Reporting | 3 | 1 | Nobody can see cost per qualified enquiry |
What is in the file
| Column | What it records |
|---|---|
| Area | Tracking, search terms, structure, bidding, ads, landing pages and reporting, in that order. |
| Check | The specific thing to look at, written so it can be answered and not discussed. |
| What good looks like | The pass condition. Several are strict on purpose: a conversion action firing on a page view is a fail even though the account will report conversions. |
| Status | Pass, Warning or Fail. The rules for each are in the next section. |
| Impact | Critical, high, medium or low. Six rows are critical, and they are the ones to settle first. |
| Notes | The number you found. In the search terms rows, write the wasted spend in currency. |
How do I mark each row?
Use three statuses, and keep Warning narrow. The file leaves the Status column empty for you to fill in.
| Status | Use it when | What to do next |
|---|---|---|
| Pass | The condition in “What good looks like” is met and you saw the evidence yourself | Nothing. Note the date you checked |
| Warning | The condition is partly met, or you could not see the data needed to confirm it | Write what is missing in Notes and re-check within two weeks |
| Fail | The condition is not met | Fix it, starting with the Critical rows |
One rule keeps the sheet useful: a Critical row cannot be a Warning. If you cannot confirm that a conversion action fires on a real enquiry, treat it as a Fail until you can.
Photo: Yan Krukau on Pexels.
A sample of the file
| Area | Check | What good looks like | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tracking | Conversion actions fire on real enquiries | Not page views or button clicks | Critical |
| Tracking | Duplicate conversion actions | None counted twice | Critical |
| Search terms | Wasted spend quantified | In currency, not percentage | Critical |
| Landing | Page matches the query | Headline reflects the search | Critical |
| Landing | Load speed | Under 2.5s LCP on mobile | High |
| Reporting | Cost per qualified enquiry | Reported, not just cost per lead | Critical |
The load speed row uses Google’s own threshold. Its guidance is that sites should aim for a Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 seconds or less, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads (web.dev).
How do I use the checklist?
Work the areas in order, and stop if a Critical tracking row fails.
- Start with the tracking rows. Open each conversion action and check what triggers it. If one fires on a page load or a button click and not on a confirmed submission, pause the audit and fix that first.
- Export the last 90 days of search terms. The report shows how your ads performed when triggered by actual searches (Google Ads Help). Sort by cost, highest first, and mark every search you could not have served. Total that column in currency.
- Then look at structure, bidding and ad copy. Pay attention to match types. Google says broad match can show your ads on searches “that don’t contain the direct meaning of your keywords” (Google Ads Help), so broad keywords need the closest reading of the search terms report.
- For the landing page rows, click your own ads on a phone. A form that works on a desktop can be unusable on a small screen, and an audit done only at a desk will not show it.
The search terms report leaves out low-volume queries for privacy reasons, so the total you write down is a floor and not the full figure.
After you fix a tracking row, give the account time before judging it. Google says it can take “a few conversion cycles (1-2 typically)” for a bid strategy to calibrate after a change (Google Ads Help).
Does the checklist work for Performance Max?
Mostly, and more than it used to. Google added full search terms reporting to Performance Max in 2025, with “the same granularity of Search reporting you do for Search and Standard Shopping campaigns”. It also added campaign-level negative keywords, up to 10,000 per campaign (Google Ads Help). So the tracking, search terms, landing page and reporting rows all apply. The structure and match type rows do not, because a Performance Max campaign has no keywords to set a match type on.
Photo: Barbara Olsen on Pexels.
Where it earns its keep
- Checking whether an existing agency is doing the routine work, which is what these rows mostly test.
- Diagnosing an account that spends steadily and produces enquiries nobody wants.
- A quarterly review, particularly the search term rows, because new searches keep arriving.
The bottom line
Audit in the order the money depends on. What the account counts as a conversion decides what it bids for, and the searches it pays for decide who arrives. Settle those two before you spend an hour on ad copy.
Questions people ask about this
How often should search terms be reviewed?
We suggest weekly on an active account. New queries keep appearing, and Google says broad match can show ads on searches that do not contain the direct meaning of your keywords, so a monthly review leaves a long gap.
What counts as wasted spend?
Money spent on a search you could not have served: wrong service, wrong location, a job you do not take, or clearly research rather than buying intent. Judgement is involved, which is why the sheet asks you to write the number down rather than calculate it automatically.
Does this cover Performance Max?
Mostly. The tracking, landing page and reporting rows apply directly. The search terms rows now apply too, because Google added full search terms reporting and campaign-level negative keywords to Performance Max in 2025. The structure and match type rows do not translate, since a Performance Max campaign has no keywords to set a match type on.
Can I use the file for a Meta Ads account?
Only in part. The tracking, landing page and reporting rows translate directly, because a conversion firing on a page view is a problem on any platform. The search terms and match type rows have no equivalent on Meta, where waste shows up as audience and placement choices instead. Copy the structure, keep the impact column, and rewrite the middle rows for the platform.
What if I do not have admin access?
You can complete most rows with view access, because they only require reading a report or a setting. The rows that need admin are the ones where you fix what you found. If an agency holds the account, ask for view access as a minimum. An agency that will not grant it is answering one of the questions this file exists to ask.
How do I score the sheet once it is filled in?
Count the fails in the critical rows first. Any fail there means the account data cannot be trusted, and the rest of the sheet describes symptoms rather than causes. Then add up the currency figures in the notes column for the search terms rows. Those two outputs, the critical fails and the waste total, are what you act on. The high and medium rows are a second sitting.
Should I audit each campaign separately or the whole account?
Do the tracking rows once for the account, because conversion actions are shared. Do the search terms rows per campaign, because waste hides differently in each one and a single total obscures which campaign is causing it. Structure, ads and landing page rows are also per campaign. Add a column for campaign name if you are working through more than two or three.
What if most rows pass but the account still costs too much?
Then the problem is probably the market or the offer rather than the account setup. Check the landing page conversion rate against what the page asks a visitor to do, and check whether the leads that arrive are the ones you want. A clean account bidding on the right terms with a weak offer still produces expensive leads. That is a page and pricing conversation, not an audit finding.
How long should I wait after fixing a tracking fail?
Our rule of thumb is two to four weeks before drawing conclusions. Google says a bid strategy typically needs one to two conversion cycles to calibrate after a change, so an account with a long gap between click and enquiry needs longer. Once the conversion action counts real enquiries, the bidding strategy has to relearn from the new data. Performance often looks worse during that period because the inflated numbers are gone. Keep the old and new conversion actions separate rather than editing one in place, so you can see the before and after clearly.
Can I add my own rows to the file?
Yes, and you should for anything specific to your business, such as a call tracking tool or a CRM import. Keep the same columns, give each new row an impact rating, and place it in the area it belongs to. Resist adding rows that are opinions rather than checks. If a row has no clear pass condition, it will get skipped.
What is the most common fail in the file?
In the accounts we audit, a conversion action that fires on something other than a confirmed enquiry. It is common because it is easy to set up and reports flattering numbers, so nobody questions it. The second most common is a search terms report nobody has read in months. Both sit at the top of the file for that reason, and both are cheap to fix once seen.
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