How to Audit Your Google Ads Account: A 10-Step Checklist for 2026

A Google Ads account audit is a 10-step review: campaign structure, search term reports, Quality Scores, bidding strategies, ad copy, landing pages, and the conversion and budget checks that follow. Worked through in order, it finds the wasted spend most accounts carry, lifts Quality Scores, and lowers CPA.

Why Your Google Ads Account Needs a Regular Audit

Most Google Ads accounts accumulate waste over time — irrelevant search terms, broken bidding strategies, outdated audiences, and ad copy that stopped converting months ago. A structured audit surfaces these issues fast.

Step 1: Check Campaign Structure

Review how campaigns and ad groups are organized. Each ad group should contain tightly themed keywords — typically 5 to 20 per group. Campaigns should map to products, services, or audience segments, not just be a catch-all.

Step 2: Audit Search Term Reports

Pull the last 90 days of search terms and identify irrelevant queries burning budget. Add negative keywords immediately. This is one of the fastest ways to reclaim wasted spend.

Step 3: Review Quality Scores

Low Quality Scores (below 5) indicate misalignment between keywords, ad copy, and landing pages. Sort by impression share — high-volume keywords with low QS are costing you extra CPCs every single day.

Step 4: Check Bidding Strategies

Is your bidding strategy aligned with your actual goal? If you're using Maximize Clicks on a conversion campaign, you're optimizing for the wrong thing. Match strategy to objective: Target CPA or Target ROAS for conversion campaigns, Target Impression Share for brand awareness.

Step 5: Evaluate Ad Copy Performance

Look at CTR and conversion rate by ad. Pause ads with below-average CTR. Review your Responsive Search Ads — check which headlines and descriptions Google is favouring and which are rated "Low" in ad strength.

Step 6: Review Landing Pages

High CTR + low conversion = landing page problem. Check that each ad group links to a relevant, fast-loading landing page with a clear CTA. Test load speed — every second of delay costs conversions.

Step 7: Audit Audience Targeting

Review audience segments applied to campaigns. Are remarketing lists set up? Are you excluding converted users from prospecting campaigns? Add demographic adjustments where data supports it.

Step 8: Check Extensions (Assets)

Are sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, and call extensions active? Assets increase CTR and improve Quality Score. Check that all are approved and up to date.

Step 9: Review Conversion Tracking

Broken or duplicated conversion tracking is the single most dangerous issue in a Google Ads account. Verify that all conversion actions are firing correctly using Google Tag Assistant or the Diagnostic panel in Google Ads.

Step 10: Analyze Impression Share & Competitor Metrics

Check Search Impression Share, Lost IS (Budget), and Lost IS (Rank) for your core campaigns. If you're losing to rank, improve QS and bids. If you're losing to budget, reallocate from underperforming campaigns.