Google Ads Audit Checklist: 12 Checks That Actually Move ROAS (2026)

A practical Google Ads audit checklist used by PPC specialists: account structure, search terms, negative keywords, conversion tracking, bidding, budgets, assets and PMax. Free to run.

Updated 2026-08-05 · 9 min read · ppcfy.ai team

Most Google Ads accounts do not underperform because of one broken setting. They underperform because five small leaks compound: a conversion action counted twice, a broad match keyword pulling irrelevant traffic, a Performance Max campaign eating budget from Search, and nobody looking at the search terms report for three months.

This is the audit checklist we built ppcfy.ai's automated audit around. You can run it manually, or connect your account and let the free Google Ads audit do the data pull for you.

1. Conversion tracking integrity

Everything downstream — Smart Bidding, ROAS reporting, budget decisions — depends on this. Check:

• Only one primary conversion action per outcome. A purchase counted by both Google Ads tag and GA4 import doubles your reported ROAS.
• Conversion window matches your real sales cycle. A 90-day window on an impulse purchase inflates last-click credit.
• "Include in Conversions" is off for soft actions (page views, scroll depth, newsletter signups) unless they are genuinely the goal.
• No conversion action with zero recorded conversions in the last 30 days while still marked primary.

Red flag: conversion volume drops to zero for a day or two mid-month. That is almost always a tag or consent-mode issue, not a market change.

2. Account structure and campaign overlap

Look for campaigns bidding on the same intent. The classic pattern in 2026 is Performance Max competing with branded Search. PMax will usually win the auction and take credit for conversions branded Search would have captured anyway.

• Are brand terms isolated in their own campaign with brand exclusions applied to PMax?
• Do you have more than ~7 ad groups per campaign with fewer than 10 keywords each? That fragments data and starves Smart Bidding.
• Are Shopping and PMax running for the same product feed at the same priority?

3. Search terms report — the highest-ROI 20 minutes

Pull the last 30–90 days of search terms sorted by cost with zero conversions. In most accounts, 15–35% of spend sits in queries the advertiser would never buy.

Group what you find into three buckets:

1. Waste — wrong intent, wrong geography, job seekers, "free", "diy", competitor complaints. These become negatives.
2. Opportunity — converting queries not yet in your keyword list. Promote them to exact match.
3. Ambiguous — keep watching, add to a monitoring list.

Our search term analysis tool does this classification against your live account data, and the negative keyword generator turns bucket one into an importable list.

4. Negative keyword hygiene

• Are negative lists applied at account level, or re-created ad hoc per campaign?
• Any negatives blocking your own converting terms? This is more common than people think — a broad -free can block "free shipping" queries.
• Match types on negatives: broad negatives are aggressive; phrase negatives are usually the right default.

5. Match type and keyword bloat

Broad match plus Smart Bidding works — but only with a clean conversion signal and a maintained negative list. If your conversion tracking failed check #1, broad match is actively burning money.

Remove keywords with zero impressions over 90 days. They add noise, not coverage.

6. Bidding strategy vs. data volume

• Fewer than ~15 conversions per campaign per month? tCPA and tROAS will be unstable. Consolidate campaigns or use Maximize Conversions with a cap.
• Are target CPA/ROAS values set from real business math, or copied from a competitor blog post?
• Any campaign changed bidding strategy in the last 14 days? Its data is still in a learning period — do not judge it yet.

7. Budget allocation

Sort campaigns by conversion value and by "lost IS (budget)". Money is usually sitting in the wrong place: a campaign at 60% impression share lost to budget while a low-intent prospecting campaign runs uncapped.

8. Ad strength and RSA assets

• At least 8–10 headlines and 3–4 descriptions per RSA, with real differentiation (offer, proof, urgency, category).
• Pinning: pin only what legally must appear. Over-pinning removes Google's ability to test.
• Any ad group with a single ad? You have nothing to compare against.

Need assets fast? The RSA generator drafts headlines, descriptions, sitelinks and callouts from your landing page.

9. Assets and extensions

Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, images and lead forms materially lift CTR. Check that each campaign has at least four sitelinks and that none point to 404s or redirect chains.

10. Geographic and schedule targeting

• Location option set to "Presence", not "Presence or interest", unless you deliberately want out-of-market traffic.
• Any region spending above 10% of budget with zero conversions gets a bid adjustment or exclusion.
• Day-parting: only apply if you have statistically meaningful volume per hour — most SMB accounts do not.

11. Landing page and post-click alignment

Auditing ads without auditing the destination is half an audit. Check load time on mobile, message match between headline and page H1, and whether the form or checkout actually fires the conversion tag.

12. Change history and account hygiene

Open the change history for the last 90 days. Sudden performance shifts almost always correlate with a change someone forgot to mention. Also check for expired promotions still live in ad copy.

How often should you audit?

• Weekly: search terms, budget pacing, disapproved ads.
• Monthly: full checklist above.
• Quarterly: structure, bidding strategy, landing pages, offer.

Run it automatically

Manually, this checklist takes an experienced specialist two to four hours. ppcfy.ai's free Google Ads audit connects with read-only access, pulls the same signals, and returns a scored report with prioritized fixes in a few minutes — including wasted-spend search terms and conversion tracking warnings.

If the report surfaces something you would rather hand off, you can get matched with a vetted PPC specialist directly from the results.