Running a Google Ads campaign requires constant attention to detail and ongoing optimization. As digital marketing evolves, even the most well-planned campaigns can lose effectiveness over time. So, how do you ensure that your ad spend is efficiently used and that your campaigns are continuously driving the results you need?
This is where a Google Ads audit becomes essential. A thorough audit helps you identify inefficiencies, uncover growth opportunities, and optimize your campaigns to maximize ROI. In this step-by-step guide, we’ll explain how to perform a Google Ads audit and highlight the key areas to focus on for better campaign performance and more profitable growth.
1. Setting Clear Goals and Tracking Success
The first step in a successful Google Ads audit is ensuring that your campaign goals are clearly defined and aligned with your broader business objectives. These goals make it easier to measure success, identify areas for improvement, and make informed, data-driven decisions.
Defining Campaign Goals
To optimize your Google Ads campaigns, define clear goals aligned with your business objectives. Common goals include:
Customer Acquisition: Target high-intent audiences to attract new customers who are ready to buy.
Repeat Purchases: Focus on re-engaging past customers and promoting loyalty programs.
Increase Average Order Value (AOV): Use upsells, cross-sells, and bundles to encourage higher spending per transaction.
These goals shape your strategy, as approaches for sales differ from those aimed at brand awareness.
Setting Up Conversion Tracking for Your Audit
To effectively audit your Google Ads campaigns, you need to ensure conversion tracking is correctly set up. This allows you to measure campaign success and optimize performance.
Set up conversion actions: Track key actions to measure the outcomes that matter most to your business.
Link Google Analytics: Integrate with Google Analytics to get deeper insights into how users interact with your website.
Review conversion data: Regularly check your conversion data to identify top-performing ads, keywords, and audience segments, and adjust your strategy accordingly.
By setting clear goals and correctly tracking all conversions, you create a strong foundation for your audit. With these steps in place, it’s time to dive into the next important step: evaluating your account structure and organization.
2. Evaluating Your Google Ads Account Structure
A well-organized Google Ads account structure is key to achieving optimal performance and efficiency. When your account is set up logically, you improve campaign performance and make it easier to scale and manage over time.
Assess Campaign Segmentation
Check if your campaigns are organized around logical categories like product types or geographic locations.
If campaigns are too broad or lump multiple products together, consider separating them for better targeting and budget allocation.
Review Ad Group Structure
Each ad group should be focused on a specific set of tightly related keywords.
If ad groups contain unrelated keywords, it’s time to restructure. This will improve relevance, increase your Quality Score, and reduce wasted spend.
Check for Clear Budget Allocation
Examine how your budgets are distributed. Are high-performing campaigns getting enough budget?
If some campaigns are underperforming, their budgets may need to be reduced or paused, while better-performing campaigns could benefit from more.
Evaluate Device and Location Segmentation
If you haven’t already segmented campaigns by device (mobile vs. desktop) or location (regional targeting), you may be missing opportunities for optimization.
Devices and locations can have different performance metrics, and separating them allows for tailored bidding and better control over your spend.
Look for Consistency in Campaign Naming
Ensure your campaign names are clear and consistent.
This makes it easier to identify and manage them over time, especially when scaling campaigns or adjusting bids based on performance.
By organizing your account structure logically and efficiently, you can easily manage campaigns, optimize performance, and scale your efforts.
With your account structure in place, the next step is to analyze keywords and search terms to ensure you’re effectively targeting the right audience.
3. Analyzing Keyword and Search Term
Effective keyword management is crucial for optimizing your Google Ads campaigns. Here’s how you can refine your keywords and uncover hidden opportunities:
Keyword Performance Review
Review your existing keywords to identify which ones are driving traffic and conversions. This includes:
Identifying high-performing keywords: These are keywords that generate quality traffic and conversions at an optimal cost.
Identifying underperforming keywords: These are keywords that either aren’t performing well in terms of CTR or conversions or are eating up your budget with little return.
Refining your keyword list: Continuously prune your list by pausing ineffective keywords, expanding on the successful ones, and researching new high-potential keywords.
Negative Keywords
Negative keywords help you exclude irrelevant traffic and prevent wasting ad spend. By filtering out terms that don’t align with your goals, you can:
Ensure your ads don’t show up for searches that are irrelevant to your products or services.
Improve your Click-Through Rate (CTR) and conversion rate by attracting only qualified clicks.
Periodically review your search term report to identify new negative keywords to add.
Search Terms Report
The search terms report shows the actual terms people are using to find your ads. This report helps you:
Identify valuable search terms that you might not have initially targeted, enabling you to expand your keyword list.
Understand customer intent more clearly, which can help you adjust your bidding and targeting strategies.
Identify irrelevant search queries that are wasting your budget, allowing you to add more negative keywords.
After optimizing keywords, the next step is to focus on ad copy and extensions—two key elements that can significantly impact ad performance and engagement. Let's dive in!
4. Optimizing Ad Copy and Extensions
Compelling ad copy and well-chosen ad extensions are key to improving your Google Ads performance. Here's how to make the most of these elements:
Engaging Ad Copy
An engaging ad copy is the first step to capturing the attention of potential buyers. To create effective ad copy:
Focus on clarity: Communicate the product’s value clearly. Instead of simply saying, "Buy Shoes," you might say, "Shop Trendy, Comfortable Running Shoes."
Ensure relevance: Tailor your messaging based on customer intent. If a user searches for “affordable sneakers,” mention discounts or special offers in your ad copy.
Include a strong call to action (CTA): Phrases like "Shop Now" or "Get 20% Off Today" can encourage users to make a purchase, creating a sense of urgency and prompting them to click.
A/B Testing
Testing different ad variations is crucial to finding the most effective ad copy for your audience:
Test different headlines: For example, test “Up to 50% Off Winter Jackets” versus “Winter Jackets Starting at $29.99” to see which offers a higher CTR.
Experiment with different CTAs: Compare "Buy Now" with "Shop the Sale" to determine which leads to better conversions.
A/B test value propositions: For example, test highlighting "Free Shipping" vs "Buy One Get One Free" to see what drives more engagement and sales.
Use conversion data to guide the testing process, ensuring your ads continue improving based on real customer behavior.
Ad Extensions
Using ad extensions is a great way to increase your ad visibility and provide more ways for users to engage with your e-commerce store. Key extensions to implement:
Sitelinks: Add links to specific product categories, such as “Sale Items,” “New Arrivals,” or “Best Sellers,” to guide users directly to products they might be interested in.
Callouts: Use callouts like “Free Returns” or “Limited Time Offer” to highlight key benefits and increase ad appeal.
Structured Snippets: Showcase specific product details, such as “Leather Handbags,” “Cotton T-shirts,” or “Eco-Friendly Shoes,” to let users know exactly what they’ll find.
Optimizing your ad copy and using ad extensions will boost CTR, ad visibility, and conversion rates.
With your ads now more compelling and engaging, it's time to refine your bidding strategies to ensure that you're effectively investing your ad spend. Let’s dive into that next!
5. Reviewing and Adjusting Bidding Strategies
Selecting the right bidding strategy and refining it regularly are crucial to getting the best results from your Google Ads campaigns.
Choosing the Right Bidding Strategy
Manual Bidding: Provides complete control over bids for specific keywords or ad groups, ideal for businesses that need to prioritize particular areas.
Automated Bidding: Uses machine learning to optimize bids towards your campaign goals (e.g., maximizing conversions or controlling CPA), ideal for broader campaigns with larger scale.
Balancing Bid Control
Manual: Offers precision for businesses that need control over individual bids, such as targeting specific audience segments or regions.
Automated: More efficient for scaling, as Google adjusts bids in real-time based on performance data.
Regularly reviewing these metrics will ensure your bidding strategy aligns with your business goals. Now that we’ve covered bidding strategies let’s discuss how you can fine-tune your campaigns further!
6. Utilizing Analytics and Tools to Measure Performance and Automate Adjustments
To ensure your Google Ads campaigns consistently perform at their best, you need to track key metrics and analyze performance using the right tools. This will allow you to make data-driven adjustments and automate the optimization process for long-term success.
Key Metrics to Track
Monitoring the right KPIs is crucial to understanding the effectiveness of your campaigns. Here are the key metrics you should focus on:
CTR (Click-Through Rate): A high CTR indicates that your ads are engaging and relevant to your audience. If CTR is low, it may be time to revise your ad copy or targeting.
Conversion Rate Tracks how many visitors take the desired action. A low conversion rate could indicate issues with your landing page, ad copy, or targeting.
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on ads. A low ROAS means you’re not getting a good return on your investment, signaling a need for campaign optimization.
Ad Position: If your ads rank low, increasing bids can improve visibility.
Now, let's wrap up and reiterate why regular Google Ads audits are essential for long-term success.
Conclusion
In conclusion, performing regular Google Ads audits is essential for maintaining optimal campaign performance, improving ROI, and minimizing wasted ad spend. By following a structured audit process—setting clear goals, evaluating account structure, optimizing keywords and ad copy—you can ensure your campaigns are always on track to deliver the best results.
If you’re ready to take your Google Ads performance to the next level, partner with GoMarble. Our AI-assisted performance marketing services help brands scale profitably with data-driven insights and continuous optimization. Get in touch with us today to start optimizing your campaigns and drive meaningful growth for your business.