This section ensures foundational access and configuration are correct across all advertising platforms. The goal is to confirm account ownership, proper linking between Google Ads, GA4, and other key tools, and that login permissions are limited to authorized personnel. Verifying the account structure early prevents data discrepancies and safeguards campaign integrity.

The objective here is to identify immediate optimization opportunities that deliver fast results. By analyzing recent spend, performance anomalies, and low-performing campaigns, this step benchmarks current account health and highlights quick wins—such as pausing wasteful spend or reallocating budget to high-ROAS areas—before deeper strategic work begins.

This phase focuses on the assets and automations that affect multiple campaigns. The audit checks shared budgets, remarketing lists, bid strategies, scripts, and automated rules to ensure they’re up-to-date and error-free. Reviewing shared assets helps maintain consistency and prevents automation conflicts that can impact overall performance.

Here, the goal is to validate that each campaign is configured to align with business goals and audience intent. This includes reviewing network settings, geotargeting, ad scheduling, devices, and budget allocation. Incorrect settings are among the most common sources of wasted spend—so this phase ensures the fundamentals are set for success.

A well-structured account drives relevance and efficiency. This step audits the hierarchy of campaigns, ad groups, and keywords to confirm tight thematic grouping, proper use of match types, and absence of duplication or cannibalization. Reviewing Search Query Reports (SQRs) also identifies irrelevant traffic and informs new negative keywords.

This section evaluates the quality and effectiveness of ad copy, creative variations, and extensions. The goal is to ensure each ad group contains sufficient responsive search ads (RSAs) with varied headlines and descriptions that align with landing page intent. Ad assets like sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets are checked for completeness and compliance.

Accurate tracking underpins all performance decisions. This phase confirms that conversion tracking, GA4 event imports, and attribution models are functioning as intended. It also checks UTM tagging, cross-domain tracking, and data integrity across platforms—ensuring you can trust the performance metrics driving your decisions.

This step analyzes how efficiently the account uses its budget to reach targets. It evaluates bidding strategies (manual, tCPA, tROAS, Max Conversions), impression share metrics, and performance by device, audience, and location. The goal is to ensure bid automation is correctly learning and aligned with real business goals such as CPA or CAC.

Google’s Quality Score directly influences cost and visibility. This audit section reviews CTRs, ad relevance, landing page experience, and alignment between keyword, ad, and page messaging. Improving these factors not only reduces CPCs but also enhances conversion rates and overall campaign efficiency.

This phase assesses how effectively the account captures and re-engages previous visitors or customers. The audit verifies tag implementation, audience segmentation, and exclusions. Proper audience layering ensures ads reach users at the right stage of the funnel and prevents redundant targeting across campaigns.

For eCommerce accounts, this section dives into Google Merchant Center and product feed health. It checks for attribute completeness (title, description, GTIN, brand), campaign structure (Standard vs PMax), and bidding segmentation by margin or product type. Clean, optimized feeds directly impact Shopping campaign performance and visibility.

The final section synthesizes audit findings into a prioritized roadmap. Each issue is categorized by impact and effort, with actionable recommendations for immediate, medium, and long-term improvements. This stage creates accountability—turning insights into a measurable optimization plan supported by change tracking and future audit schedules.