Google Ads Account Audit Report

Ask for read-only access, or have the owner export the reports. Use one date range for every file, such as the last full quarter. Google's standard conversion columns count each conversion on the day of the click, not the day it happened¹, so the most recent days keep filling in after you export.

• Campaigns, segmented by network, to see where the money went
• Search terms, to see what people typed, which keyword caught it and what it cost
• Keywords, to see what each keyword and match type spent and converted
• Conversion actions, to see what counts as a conversion and how
• Change history, to see who changed what over the past two years

Add up the cost in each file and compare. Search term costs usually come in below the campaign total, because Google leaves out search terms that don't have enough query activity² to protect privacy. Write the gap down in dollars. It is the part of the budget no search term review can see.

If the account runs Performance Max, export its search terms as well. Since August 2025, Google has offered search terms reporting for all Performance Max campaigns³. A campaign with spend but no searches in your file hasn't been checked yet.

Most of an audit's verdicts rest on cost per conversion, so confirm what counts as a conversion first. Open the list of conversion actions. Google's own advice is to count "Every" for sales and "One" for leads, and make only bottom-of-funnel actions Primary¹, so nothing inflates the count. Bottom-of-funnel means closest to a sale: a quote request, not a visit to the pricing page.

Primary actions matter twice: they fill the Conversions column, and they steer automated bidding. A newsletter signup or a page view set as Primary teaches the system to buy more of the wrong thing.

Then test the count against your own records, using Google's "Conversions (by conv. time)" column, which dates each conversion by when it happened. If Google shows 140 leads in March and the inbox holds 60 real inquiries, fix tracking before you cut a single keyword.

Report brand searches (the ones that include your company's name) on their own line. In field experiments at eBay, published in Econometrica in 2015, researchers found that brand-keyword ads had no measurable short-term benefit⁴. Because eBay is unusually well known, test on your own account before you cut brand ads. Either way, keep cheap brand conversions from flattering the rest of the account.

A handful of campaign settings decide who sees the ads. Start with location. Google's default option reaches people in or regularly in your target area, and people who have shown interest in it⁵. Its own example is a Paris bakery whose ads can also show to people interested in Paris bakeries.

A plumber who only serves Columbus should switch to the Presence option, which targets only people in or regularly in the area. Check every campaign, since each keeps its own settings.

Sort the search terms report by cost, highest first, and read each search against what the business sells. Broad match is the default for new keywords and can match loosely related searches, so expect surprises. Then filter the cheap rows for words that keep coming back, such as jobs, free or DIY. Dozens of small searches can outspend the biggest row.

Split what you find into two piles: spend with no conversions, and conversions that cost more than your target. Exclude off-target searches in the first pile, but give relevant ones with few clicks more time. The second pile may need a lower bid, a tighter match type or a landing page with a clearer value proposition.

Group searches that share an intent into one finding, with their combined cost. The report's Added/Excluded column shows whether each search is currently a keyword, excluded, both or neither. Both can be deliberate, steering a search to one ad group, or a mistake that blocks a keyword you meant to keep.

Negative keywords follow different rules from keywords. Google says they don't match close variants, so you need to add synonyms and singular or plural forms yourself⁶. Casing and misspellings are covered automatically. Excluding "career" won't block "roofing careers".

Check the match type as well. A negative added straight from the search terms report goes in as exact match by default, so it blocks that one search and nothing around it.

Last, pick the level. A negative on one ad group still lets the search match keywords in your other ad groups. A shared list blocks it in every campaign the list is applied to, so keep it for intent you never want, like job seekers.

Rank findings by the money they recover, not by how alarming they sound. Google's optimization score is no guide here: an account can reach 100% by applying or dismissing all recommendations⁷, which says little about what the budget bought.

Put quick, large fixes first. An exclusion takes minutes, while rebuilding ad groups takes days. Decide where the recovered money goes and record it in your annual marketing plan and budget. Then recheck after about 30 days with the same reports, and track the trend in a monthly marketing report.

Rather not sort the exports by hand? The tool at the top of this page reads them and returns the waste ranked by cost, with the campaign, ad group and change on each line.