Google Ads Audit Checklist for 2026: 20 Checks in the Order That Saves the Most Money

A Google Ads audit is only useful if it starts where the money is. Most checklists jump straight to ad copy and Quality Score, but if conversion tracking is wrong, every number after it is wrong too, and if a third of spend goes to irrelevant searches, rewriting headlines will not save the account. This checklist puts 20 checks in the order that protects the most money first: tracking, then wasted spend, then bidding and budgets, then structure, and only then ads and landing pages. Each check says where to look, what a red flag looks like and what to do about it.

Quick answer: Audit a Google Ads account in this order. 1) Conversion tracking: is the primary conversion real, firing and counted once? 2) Wasted spend: search terms, keywords and placements that spend without converting. 3) Bidding and budgets: is the strategy right for your data volume, are targets realistic, are profitable campaigns limited by budget? 4) Structure: overlapping campaigns, fragmented budgets and Performance Max controls. 5) Ads, assets and landing pages. Fix each step before moving to the next.

Why Audit Order Matters

Google's bidding systems optimize toward whatever you tell them is a conversion. If a page view or a button click is counted as a primary conversion, Smart Bidding will happily buy cheap page views and report a great cost per conversion while sales fall. That is why tracking comes first. Wasted spend comes second because it is the fastest money to recover: a negative keyword takes effect the same day. Bidding, budgets and structure come next because they decide how the remaining money is spread. Creative and landing pages come last, not because they matter less, but because improving them inside a broken account is wasted effort.

Step 1: Conversion Tracking (Checks 1 to 4)

1. Is the primary conversion the one that makes money? Look in Goals, then Summary. Red flag: page views, scroll depth, time on site or "contact page visit" set as primary. Fix: make the real action (purchase, qualified lead, booked call) primary and move the rest to secondary so they are observed but not optimized toward.
2. Are conversions still firing? Compare conversions by day for the last 14 days. Red flag: a sudden drop to zero on a day when clicks were normal. Fix: check the tag on the thank-you page or the form, and pause automated changes until it is fixed, because every keyword will look like it stopped converting.
3. Is anything counted twice? Red flag: the same purchase tracked by both a Google tag conversion and an imported GA4 key event, both primary. Fix: keep one primary source per action. For leads, set counting to "One" per click; for purchases, "Every".
4. Are enhanced conversions, consent mode and conversion values in place? Red flag: e-commerce conversions with no value, or a large gap between Google Ads conversions and real orders. Fix: pass dynamic order values, turn on enhanced conversions, and set up consent mode where your traffic requires it.

Step 2: Wasted Spend (Checks 5 to 9)

1. Search terms that spent more than one target CPA without converting. Look in Insights and reports, then Search terms, for the last 30 to 90 days ending at least 3 days ago. Fix: add wrong-intent terms as negatives; give relevant ones a better ad or landing page instead.
2. Keywords with spend and zero conversions over 90 days. Red flag: broad keywords that keep matching new junk. Fix: pause the keyword, tighten the match type, or add the negatives it keeps attracting.
3. Placements on Display, Video and Performance Max that spend without results. Red flag: mobile apps or low-quality sites taking a large share of content spend. Fix: exclude them at campaign level or with an account-level placement exclusion list.
4. Duplicate keywords across ad groups or campaigns. Red flag: the same keyword in several places, so your own campaigns compete and data is split. Fix: keep each keyword in one ad group and add cross-negatives where needed.
5. Location settings. Red flag: "Presence or interest" for a local business, so people outside your service area see ads. Fix: switch to "Presence" (people in or regularly in your locations) and check the location report for spend outside the area.

Step 2 is where the free Google Ads Wasted Spend Finder helps: paste the search terms report and it totals zero-conversion spend, lists negative keyword candidates and shows the words that never convert.

Step 3: Bidding and Budgets (Checks 10 to 13)

1. Does the bid strategy fit your data? Red flag: target CPA or target ROAS on a campaign with a handful of conversions a month. Fix: consolidate campaigns, or use Maximize conversions without a target until volume builds.
2. Are targets realistic? Red flag: a target CPA far below what the campaign actually achieves, which strangles delivery. Fix: set the target near the last 30 days of actual CPA, then tighten in small steps.
3. Are profitable campaigns limited by budget? Look at search impression share lost to budget. Red flag: your best campaign loses impressions to budget while a weak one underspends. Fix: move budget from the weak campaign to the strong one.
4. Are budgets fragmented? Red flag: ten campaigns with ten small budgets and a few conversions each. Fix: merge campaigns that share a goal so each one gets enough conversions to learn from.

Step 4: Structure and Performance Max (Checks 14 to 16)

1. Overlapping campaigns. Red flag: two campaigns targeting the same keywords and locations, often a copy that was never removed. Fix: keep one, merge the history, remove the other.
2. Performance Max controls. Red flag: no brand exclusions, no negative keywords, and nobody has opened the channel performance report. Fix: add brand exclusions if you run a brand Search campaign, add campaign-level negatives for wrong-intent themes, and review which channels the money goes to.
3. Device and schedule gaps. Red flag: one device or time of day with a far higher cost per conversion over at least a month of data. Fix: with Smart Bidding, small adjustments are usually enough; reserve hard exclusions for clear, persistent waste.

Step 5: Ads, Assets and Landing Pages (Checks 17 to 20)

1. Responsive search ad coverage. Red flag: fewer than 8 to 10 distinct headlines, everything pinned, or assets rated Low left running. Fix: replace low-rated assets with genuinely different angles, and pin only what legal or brand rules require.
2. Quality Score components. Red flag: "Below average" on expected CTR, ad relevance or landing page experience for keywords that carry spend. Fix: tighter ad groups, headlines that echo the keyword, and landing pages that answer the search.
3. Assets. Red flag: no sitelinks, callouts or images on Search campaigns. Fix: add at least four sitelinks, a set of callouts and image assets where eligible.
4. Disapprovals and landing pages. Red flag: disapproved or limited ads, campaigns that are on but not serving, slow mobile pages. Fix: read the policy reason, fix the ad or page, and appeal in Google Ads where needed.

How Often to Run Each Check

Automating the Audit With Loraloop

Loraloop's ads agent, Angie, runs most of this checklist every night on connected Google Ads accounts. The audit scores wasted spend, CPA efficiency, budget pacing, delivery, conversion tracking presence and accuracy, primary-goal setup, search terms, keyword waste, Quality Score, placements, duplicate campaigns and keywords, fragmented budgets and impression share lost to ad rank. Recoverable spend is shown as a range rather than a single number, because nobody can know it exactly.

Findings turn into proposals: one negative keyword proposal per account from wasted search terms, website placement exclusions, small target and bid steps, and rewrites of low-rated responsive search ad assets. A Fix all button can pause campaigns that spend with zero conversions, add ad schedules and set device adjustments, all waiting for your approval by default. If conversion tracking looks dead, Loraloop holds the fixes back, because the account's numbers cannot be trusted until it is repaired.

Frequently Asked Questions