The Campaign Audit Checklist I Use For Every New Client

When a new client comes to me with an underperforming account, the first thing I do before touching a single setting is a full audit. Over 11 years and 100+ accounts, I've developed a checklist that catches 90% of problems within the first hour.

Here it is — split into four sections.

Section 1: Tracking & Measurement

If your tracking is broken, every decision you make is based on bad data. This is always where I start.

• 01
  Conversion tracking is firing correctly — Check Google Tag Manager or directly in Google Ads. Every key action (purchase, lead form, call) should be tracked.
• 02
  No duplicate conversions — A common mistake. One purchase should fire once. Check for duplicate tags in GTM.
• 03
  Primary vs secondary conversions set correctly — Only revenue-driving actions should be set as "Primary". Micro-conversions (page views, scroll depth) should be "Secondary".
• 04
  Conversion window matches the sales cycle — A B2B service with a 30-day decision process needs a 30-day window, not the default 7-day.
• 05
  Google Ads and Analytics data roughly matches — A 10–20% discrepancy is normal. Anything beyond that means a tracking problem.

Section 2: Account Structure

Poor structure wastes budget and confuses the algorithm. Here's what I check:

• 06
  Campaigns are segmented by goal, not by keyword theme — Each campaign should have one clear objective: leads, purchases, or brand awareness.
• 07
  Ad groups aren't too broad or too narrow — Aim for 10–20 tightly themed keywords per ad group. One keyword per ad group is too restrictive; 100 keywords is too messy.
• 08
  Negative keyword list exists and is populated — Most underperforming accounts have zero or minimal negatives. This is usually where the biggest waste is hiding.
• 09
  Search Terms report reviewed in last 30 days — If nobody has looked at actual search terms recently, irrelevant clicks are being paid for right now.
• 10
  Brand and non-brand campaigns are separated — Mixing them inflates performance metrics and makes it impossible to understand true acquisition cost.

Section 3: Bidding & Budget

• 11
  Bidding strategy matches conversion volume — Smart Bidding needs data. If a campaign has fewer than 30 conversions/month, manual or enhanced CPC is more reliable.
• 12
  Target ROAS / CPA targets are realistic — Targets set too aggressively will throttle delivery. Compare against actual historical performance before setting.
• 13
  Budget is not consistently hitting the daily cap — If a campaign caps out by 2pm every day, you're losing afternoon and evening traffic. Increase budget or reduce bids.
• 14
  Impression share data reviewed — Low Search Impression Share due to budget means you need more spend. Low IS due to rank means you need better quality or higher bids.
• 15
  Ad scheduling checked — Are ads running at times that make sense for the business? B2B accounts often waste budget on weekends.

Section 4: Creative & Landing Pages

• 16
  Each ad group has at least one Responsive Search Ad — RSAs with strong asset ratings (Good or Excellent) consistently outperform older ad formats.
• 17
  Ad copy matches keyword intent — A user searching "buy running shoes online" should land on a product page, not the homepage.
• 18
  Landing page load speed is under 3 seconds — Check with Google PageSpeed Insights. Slow pages kill Quality Score and conversion rate simultaneously.
• 19
  Ad extensions / assets are fully set up — Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, call extensions. These increase CTR and Quality Score for free.
• 20
  A/B test is running or recently completed — If nothing has been tested in 90 days, the account is stagnating. Always have one active experiment.

How To Use This Checklist

Go through each point and mark it as Pass, Fail, or Needs Review. Any Fail is an immediate action item. Prioritise tracking issues first, then structure, then bidding, then creative — in that order.

In my experience, most underperforming accounts fail 6–10 of these 20 checks. Fixing them systematically — not randomly tweaking bids or swapping ad copy — is what actually moves the needle.

If you want me to run this audit on your account, get in touch here.