Free Google Ads Audit Checklist

1. 01Tracking You Can Trust

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   Check that every sale is counted once, with the real order value. Everything else in the audit reads these numbers.

   • 1.1Purchase is a primary conversion and it fired this weekIf the purchase action is off, or set as secondary, Smart Bidding is flying blind.
   • 1.2Conversion value is the real order value, not a fixed numberA fixed value of 1 makes ROAS meaningless and Target ROAS useless.
   • 1.3No sale is counted twiceThe Google Ads tag and an imported GA4 purchase both set as primary is the classic double count. ROAS looks twice as good as it is.
   • 1.4Google's sales for last week roughly match your store'sPut the two numbers side by side. A big gap means something is broken, either way round.

2. 02Feed and Merchant Center

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   Shopping and Performance Max run on your product feed. A broken feed is a broken campaign.

   • 2.1No best sellers are disapproved in Merchant Center DiagnosticsA disapproved product gets no Shopping ads at all, however good the bid.
   • 2.2Product titles say what the product is, with the words buyers searchThe title is most of what Google matches a search against. "Aurora Pro" says nothing. "Sunset Lamp, 16 Colors, USB" says a lot.
   • 2.3Price and stock in the feed match the websiteA mismatch can get products disapproved, and it costs you clicks that cannot buy.
   • 2.4GTIN or brand is set right, or marked as not existingWrong product IDs can limit how often a product shows. Dropshipped items without a GTIN should say so.

3. 03Search Terms and Negatives

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   Read what people really typed. Money spent on the wrong searches shows up here.

   • 3.1You read the search terms report for the last 30 days, sorted by costGoogle's search terms report shows the real searches behind your clicks. Sort it by cost so the terms that cost you most sit at the top.
   • 3.2Terms with spend and zero sales above your break-even CPA are negativesEvery one of those is money that bought nothing. List them as negatives to add.
   • 3.3Negatives live in a shared list, used by every campaign it fitsOne list, many campaigns. Fix a leak once and it stays fixed everywhere.
   • 3.4Brand searches are split out from the restPeople who type your store name already know you, so many would buy without the ad. Mixed in, they hide how the rest of the account really does.

4. 04Products and Profit

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   Judge products one by one, on profit, not on store-wide ROAS.

   • 4.1Each top product's ROAS is above its own break-even ROASStore-wide ROAS can look fine while two products lose money and three carry them.
   • 4.2Products with real spend and zero sales are found and dealt withExclude them, fix the page, or fix the price. Do not let them keep spending.
   • 4.3Products are grouped by margin or performance with custom labelsCustom labels let you bid differently on a 70% margin product and a 20% one.
   • 4.4Profitable campaigns are not stuck on "Limited by budget"If a campaign makes money and runs out of budget every day, you are leaving sales on the table.

5. 05Bids and Budgets

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   Targets should come from your margin, and changes should come in steps.

   • 5.1Target ROAS (or CPA) comes from your break-even, not a guideA target copied from a blog post has nothing to do with your costs.
   • 5.2Target ROAS is typed as a percent (300% means 3x)Typing 3 into the Target ROAS box asks for 3%. Google will spend nearly anything to hit that.
   • 5.3Budget and target changes are made in steps, not big jumpsBig swings make Smart Bidding relearn. Results wobble while it does.
   • 5.4Nothing important changed in the last week while you judge resultsJudging a campaign the week after a big change is reading the noise, not the result.

6. 06Settings and History

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   Some default settings spend money you never chose to spend. Check each one.

   • 6.1Location option is set on purpose (Presence vs Presence or interest)Google's recommended default, Presence or interest, can show ads to people outside the places you ship to. If you only ship to one country, check it.
   • 6.2Search partners and Display are on or off by choiceThey are often on by default when you build a Search campaign. Check their results apart from Google Search.
   • 6.3Auto-applied recommendations are off, or you read every oneAuto-apply lets Google change your account for you. Know what it is allowed to do.
   • 6.4You read the change history before the last dropA sudden drop can follow a change someone made. Rule that out before you change anything else.

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