The 10-minute Google AdWords Account Audit
If you’re managing an AdWords account, you want to get the best results you possibly can.
After all, AdWords isn’t free.
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You’re paying for results. And if you’re not routinely optimizing your account, you’re probably overpaying.
But AdWords can be confusing. There’s a lot of moving parts to work through inside the AdWords platform.
So how can you tell if your account is performing as well as it could be?
Many people rely on Google’s data to show them how their account is doing. But this can be a big mistake. Google doesn’t even include conversion data in your default dashboard. So, it’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security by Google’s basic information.
To evaluate how well you’re managing your AdWords account, you need to take matters into your own hands. So, today we are going to do a simple AdWords account audit.
10-Minute Google AdWords Account Audit
Our 10-minute Google AdWords account audit is an easy to follow checklist. You can download your own copy of our account audit checklist below.
This audit will help you figure out where your account management is succeeding, and where you might need to improve.
Remember, working in AdWords is about continuous improvement over time. Diligent account optimization is how you win the AdWords game.
No matter your experience level… Making frequent improvements is your best opportunity to yield profitable results.
Let’s get started with our audit, and see how we can improve our account management.
Are your campaign budgets accurate and realistic?
Yes ☐ No ☐
Take a look at your ad campaign status. Are all your campaigns limited by budget? Or are you failing to spend your campaign budgets?
adwords limited by budget
If either of these problems is prominent in your account, you need to reevaluate how you’re managing your budgets.
You want to align how much you’re willing to spend on your keywords with what the marketplace is allowing. And you want to focus your budget on achieving conversions, not clicks.
If you need help optimizing your budgets, we have a full tutorial available on this subject on the PPC Mastery Course blog:
AdWords Limited by Budget – Not anymore! Learn the right way to optimize your AdWords budget
Are your campaign settings using the Google defaults?
Yes ☐ No ☐
Make sure you ARE NOT using the Google default campaign settings blindly. If you’re using the defaults, you are likely to find that your ad campaigns are under-optimized.
If you choose to use the defaults you are saying: “I want to trust Google to do my job for me.”
Don't use the google default settings - AdWords account audit
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, made 110 billion dollars last year. Most of that revenue was from advertising.
When you use the default settings, you are lining Google’s pockets.
There are campaign settings for a reason. Make sure your campaign settings are adjusted to represent your interests, not Google’s.
Are you using ad extensions and are you getting impressions?
Yes ☐ No ☐
Ad extensions are a very important part of AdWords. They provide an opportunity to gain more advertising real estate in the search results. And they factor into your Ad Rank.
Using ad extensions is an easy way to boost your ad rank.
If you don’t use ad extensions… Good luck showing up the top 3 positions!
Are you testing two or more ads per ad group?
Yes ☐ No ☐
If you’re not testing your ads, you can’t improve your results. Also, if you don’t test and rotate your ads, Google might display an ad that’s getting poor results.
In the example below, Google wasn’t displaying our best ad. The ad on the very bottom has a better CTR (click-through-rate) and a better CPC (cost-per-click). But Google favored a more expensive ad. So we paused the costly underperforming ad that Google wanted to show, and ran the ad that was achieving better results.
test your ads - AdWords account audit
You can improve your CTR by 100% or more if you do ad testing.
If you want to optimize your budget, you need to test two or more ads per ad group.
(Need help writing or adjusting your ad copy? Read our full tutorial on AdWords copywriting. And download our text ad swipe file in that post).
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