What is a PPC Audit (of Google Ads)?
A PPC (Pay-Per-Click) audit is a comprehensive review of a Google Ads account to identify areas of improvement, inefficiencies, and potential opportunities for optimization. Here’s a breakdown of what a PPC audit may include for different campaign types, along with key metrics, settings, and common mistakes. An Audit will help you to improve your PPC management.
Can Captivise produce a PPC Audit?
Absolutely; log in to Captivise and conduct a free PPC audit of your Google Ads Account.
If you would like a more comprehensive PPC audit, get in touch. Our experts would be more than happy to explain what our PPC Audits consist of. We’ll happily tailor a PPC Audit to suit your business.
What is an example of a Google ads PPC account audit?
Search Campaigns:
- Account Structure: Review the organization of ad groups and keywords, ensuring proper segmentation and logical groupings.
- Keywords: Evaluate keyword match types, negative keywords, and performance.
- Ad Copy: Assess the relevance and effectiveness of ad headlines, descriptions, and display URLs.
- Ad Extensions: Ensure proper use of ad extensions, such as site links, callouts, structured snippets, and call extensions.
- Quality Score: Check keywords’ quality scores and identify improvement areas.
- Bidding Strategies: Review bid adjustments, automated strategies, and budget allocation.
- Conversion Tracking: Confirm conversion tracking is set up correctly and is tracking relevant actions.
- Location Targeting: Verify that appropriate location targeting settings are in place.
Common mistakes:
- Poor account structure.
- Overusing broad match keywords.
- Lack of ad group or keyword segmentation.
- Ineffective ad copy.
- You are not utilizing ad extensions.
Display Campaigns:
- Targeting: Evaluate contextual, audience, and placement targeting options.
- Ad Creatives: Review display ads’ design, messaging, and format.
- Exclusions: Assess the use of placement, category, and content exclusions.
- Frequency Capping: Confirm appropriate frequency capping settings to limit ad exposure to the same user.
- Remarketing: Review remarketing lists, targeting settings, and ad creatives.
Common mistakes:
- Overly broad targeting.
- Poor ad creatives.
- Insufficient placement exclusions.
- No frequency capping.
- Neglecting remarketing opportunities.
Shopping Campaigns:
- Product Feed: Verify product feed quality, including product titles, descriptions, images, and pricing information.
- Merchant Center: Ensure the Google Merchant Center account is linked correctly and optimized.
- Campaign Structure: Review the organization of product groups and bid strategies.
- Negative Keywords: Evaluate using negative keywords to exclude irrelevant search queries.
- Competitive Benchmarking: Monitor impression share and benchmark metrics to assess the competition.
Common mistakes:
- Inaccurate or incomplete product feed information.
- Poor campaign structure.
- Insufficient use of negative keywords.
- Ignoring competitive benchmarking.
Video Campaigns (YouTube Ads):
- Targeting: Review audience, keyword, topic, and placement targeting options.
- Ad Formats: Assess the effectiveness of different video ad formats, such as in-stream, video discovery, and bumper ads.
- Video Creatives: Evaluate the quality and relevance of video content.
- Call-to-Action: Confirm the presence of a clear call-to-action (CTA) in the video or companion banner.
- Bidding Strategies: Review cost-per-view (CPV) or cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) bidding strategies.
Common mistakes:
- Overly broad targeting.
- Ineffective video creatives.
- Lack of a clear call-to-action.
- Improper bidding strategies.
Remember that these are general guidelines, and each account may require a unique approach depending on its goals, industry, and target audience. Regularly auditing your Google Ads account can help identify areas for improvement, increase efficiency, and maximize ROI.
How to conduct your own PPC Audit?
Here’s a summary of expert recommendations for conducting a PPC audit:
- Establish clear objectives: Understand the goals of the PPC audit, such as improving campaign performance, identifying inefficiencies, or uncovering new opportunities.
- Analyze historical data: Review performance data from the past 3-6 months to identify trends, patterns, and areas that need improvement.
- Assess account structure: Evaluate the organization of campaigns, ad groups, and keywords. A well-structured account is crucial for effective management and optimization.
- Review keyword strategy: Analyze keyword match types, negative keywords, and performance data to ensure you’re targeting relevant search queries.
- Evaluate ad copy and creatives: Assess the relevance, quality, and effectiveness of ad copy and creatives, such as text ads, display ads, and video ads. A/B testing can help identify the most effective ad variations.
- Examine targeting and audience settings: Ensure you reach the right audience with appropriate targeting options, such as location, demographics, interests, and remarketing lists.
- Optimize bidding strategies: Review your bidding strategies, including manual CPC, automated bidding options, and bid adjustments for device, location, and ad schedule.
- Check conversion tracking: Confirm conversion tracking is set up correctly and captures relevant actions.
- Monitor ad extensions: Review ad extensions like site links, callouts, structured snippets, and call extensions to ensure these are used effectively and provide additional value to your ads.
- Benchmark against competitors: Analyze your performance metrics, such as impression share and auction insights, to assess your competitiveness in the market.
- Create a prioritized action plan: After completing the audit, develop an action plan to address identified issues and prioritize improvements based on potential impact.
By following these expert recommendations, you can conduct a thorough PPC audit that helps optimize your Google Ads account, improve performance, and maximize return on investment.
What resources should I use when considering a PPC Audit?
Here’s a list of valuable resources for conducting a PPC audit. These resources can help you understand PPC concepts, access tools and templates. Use these links to learn best practices to optimise your Google Ads account:
- Google Ads Help Center: https://support.google.com/google-ads – The official Google Ads Help Center provides detailed information on account setup, optimization, troubleshooting, and tips for improving campaign performance.
- Google Ads Blog: https://www.blog.google/products/ads/ – The Google Ads Blog offers updates, insights, and success stories to help you stay informed about new features, best practices, and industry trends.
- Google Analytics: https://analytics.google.com/ – Google Analytics is a powerful web analytics tool that can help you track user behaviour on your website, measure your PPC campaigns’ effectiveness, and identify improvement areas.
- Google Ads Scripts: https://developers.google.com/google-ads/scripts – Google Ads Scripts allow you to automate routine tasks, create custom reports, and develop advanced optimization strategies.
- WordStream’s PPC University: https://www.wordstream.com/learn – PPC University by WordStream offers a comprehensive collection of articles, guides, and webinars on various PPC topics, including account setup, optimization, and best practices.
- SEMrush: https://www.semrush.com/ – SEMrush is an all-in-one marketing toolkit that includes PPC tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, ad copy optimization, and more.
- SpyFu: https://www.spyfu.com/ – SpyFu is a competitive intelligence tool that allows you to research competitor keywords, ad copy, and PPC strategies to identify opportunities for improvement.
- Optmyzr: https://www.optmyzr.com/ – Optmyzr is a PPC management platform with tools to optimize bidding, manage budgets, analyze performance, and automate reporting.
- PPC Hero: https://www.ppchero.com/ – PPC Hero is a popular blog that shares tips, strategies, and case studies to help you improve your PPC campaigns.
- Search Engine Journal: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/category/pay-per-click/ – Search Engine Journal publishes articles on various digital marketing topics, including PPC news, trends, and best practices.
These resources can help you gain the knowledge and skills to audit and optimize your PPC campaigns effectively. However, conducting a successful PPC audit requires hands-on experience and familiarity with your account and industry.
