A PPC audit is a structured review of a paid search account against a fixed set of checks: tracking accuracy, campaign structure, search term quality, bidding, assets, and landing pages. The goal is to find where spend leaks and where reporting lies before changing bids or budgets. This page is the 78-point version we use on client Google Ads accounts.

How do you audit a Google Ads account?

In a fixed order: tracking first, then audiences, structure, bidding, keywords and search terms, ads, assets, Performance Max, Shopping and Merchant Center, video, and landing pages. Tracking comes first because broken conversion data makes every later judgment wrong. Work through the 78 checks above in order, mark each Pass or Fail, and fix Critical fails before touching anything graded High or Standard.

What does a Google Ads audit include?

This checklist covers 11 areas: conversion tracking and data integrity, audiences and remarketing, account structure, bidding and budgets, keywords and negatives, ad copy, assets and extensions, Performance Max, Shopping and Merchant Center, YouTube and Demand Gen, and landing pages. Ecommerce-only checks are tagged, so lead gen accounts can mark 9 of the 78 as not applicable.

How long does a Google Ads audit take?

A full pass through all 78 checks usually takes 60 to 120 minutes on a mid-size account, longer if you document evidence for every fail. A 20 to 30 minute triage is possible: run only the 18 Critical checks. On a large or unfamiliar account, budget half a day and audit in two sittings.

How often should you audit a Google Ads account?

Quarterly for a stable account, plus after any structural change: new campaign types, a site migration, a new agency, or before scaling budgets. Re-run the 18 Critical checks monthly, because tracking breaks silently and it breaks everything downstream. If performance moves sharply with no explanation, audit before optimizing. Most accounts do not need more spend. They need better control.

Does this checklist work for ecommerce and lead gen?

Both. 69 of the 78 checks apply to any Google Ads account. The 9 Shopping and Merchant Center checks are tagged Ecommerce only, and lead gen accounts mark them N/A. The checklist was built inside ecommerce accounts, so Shopping, feed, and Performance Max coverage runs deeper than most generic PPC audit templates.

Can I use this as a Google Ads audit template for client reporting?

Yes. The Google Sheet version is built as an audit report template: every check has Status, Proof signal, Fix steps, Effort, Owner, and ETA columns to fill in. Agencies and freelancers can copy it per client and send the completed sheet as the audit deliverable. No attribution required.

What is the difference between this checklist and a free Google Ads audit tool?

Automated audit tools scan settings through the API and flag the easy things: disapprovals, missing assets, budget caps. They cannot judge whether brand is subsidizing non-brand, whether a negative keyword blocks a money term, or whether PMax is taking credit for demand you already owned. Those judgment calls are where budgets actually leak, and they are most of this checklist. Use a tool for speed and the checklist for decisions.

FREE. 78 CHECKS, GRADED. NO SIGN-UP.

Google Ads Audit Checklist: The 78-Point PPC Audit We Run on Client Accounts

This Google Ads audit checklist is the 78-point framework we run on client accounts before touching bids or budgets. Work through all 11 sections here and tick as you go, copy the Google Sheet template free, or have us run the full audit on your account for $199.

Built by Just Lead Market. The checklist is the working document behind our client audits, not a lead magnet written for this page.

Last updated: 2026-07-30

Start the audit

Or have us run it for you for $199

How the grades work

Every check carries a grade, so the 78 checks read as a priority order, not a flat list. 18 checks open into a full how-to-check and how-to-fix walkthrough.

Critical. Broken measurement or active budget waste. Fix these first.
High. Strong performance impact once the criticals are clean.
Standard. Hygiene and polish.

Checks tagged Ecom apply to ecommerce accounts only; lead gen accounts mark them N/A.

What you get

One checklist, three ways to use it. The checklist on this page is free and needs no sign-up.

1. Use it on this page. All 78 checks are above, grouped into 11 sections with grades. Your ticks are saved in your browser, so you can audit across several sittings. 18 checks open into a full walkthrough: the exact report to open, the filters to apply, the threshold that counts as a fail, and a worked example of the fix.

2. Copy the Google Sheet template. The checks as an audit report template, with Status, Proof signal, Fix steps, Effort, Owner, and ETA columns to fill in as you work. Enter your email and the copy link opens in a new tab, saving an editable copy to your Drive; you can download it as an Excel file (.xlsx) from Sheets.

3. Have us run it: $199. We audit your account against all 78 checks and send the sheet back completed, with a prioritized fix plan. Details further down the page.

This resource sits alongside our other worksheet templates, including the 293-check ecommerce CRO checklist and the Customer Avatar Builder, which feeds the negative keyword themes this audit checks. The Tracking & Conversion Data section also has its own deep-dive: the 33-check Google Ads + GA4 tracking audit.

How to run the audit

Step 1
Copy the sheet, or tick on this page. Save the Google Sheets audit template to your Drive, or work through the interactive checklist on the page. The order matters more than the tool.
Step 2
Start at Section 1 and do not skip ahead. Tracking comes first because broken conversion data makes every later judgment wrong. If tracking fails, fix it before trusting any performance verdict in Sections 2 to 11.
Step 3
Mark every check. Set each check to Pass, Fail, Needs review, or N/A. Lead gen accounts mark the 9 Shopping and Merchant Center checks N/A.
Step 4
Attach evidence to every Fail. A number, a screenshot, a settings value. An audit without evidence is an opinion.
Step 5
Fix in grade order. Critical first, then High, then Standard. If more than a handful of the 18 Critical checks fail, the account has a control problem, not a budget problem.

One warning from client work: do not turn audit findings into changes all at once. Aggressive same-day cleanups, especially bulk negative keywords, can block the exact demand the account depends on. Batch the fixes, protect learning, and watch the search terms report as changes land.

What an audit found on a real account

The checklist is not theory. It is the working document behind our Google Ads management engagements, and the fastest way to show what it catches is one real account.

ThatBlanket.co is a US personalized photo blanket brand where we ran a Google Ads growth-system rebuild. The account's 125-day export ending February 26, 2026 showed ~$52,758 spend against ~$50,314 conversion value, roughly 0.95x overall. Not a dead account. A leaking one. The search term breakdown from that export:

Search intent groups from a 125-day ThatBlanket.co export
Search intent group	Spend	Conversion value	ROAS
Photo, picture, collage terms	~$14,799	~$17,754	~1.20x
Brand terms	~$537	~$3,010	~5.61x
Cheap, discount, marketplace terms	~$533	~$258	~0.48x
Kids, baby, princess terms	~$936	~$145	~0.15x
Sports and football terms	~$152	$0	0x

Run the checklist against that table and the failing checks name themselves. Converting search terms were not controlled as keywords. Negative lists were not separating discount hunters from gift buyers. Weak themes kept spending long after the data condemned them. Brand sat mixed into reporting, flattering everything around it. In that window, $1,621 went to segments the checklist is built to flag (kids, sports, discount) and returned $403. The same money pointed at the proven photo intent group, at its observed 1.20x, would have returned about $1,945.

Two honesty notes. Those numbers describe one specific export window, not ongoing performance, and the rebuild is a work in progress, not a finished case study. That is exactly why the audit uses evidence columns: claims tied to exports, not memory.

The account-level negative keyword lists that check 33 asks for have their own free resource: our Google Ads negative keyword list ships the 1,380-term baseline stack we install on client accounts, junk intent like the rows above included.

The other half of auditing is knowing what not to change. On Mossy Oak Graphics, a US vehicle graphics account, part of the audit work was evaluating whether Google's suggestion to enable AI Max made sense for an account with a deliberately granular structure. The audit's answer was to test the risk of query expansion and overlap first instead of switching it on because the interface suggested it. An audit that only produces a to-do list is half an audit. The other half is a do-not-touch list.

What this changes at real spend

If you spend a few hundred dollars a month, run the checklist yourself. Everything is on this page and nothing is held back.

At real spend, the checklist stops being a one-time cleanup and becomes the control system: which fails get fixed this week, which negatives guard the budget, which campaigns are quarantined until tracking is trustworthy, and which of Google's automated suggestions get adopted versus declined. The ThatBlanket arithmetic above is what one unaudited slice of one account cost in one window. Accounts do not leak once. They leak monthly until someone runs the checks.

Get the audit done for you: $199

If you would rather not spend the half day, we run the full 78-point audit on your Google Ads account for $199.

You send read-only account access and a few basics through the form. We work through every check and send back the completed sheet: every item marked Pass or Fail with evidence attached, plus a prioritized fix plan ordered Critical, High, Standard, written so your team or your current agency can execute it. No call required, no retainer conversation attached.

One honest qualifier. This is the same audit we run inside client accounts spending $10,000+/month in the US and £5,000+/month in the UK on Google Ads. At that spend level we comp it: request a Just Free Audit and see if your account qualifies. Below that level, $199 buys the identical process without the qualification step.

DONE FOR YOU

Get your accountaudited for $199.

YOU GET

All 78 checks run on your account, marked Pass or Fail
Evidence attached to every Fail
A fix plan ordered Critical, High, Standard
Written so your team or current agency can execute it

Facts block

Resource	Google Ads audit checklist (78-point PPC audit framework)
Format	Interactive on-page checklist + Google Sheets audit report template (copy link)
Size	78 checks, 11 sections, graded Critical / High / Standard (18 C, 37 H, 23 S), 18 with a full how-to-check and how-to-fix walkthrough
Covers	Conversion tracking, audiences, structure, bidding, keywords and negatives, ads, assets, Performance Max, Shopping and Merchant Center, YouTube and Demand Gen, landing pages
Ideal for	Ecommerce brands, lead gen teams, founders auditing an inherited account, freelancers and agencies
Applies to	69 checks universal; 9 Shopping and Merchant Center checks tagged Ecommerce only
Markets	US, UK
Cost	Free on this page, no sign-up. The Google Sheet copy is sent in exchange for your email. Done-for-you audit: $199, comped at $10,000+/month US or £5,000+/month UK spend via the Just Free Audit
Proof context	Framework used on client accounts including ThatBlanket.co (125-day export cited above) and Mossy Oak Graphics
Last updated	2026-07-30

Google Ads audit checklist FAQs

In a fixed order: tracking first, then audiences, structure, bidding, keywords and search terms, ads, assets, Performance Max, Shopping and Merchant Center, video, and landing pages. Tracking comes first because broken conversion data makes every later judgment wrong. Work through the 78 checks above in order, mark each Pass or Fail, and fix Critical fails before touching anything graded High or Standard.
Automated audit tools scan settings through the API and flag the easy things: disapprovals, missing assets, budget caps. They cannot judge whether brand is subsidizing non-brand, whether a negative keyword blocks a money term, or whether PMax is taking credit for demand you already owned. Those judgment calls are where budgets actually leak, and they are most of this checklist. Use a tool for speed and the checklist for decisions.

Didn’t find what you’re looking for?

Google Ads Audit Checklist: The 78-Point PPC Audit We Run on Client Accounts

How the grades work

Tracking & Conversion Data

Audiences & Remarketing

Account & Campaign Structure

Bidding & Budget

Keywords, Search Terms & Negatives

Ads & Ad Copy

Assets & Extensions

Performance Max

Shopping & Merchant Center

YouTube & Demand Gen

Landing Pages & CRO