PPC Audit

PPC Audit Services

A PPC audit is a structured review of a paid search account that finds where the money is going, what it is returning, and which parts of the setup are working against the result you actually want. We audit Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and the tracking underneath them, then hand you the findings in plain language with the fixes ranked by what they are worth.

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What a PPC Audit Covers

Wasted Spend

Search terms, placements and audiences that spent money and returned nothing. On most accounts we review, this is the single largest recoverable number, and it is usually sitting in broad match and automated placements nobody has read in months.

Conversion Tracking Integrity

Whether the conversions in the account are real, counted once, and tied to revenue. A surprising share of accounts optimise toward a number that is double counting, firing on page load, or measuring a form view rather than a submission. Every other finding depends on this one being right.

Account Structure

Campaign and ad group architecture, match type strategy, negative keyword coverage and how budget is split across intent. Structure is what decides whether your budget can be steered at all, and it is where most inherited accounts have quietly stopped making sense.

Bidding and Budget Allocation

Which strategies are running, whether they have the conversion volume to work, and whether spend is weighted toward the campaigns that actually produce margin rather than the ones that produce volume.

Ads and Landing Page Experience

Ad relevance, asset coverage, extensions, and what happens after the click. A strong account pointed at a weak landing page is a budget problem disguised as a conversion rate problem.

Competitive Position

Impression share, where you are losing it, and to whom. This separates the losses you can fix with budget from the ones you can only fix with relevance or a better offer.

Unit Economics

Cost per lead, close rate by source, and contribution per unit after cost of sale. This is the step most audits skip, and it is the one that turns a report of metrics into a statement about your profit and loss.

Data and Privacy Setup

Consent handling, enhanced conversions, audience signals and whether the account is still feeding on data it is actually allowed to use. Quiet failures here degrade performance for months before anyone notices.

What You Get

  • A written findings report in plain language, not a screenshot dump of the Google Ads interface
  • Every issue ranked by what fixing it is worth, so you can act on the top three and ignore the rest
  • A wasted spend figure with the search terms and placements it came from
  • A verdict on whether your conversion data can be trusted, and what to repair first if it cannot
  • A forecast of what the same budget should return once the structural problems are fixed
  • A walkthrough call where we talk through the findings and you keep the document either way

How We Run the Audit

01. Baseline

We start in your numbers rather than the ad platform. Average order or deal value, gross margin per unit, close rate by source and real sales cycle length. Without these, an audit can only comment on cost per click.

02. Account Review

A full pass through structure, search terms, tracking, bidding, creative and competitive position, against a fixed checklist so nothing depends on which auditor happened to look at it.

03. Quantify

Every finding gets a number attached. Recoverable spend, forecast change in cost per acquisition, and the contribution the fix should produce. Findings without a number do not make the report.

04. Prioritise

Ranked by value against effort, so there is an obvious first move. You can hand the list to your current team, do it yourself, or ask us to execute it.

When a PPC Audit Is Worth Running

  • Spend has grown but leads, sales or revenue have not moved with it
  • You inherited the account from an agency or an employee and nobody can explain how it is built
  • Your reported conversions look healthy but the sales team does not recognise the volume
  • Performance dropped and no one can say what changed
  • You are about to increase budget and want to know the account can absorb it
  • You are considering changing agency and want an independent read before you decide

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a PPC audit?
A PPC audit is a structured review of a pay per click advertising account that establishes where the budget is going, what it is returning, and which parts of the setup are limiting the result. A complete audit covers wasted spend, account structure, conversion tracking accuracy, bidding strategy, ad and landing page quality, competitive position and the unit economics underneath it all. The output is a prioritised list of fixes with a value attached to each one, not a list of observations.
What does PPC stand for?
PPC stands for pay per click, an advertising model in which you are charged only when someone clicks your ad rather than when it is shown. Google Ads and Microsoft Ads are the largest PPC platforms. A PPC audit therefore means an audit of those paid click campaigns and the measurement around them.
How long does a PPC audit take?
For a typical small to mid sized account we turn findings around within about a week of getting access. Larger accounts, multiple platforms or messy conversion tracking add time, because verifying whether the data can be trusted takes longer than reviewing the campaigns themselves. We will tell you the timeline before we start rather than after.
What access do you need to run one?
Read only access to the ad accounts, your analytics property and, where it exists, the conversion or CRM data that shows which leads became customers. Read only is enough for the whole audit. We do not need to make changes in your account to assess it, and we will not.
How often should a PPC account be audited?
Once or twice a year for a stable account under active management, and immediately on any of three triggers: a change of agency or in house owner, an unexplained shift in performance, or a planned increase in budget. Accounts drift quietly, and the cost of drift compounds, so the gap between audits matters more than the exact cadence.
How much does a PPC audit cost?
We offer a complimentary audit of your digital advertising setup, including paid media, so most businesses start there at no cost. Deeper engagements, such as multi account reviews, forensic work on broken attribution, or audits prepared for a board or an acquirer, are quoted on scope after a short call.
Will you just tell me to hire you?
No. The report stands on its own and you keep it regardless of what you do next. We will say plainly when an account is already well run, and we will say plainly when the problem is not the advertising at all but the offer, the margin or the follow up. An audit that only ever concludes “hire us” is a sales document, not an audit.
What is the difference between a PPC audit and a paid media audit?
A PPC audit covers paid search specifically, which in practice means Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. A paid media audit is broader and takes in paid social, display, video and retargeting alongside search. If you are not sure which you need, our free digital advertising audit covers the wider setup and we narrow from there.

Find Out What Your Account Is Actually Returning

Send us read only access and we will tell you where the budget is going, what it is earning, and the three changes worth making first.

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