PPC Audit: A Complete Overview

Do you need a PPC audit for your PPC campaign? Yes! If you want to run a perfect PPC campaign for your business, you will need to audit the campaigns. Since you are investing your money in an ad campaign, it’s for your benefit to see if the money is being utilized wisely. That’s where a PPC account audit comes in handy. 

When you perform an audit for the ad campaigns, you will get to know if the ad is making any impression on the target audience, or if it’s getting any clicks. Similarly, the PPC audit can tell whether you are targeting the right set of keywords or not. 

This post will walk you through the PPC account audit details. 

What is a PPC Audit? 

A PPC audit is an audit that analyzes a PPC campaign of any specific account with the hope of ascertaining the optimization areas. So, just like SEO audits, any PPC audit aims to pinpoint issues that a present PPC campaign might be having. Accordingly, audit professionals can fix the issues and start driving important leads for businesses.  

In simple words, a PPC audit, also known as a PPC campaign, allows PPC experts to manage the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads and evaluate their performance. And with the Pay-Per-Click audit report, PPC professionals get an insight into the PPC parts that need quick improvement. 

PPC Audit: Primary Goal 

Investing time, effort, and money in PPC campaign management isn’t enough to improve any business. One needs to ensure whether the PPC campaign is effective or not. 

In simple terms, an effective PPC campaign is one that is under constant analysis, testing, and improvement.  

The primary goal of any PPC investment is to make sure of the fact that you are ready to attain the business goals. This is when you need to perform a detailed audit of the PPC accounts. 

The PPC audit helps to assess the performance, strengths, weaknesses, and improvement opportunities for great results.  

One thing that must be kept in mind is that the audit process will assess both the short and long-term performance of the paid ad strategy.  

With the audit, businesses will be able to assess and even investigate the performance, cost, and even the returns obtained from the ad groups, ad campaigns, and individual ads. 

However, an audit of the PPC ad campaigns should be performed periodically.  

Why?  

Only then can the performance of any PPC advertising strategy be maximized. 

What Makes PPC Account Audit a Big Deal? 

If you are running a PPC campaign, you will need to conduct an audit. This is very true.  

You might want to know why so much importance is being given to conducting a PPC account audit.  

Let’s take a sneak peek into why the PPC audit process is a huge deal. 

1. Provides Quick Results 

Businesses look out for quick results. Pay-Per-Click is one such way that allows you to run an advertising campaign and get results for the campaign quickly.  

For instance, business houses can create a Google Ads or Bing Ads account for their well-performing site and set up ads. Once the ads are set, they can be run on the advertising network of Google and Bing.  

2. Offer You Measurable Results 

Another benefit of running a PPC is that it offers measurable results. This means one can easily calculate the costs related to the campaign or check the profits obtained. Similarly, one can check the number of views, visits, clicks, and more. 

3. No Need to Depend on Google’s Algorithm Change 

For long-term success, an SEO audit of the website is important. The SEO audit ensures the website adheres to the SEO standards and practices. With PPC one doesn’t need to worry about the ranking factors or the algorithms while creating the campaigns. 

4. Reach Out to the Right Audience 

When running a PPC campaign, one gets to choose where and when the ads will appear depending on some factors. The factors are location, device, keywords, time and date, etc. PPC offers the flexibility to divide your market and set up the products and services for the right audience. 

5. Brand Identity 

PPC can be used to target the keywords related to your business. This will make it easy for your ads to appear in front of people who are searching for those key phrases.  

Generic keywords might not earn much profit; however, they help in creating brand awareness. This, in turn, will help you with better brand coverage within the industry. 

6. Business Opportunities 

If you are launching a new product or a service, a Pay-Per-Click ad will help you reach out to the target audience in an accurate manner. 

7. Works Well with Local Search 

PPC is very effective for Local Search. Yes! When a customer searches for a certain product or service in their area, they will come across your ad. This can help businesses to get leads and conversions in the long run. 

Studies have shown that 75% of people are more likely to visit a retail store only when they find the ad relevant to the search results. 

8. Easy Budget Distribution 

There are no budget restrictions for PPC. One is free to choose the amount to invest for Pay-Per-Click and on the ads that will be running on the Google Ad network. 

As everything is measurable, it’s easy to analyze if the spending is making any profit or loss. If the campaign shows signs of profit, one can spend more to get maximum ROI. 

Reasons to Conduct Periodical PPC Audits 

In the event you run a PPC campaign for some time, consider conducting a PPC audit as an important task. 

Keep in mind that things move fast in the world of paid search. So, performing periodical audits for the ad campaigns is very important. It will ensure that you are aware of the policies or updates launched by Google or about the new features and releases. 

There is no denying that Pay Per Clicks (PPC) platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads come with a lot of complexity. These platforms not only undergo frequent feature changes and interface overhauls but also for the newbies, the ad platforms seem to be a tangled labyrinth. 

So, the main reasons for conducting a regular or a periodical audit are mentioned below: 

1. Assessing the Performance of the Existing Advertising Strategy 

For digital marketers, conducting a PPC audit is crucial. Why? It gives them a complete overview of how a PPC Ad account is performing.  

To put it simply, a proper audit would underline what can be improved, what’s working, and what need to be fixed over time. A PPC audit helps in evaluating the performance of the existing marketing strategy. Accordingly, the best way to improvise the strategy can be decided. 

2. Discover the Issues Related to Performance 

A PPC audit is an evaluation strategy that allows you to have a proper understanding of the ad campaigns’ performance. With the information obtained, it’s easy to compare your ad performance and that of your competitor. 

3. Discover & Learn About the Audience 

Another reason for conducting a PPC audit is to understand the way the audience is interacting with the ads. With PPC audits, one will get to know the likes and dislikes of the target audience. Also, one will know about the elements of the ads that should be improved. 

4. Identify Wasted Spend 

You will get to know in the latter part of this blog post that a PPC audit helps to identify areas of wasted spend. 

5. Discover New Revenue Opportunities 

The result obtained from auditing the PPC campaign helps to track down the areas that show a huge scope of earning more revenues. 

When an audit of a PPC campaign is done on a regular or quarterly basis, it will not only maximize the performance of the PPC advertising strategy but ensure more ROI. 

PPC Audit: How to do It? 

Wondering how to do a PPC audit? 

Generally, PPC audits are an in-depth process and fall under two categories. They are: 

• Tool-based PPC Audit 

• Comprehensive PPC Audit 

Let’s investigate these two categories. 

1. Tool-based PPC Audits 

A tool based PPC audit can be carried out by in-house professionals or with the help of any PPC agency. 

For this audit process, software-based auditing tools are used along with some human analysis. This type of audit is common with agencies that provide PPC management services. 

The agencies will audit the PPC campaign and offer feedback on the same. Suggestions are offered by the professionals that should be implemented for the campaign.  

The success of the audits relies on the audit team you are hiring or outsourcing. Hence, it’s best to work with a company that understands your business goals and offers audits accordingly.  

2. Comprehensive PPC Audits

It’s a perfect answer for how to do a PPC audit. Usually, experienced professionals or consultants carry out comprehensive PPC audits.  

They offer a completely fresh perspective on the PPC ad accounts. Their process starts with interviewing clients to understand their goals and eventually dives deep into strategies that will bring traffic to the ads. 

Comprehensive audits cover every major advertising platform and network. They are: 

• Google Ads 
• Facebook 
• Microsoft Advertising 
• Retargeting 
• Google Display & Video 360 
• Instagram 

Usually, PPC audits lay a huge focus on the Google Ads network, since Google dominates the search engine market. According to a study, Google holds around 92% of the search engine market globally. 

How to do a PPC Audit? An In-Depth View 

PPC audits are important for optimizing the Google AdWords and Bing Ads accounts. So, professionals of any PPC audit company suggest carrying out a PPC audit every six months or to ensure any new PPC ad account is optimized for performing its best. 

Wondering how to do a PPC campaign? 

It’s simple! We’ll walk you through each step.  

Step 1: Download Multiple Data Sources 

To carry out a PPC audit, data should be downloaded from Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and even from Analytics. Once the data gets downloaded on an Excel Spreadsheet, it’s important to absorb all data with attention. No judgment should be reached at this point. Rather, observations should be made. 

Step 2: Create Your Spreadsheet 

It’s always a good idea to create an Excel spreadsheet for each campaign audit and name them accordingly. 

Step 3: Check Your Account Structure 

3.1. Reflect Business Goals 

Your PPC Account structure should reflect some parts of your business or website. The campaign names should be carefully reviewed to see if it makes sense or not. 

It’s the best part of the PPC audit. Why? Campaigns are usually set to target both search and display traffic by default. But this shouldn’t be the case. It might bring you traffic, but it might not be of high quality.  

Rather, separate campaigns should be created for display and search. So, the account structure should be set properly. 

3.2. Language: Try to Target Properly 

The language targeting should be done correctly. In case you plan to target an English-speaking audience, the language should be set for English speakers.  

Step 4: Analyze and Structure Ad Groups 

4.1. Analyze the Ads 

The ad groups need to be structured differently. Why? As the keywords behave in different ways across different networks. 

Also, the ad groups allow organizing target keywords in a manner to attract clicks from the right target audience. Without correct keyword targeting, reaching out to the audience becomes hard. 

However, one shouldn’t use keywords only for targeting the audience. Understanding the intent of the end user and what the end user is trying to accomplish when they search for your keyword is very important. 

Theme Ad Groups: The ad groups must be tightly themed and should be based on the chosen keywords. As a part of the audit process, it’s important to analyze the ad groups. Each group shouldn’t contain more than 20 keywords. Also, it shouldn’t be too wide-reaching. 

Step 5: Analyze Your Budget 

The budget assigned for the PPC audit should be used wisely. If a campaign is running on a limited budget, it should be changed. The ad schedule can be optimized. Similarly, smaller areas can be targeted, bids can be lowered, keyword match type can be changed to exact phrase match, and more.  

In case you still have issues with a limited budget, it’s better to hire PPC specialists. They can suggest some great ways to improvise the campaign within the assigned budget. 

5.1. Look into Bid Strategy 

The bid strategies should reflect the campaign goals. Automatic CPC or manual CPC can be used for focusing on clicks. Manual CPM can be used to focus on impressions. On the other hand, CPA bidding will help to focus on conversions. 

Step 6: Audit Campaigns – Things to Check 

6.1. Check the Campaign Theme and Campaign Setting 

The campaign should have a proper theme. This will ensure an effective campaign. Brand keywords should be used for separate campaigns. If the campaign is not using the majority of your budget, make sure to adjust them accordingly.  

It’s easy to ignore the campaign settings during the audit, but every setting must be checked to ensure it’s properly optimized. 

6.2. Review Device Targeting 

Make sure to target the devices that you plan to. Get mobile ads created specifically for mobile devices. The ads should be optimized for every kind of device. 

Step 7: Check Network Settings 

It’s important to check the networks on which the campaign will be appearing. Check the campaigns to ensure that they are either running on the display network or the search network. It shouldn’t run on both networks conjointly. 

Step 8: Check Location Settings 

Setting the right location is crucial for the PPC audit. 

Step 9: Check Ad Scheduling & Delivery 

The ad schedule should be done correctly for the campaigns. The ads should show up during the prime conversion time.  

9.1. Proper Delivery Method 

The Ad delivery method should be as per the recommended standard delivery method. This will ensure that the budget gets spread across the day unless there is a need for speedy delivery. 

Step 10: Ensure Ad Rotation 

During the PPC audit, you must ensure that the ad rotation settings reflect the PPC goals perfectly. One can choose from – optimize for clicks, rotate evenly, optimize for conversions, or rotate indefinitely. 

Step 11: Manage Ads & Ad Extensions 

The content and the appearance of the ads have a major role to play in making a person click the ads. So, if the ads are not tested or tweaked, the money invested will go to waste. 

For this reason, it’s important to perform an A/B test of the PPC ads. This calls for testing Version A against Version B. For each test, just tweak any one element to check if the results are conclusive or not. 

Even if you have an incredible ad copy, testing is very important. After the testing, one will be able to come up with a perfect ad that will work best in terms of CTAs, appearance, and words. 

Ad extensions are becoming a part of the PPC campaigns. Ads could make use of various types of extensions, such as Site Links to Location Extensions, Call Extension to Social Extension, and more. 

Step 12: Test the Landing Pages 

Landing pages can make or break any sales process. You won’t want the latter to happen to your business. So, audit the landing pages to consider if they are driving sales or not. If they are not helping with the sales, you should update them. 

The following elements should be included in the landing pages. They are: 

• Product picture that was on the ad 
• Information about the product 
• Product care instructions 
• Price of the product 
• Review of the product from customers 
• Different product sizes 

Based on the product or service a business might be offering, all these elements might not be applicable. However, it’s a basic outline for auditing the landing pages. 

Step 13: Evaluating PPC Ads 

The PPC audit allows the evaluation of the following elements: 

• Message: Make sure the message is correct. The PPC ad should contain a CTA, a unique value proposition, important keywords, and more. It should be checked to see if they are optimized or not. 
• Display URL: This is the URL that shows up in the SERPs. Keep in mind that the display URL might be different from the destination URL. In case the landing page URL is a bit long with tracking data and UTM tags, it can be trimmed down. 
• Final URL: This is the landing page for your ad. This link should be focused on the offer; there should be maximum consistency between the ad and the landing page for a quality score. 
• Number of Ads: Around 50 text ads can be used within each ad group. 
• Ad Rank: Make sure you have a decent ad rank for each keyword and ad group. This can be checked by using the average position column in Bing Ads or AdWords. For improving the ad rank, the quality score must be improved. The score can be improved by making the ad relevant and optimizing the landing pages. Increasing the Cost-Per-Click (CPC) bid can also increase the ad rank. 
• Disapproved Ads: Look out for disapproved ads and try to fix them. 
• Spelling and Grammar: Check out the spelling and grammar of the headlines, descriptions, display, and final URLs. Also, the spelling and grammar of the keywords and campaigns should be correct. 

Step 14: Display Network and Remarketing 

• Automatic Placements: Poorly performing automatic placements should be changed and should be manually managed. 
• Placements: If the ads appear in poor-performing places, then the places should be excluded. 
• Banner Size: Make sure to have different banner sizes to ensure the ads appear in different placements. 
• Cookie Codes: The cookie codes should be properly implemented. 

If remarketing hasn’t been implemented into the PPC strategy, it should be done right away. Remarketing will help to get an idea of past visitors who didn’t convert. The shared library section of the PPC account can give an overview of the audiences meant for remarketing. 

Step 15: Check Google Analytics Linking & Multi-Channel Funnels 

Each Google AdWords must be linked to a Google Analytics account. Why? During the PPC audit, make sure the account is properly linked and the Google Analytics tracking code has been properly enforced. 

Additionally, the AdWords audit can also analyze the Analytics multi-channel funnels to get some understanding of paid search customer journey. 

Step 16: Create an Action Plan 

Once all these steps are completed, it’s important to compile a complete PPC audit report. It should accompany an action plan. The report will contain a list of action items of the PPC campaigns that need supreme or mild attention. The priority level for each of the action items must be provided. 

Remember, the goal of an audit is to carry out a scrutiny of the PPC account and list down the items that must be improved for the campaign to perform well. 

Running a PPC Audit: Things to Keep in Mind 

There are some important reminders regarding a PPC audit. They are mentioned below: 

1. Pick a Date Range 

The first step before starting an audit for a PPC campaign is to assign a date range. Make sure you have enough data for analysis.  

Don’t just stick to a small set of data spanning over 30 days. The 30-day timeframe isn’t enough to analyze or track the changes that are coming into effect.  

So, using a wider set of data is advisable. Why? It can accurately measure the results over time. 

It’s best to look at three months’ data. With the vast data, it’s easy to see if the strategies are working or not. When you have more data, it helps to get a look into the bigger scope of the campaign. 

2. Download the Data 

When analyzing a large set of data, it’s best to download it. The data can be easily exported into an Excel sheet by switching to the Google Ad account. 

Here one will get the option to export all PPC account data or data from certain campaigns. Similarly, one will get the option of set custom exports. 

For those who are running Bing Ads, the data for the running ads can be downloaded, especially if the same ads are being run on both ad platforms. Hence, offering an opportunity to improve the PPC efforts. 

3. Budget Documentation 

Follow any PPC audit guides on how to do a PPC audit and you will get to see that documenting the budget is mandatory. Documentation will help to keep track of the amount of money spent on each campaign. The record helps to see the amount invested for generating the desired result from the campaign. 

Also, recording the Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and the number of clicks an ad gets from the assigned budget will help you to set up the audit process. 

4. Google Analytics Linking 

Check if the PPC account has been linked to Google Analytics. It will help you to analyze the activity of the customers visiting the site after clicking the ad or impression. To do this job, you can simply follow guides on linking Google Analytics to Google Ads. 

5. IP Exclusions 

When performing a PPC audit, you will need to check if the PPC account excludes the internal IP addresses. Excluding certain IP addresses of an organization would avert costly clicks and even unwanted impressions from obscure data. 

To check IP exclusions, one will need to follow these steps: 

• Head to the account that is being audited in the Google Ads Interface 

• Click on ‘Settings’. You will find this on the left-hand side of the navigation menu 
• Next, click on the campaign for which you want to exclude the IP address 
• Once done, click on ‘Additional Settings’ and then ‘IP Exclusions’ 
• Follow these steps and the respective IP address will be excluded from the campaign 
• Check the Ad Content 

It is one of the non-metric elements of a PPC campaign that needs to be monitored. While analyzing the PPC campaign, keeping an eye on the ad content is crucial.   

The response of the audience for the PPC ad will depend on the ad content strategy. For this, one should check if the ad is being tailored for a specific group of people.  

Or better said, the ad should be meant for the target audience for whom the campaign is being run. If there is no target audience, the target group must be set up. Only then will the campaign offer good results. 

Once the target audience is decided, it’s important to check if the ad content is answering the important questions like, “what will I get from the ad?” When the ad lists the benefits offered by such products or services, the target audience will consider clicking on the ads. 

Also, there should be a clear CTA button on the ad. CTAs are invaluable for any PPC ad campaign. It helps to drive leads and generate conversions. So, an effective CTA should be present on the ad copy. 

6. Keywords 

While evaluating the PPC ad, make sure the keywords are merged on the page. To boost the ad applicability, check if the keywords hold any relevancy with the ad text. 

Only a few aspects of the PPC campaign should be analyzed. So, for an effective PPC ad, make sure to come up with an effective ad copy. 

7. Check Quality Score 

An important aspect of any PPC campaign is the quality score. Depending on the quality score and maximum bids, the placement of the ad can be decided. 

To improve the ad’s placement, it’s important to work on improving the quality score. The quality score relies on certain factors, such as CTR and ad relevancy. So, it’s important to ensure that the ad is highly relevant to people’s search query terms. When an ad seems to be relevant, the chance of getting more clicks increases. 

During a PPC audit, a great deal of attention must be given to the quality score. If you have a low-quality score, try to improve it. When the score improves, the overall performance of the ad also improves. 

8. Analyze the CTR and Conversion Rate  

Having a high CTR (Click-Through-Rate) isn’t enough. A high CTR with a low conversion rate indicates that the information displayed in the search results is highly relevant. But as soon as they click on the search results, the landing page might not seem relevant. 

The ultimate goal of any PPC campaign is to have a high CTR and also a high conversion rate. This signifies that the ad is very appropriate for the users and hence they are converting.  

By monitoring these two metrics jointly, one will easily locate the issues that the PPC campaign is having. 

9. Reviewing the Bids 

While running a PPC campaign, it’s crucial to keep a tab on the bid amounts. Monitoring the number closely will help to check the amount being used for obtaining the leads for the business house. There should be some room for the business houses to earn some profit. 

10. Location Analysis 

Location targeting is a crucial tool for any PPC audit process. While running PPC ads, the ads might appear in the search results across different cities or states. This is very true for businesses that have a strong online presence and usually sell their products nationwide. 

With location analysis, one gets to see the places where the ads are doing best. Google Ads allows PPC professionals and even business owners to see in which cities the ads are appearing and how they are appearing.  

It’s a great way to check where one will get more traffic. Accordingly, the ad spending can be increased. For instance, if cities X, Y, and Z drive more traffic than other cities, then more funds can be allotted for the ads appearing in X, Y, and Z cities. After all, it will help the business to get more ROI. 

11. Compilation of Wasted Spend 

When business houses plan to invest their money in digital marketing strategies, such as a PPC campaign, they don’t want their money to get wasted. It’s important to ensure that the strategy that is going to be implemented will be worth the money. 

So, if the ad campaign isn’t optimized properly, there is a high risk of wasted spending. In simple terms, a wasted spend is the amount of money that one is losing from the Google Ad campaign. To run an ad campaign smoothly, tools like WordStream Advisor or Adstage can be used. 

They highlight the various elements of the campaign that you are missing out on but could help you in conversion. Hence, avoiding such wasted spending is very important. 

These are some pointers that must be investigated while performing a PPC audit for the ad campaigns. 

PPC Account Audit: Platform Accessibility 

Conducting a PPC account audit for an existing or new client can help you to maximize efficiency for their PPC account. However, before performing the PPC audit, ensure you have access to all important platforms. They are: 

• Google Analytics: This platform helps you to check whether your client’s Google Analytics has been linked to their Google Ads account and if the conversion goals have been rightly set. 
• Google Ads ID Number: You should have your client’s Google Ads ID number. It will allow you to sync their accounts with the MCC (My Client Centre) manager’s account. The MCC account is an online advertising manager that saves time regarding reporting, consolidated billing, and access control. 
• Conversion Tracking: You need to have a list of conversion actions. Without knowing what conversions, a client might want to track, audit professionals would be carrying out an audit in a blindfolded manner. Hence, conversion tracking tools like Any Track or Supermetrics are helpful. 

PPC Audit Checklist: A Complete Overview 

Getting started with Google Ads might seem to be an easy task. However, attaining success is not a cakewalk. PPC Ads call for a proactive attitude and a lot of effort. Only then will they yield good results. 

It’s very common to feel lost when setting up a PPC campaign. However, we will walk you through each step of the PPC audit checklist.  

Creating a successful and profitable paid campaign will be easy with the PPC account audit checklist.  

1. Keyword Research 

• Use Keyword Magic Tool to find keywords with the right intent, low competition, and high volume. 
• Keywords with high competition are good if you have a high budget. 
• Check questions used by the target audience to get ideas for potential keywords. 
• Go for bidding on branded keywords.  
• If budget permits, bid for branded keywords of your competitors. 

2. Competitor Research for Better Performing Ads 

• Use Advertising Research to see what keywords your competitors are ranking. 
• The Keyword Gap Tool can help to pinpoint unique opportunities. 
• Draw inspiration by checking out your competitors’ ad copy. 
• Find your unique selling point and the keywords related to it. 

Let’s look at some more pointers that are a trivial part of the PPC account audit checklist. 

3. Plan Keywords, Ad Group Ideas, and Landing Pages 

• Use PPC Keyword Tool to organize keyword lists into ad groups. 
• Develop a list of negative keywords. 
• Place top-performing keywords under the single-keyword ad groups. 
• Audit the campaign’s landing pages to find any possible issues.  

4. Create Ad Texts and Extensions 

• Analyze the ads from various domains that bid on the targeted keywords. 
• Carry out dynamic keyword insertion with the headlines. 
• Make use of the automation tools for promptly pausing the ads that aren’t doing well. 

The PPC account audit checklist must be kept handy in case you are doing the audit for the first time. 

Responses to PPC Audit Checklist 

For running a PPC campaign, it’s good to have a checklist. The reason is simple. The PPC audit checklist offers the following benefits: 

• Comprehensive Benefits: Sans a checklist, one might face more issues while auditing a PPC ad account. The checklist helps to ensure that all relevant boxes are ticked. 
• Productive Benefits: When you don’t have a checklist for your PPC campaign, you will need to invest a lot of your time and effort. At each step, you will need to decide on the next step. But when you have the checklist, you are aware of the steps. 
• Communicable Benefits: A checklist aids in rigorously delegating and defining the work. 

Now that you are aware of the benefits, it’s time to investigate the ways to use the checklist. 

The PPC audit checklist is easy to use. For every item on the list, three types of responses are present. They are: 

• Pass: This means you don’t have any concerns. 
• OK: It signifies the issues aren’t much relevant or of great concern. 
• Fail: It means something is wrong. 

One can choose the relevant response based on the audit result.  

PPC Campaign: Important Elements for PPC Audit  

With professionals by your side, you don’t need to worry about running the ad campaign and carrying out the audit process.  

1. Determining the Goal is Crucial for the Audit 

First and foremost, it’s important to determine the PPC advertising goals.  

Some of the common goals for any business are: 

• Building brand awareness 
• Increase web traffic 
• Remarket to an existing audience 
• Generate new leads 
• Increase conversions  

Depending on the marketing goals, the campaigns are set up. And accordingly, the success of the campaigns is measured.  

In short, advertisement goals are important for calculating the success of the campaigns you are running. At the same time, PPC professionals can check the types of campaigns they are running or the ad copies they are using, and more. 

2. Creating a Campaign is Important for a PPC Audit 

The PPC audit is done for any ad campaign.  

Campaign creation is simple. 

Google offers a guided ad creation experience, but it seems to be a bit inefficient.  

The best way out is to use the Expert Mode. To switch to this mode, all you need to do is to select the main advertising goals and click on “Switch to Expert Mode”. 

Once done, you can pick the campaign goal. But you can create a goal without goal guidance. But choosing a goal lets Google biasedly show the paid search ads to visitors, especially when there is a high chance for them to convert. Thus, helping businesses to achieve their goals.  

Google might not be right always. Hence, it’s better to pick a goalless campaign for better targeting and closely monitor the conversion. 

3. Pick a Campaign Type 

An important part of how to do a PPC audit process is to pick a campaign type. Some of the campaign types are: 

• Search Network: It’s the text ads on Google SERPs and related Google apps. 
• Display Network: Image-centric ads on Google’s immense publisher network. 
• Video Ads: It’s ads that make use of video which usually appear on YouTube.  
• App: They are the ads that focus on app downloads through Google Play and are displayed through many channels. 
• Shopping: Ads in Google Shopping for eCommerce businesses. 
• Smart: This is an automated campaign that lets Google have more control over optimization. 
• Local: This ad is meant to promote in-person, storefronts, and physical locations. 
• Performance Max: This was recently introduced by Google. It’s a goal-based campaign. This ad gets automatically displayed as any one of the aforementioned ad types to find highly targeted audiences using machine learning. 

4. Configure Targeting Options 

A rule of thumb for a PPC audit is to make the target audience focus on your business goal. In other words, the more specific you are about the target settings, the chance of Google representing the ads to the relevant audience in a better way is even more. 

For instance, location targeting can be focused on targeted locations. Similarly, people not belonging to that location can be excluded. Or language targeting can be used in case the audience is bilingual. 

Not to forget keyword targeting. It is very crucial for search campaigns. It allows you to center the target audience around those people who are searching for your key phrase. 

Finally, audience targeting shouldn’t be overlooked. This is an advanced option that allows connecting Google Analytics to Google Ads and running the ads by targeting those people who have visited the site before.  

If you want to know more about targeting options, you can connect with the experts or simply hire them to perform a PPC audit of the ad campaigns. 

5. Choose Keywords & Configure Ad Groups 

The crux of any Google Ad is the emphasis on keywords and copy. Prior and ongoing research is fundamental. 

Generally, you will need: 

• A focus keyword as the main search term for the campaign 
• A set of focused keywords for individual ads 
• Groups of long-tail keywords for individual ad groups 
• Exclude negative keywords 

Before you search for how to do a PPC audit, make sure you have this keyword list with you. 

Over time, the keyword list might change, but it’s better to get started with the legwork. 

6. Run the Ads, Monitor Results, and Optimize 

Once all the ads have been created and put together, it’s time to make the ads live.  

Usually, Google reviews the ad and will either approve or deny it within a day. However, the first ad of the campaign might take some time. 

Run your ads for some time, somewhere between weeks to months. 

It might be a bit tempting to watch the performance of the ads and modify the campaigns that are not doing well. However, you will need enough data to decide the ad’s performance. 

For this, you must be ready to invest enough time and money to gather the metrics. Once the data is collected, you can start to audit the ads. The audit will offer an idea about which ads are working and which aren’t working. 

Based on the PPC audit result, you can tweak the target settings, ad copy, and even keywords to check out the variations. Eventually, you can optimize the ads. 

PPC is an ongoing marketing strategy. Hence, it should be monitored regularly to ensure that the ads are working great and are at their peak. For this reason, one needs to carry out a PPC audit every 6 months. 

Benefits of a PPC Audit 

A PPC audit is essential for ensuring the success of the PPC campaign. If the audit is done properly, it offers the following benefits. 

1. Increased Conversions 

This is something that businesses truly want from a PPC audit. Proper auditing efforts will offer a good CTR which will eventually bring about more conversions. 

2. Increased ROI 

When businesses witness a lot of conversions, it will help them with an increased profit or ROI. 

3. Revised Strategies 

The PPC audit process can identify the loopholes in the present marketing strategies. Accordingly, revised strategies can be made for the benefit of the business. 

4. Cut Down Wasteful Spending 

You can know if a particular campaign is generating results or not. If it’s not generating profit, then there is no need to invest in that ad. Thus, the audits help businesses avert such wasteful spending. 

5. Effective Strategy 

Businesses always look forward to effective PPC campaigns. PPC audits help to check the effectiveness of a campaign. Also, they point out areas of improvement and opportunities. 

Tools Used for the PPC Audit  

Unlike SEO, PPC Audit tools are vast. However, some tools help to identify the key problem areas of any campaign. 

Let’s look at it. 

1. Google Ads Performance Grader 

This tool scans the Google Ads account and analyzes certain metrics, such as impression share, CTR, quality score, negative keywords, long-tail keyword optimization, account activity, and more. 

2. Adalysis Performance Analyzer  

Adalysis Performance Analyzer offers a quick sneak-peak into the PPC account. This tool analyzes how and when new ads are added in addition to the CTR, CPA, conversion rate, conversion value cost, and conversion value impression. 

How Often Should You Run a PPC Audit? 

Once you know how to do a PPC audit, the next thing to cross your mind is the frequency of such audits. 

There is no hard and fast rule for running a PPC audit. It will greatly depend on the type of campaign you’re running. Although there is no definite time for auditing the PPC account, it should be done quarterly.  

A quarterly analysis of any PPC account will help to chalk down activities for the next quarter. This will not only maintain the account, but also allow it to grow. The audit will not only identify how the account is performing, but also show if it’s having better engagement. 

Even though the job of auditing might seem a bit easy, hiring a PPC audit agency is advisable. An in-depth analysis of the account will not only strengthen the account but will also reveal if the budget is aligned with the overall campaign goals. 

However, one shouldn’t run an audit immediately after launching a strategy. It’s because there won’t be enough data. There will be room for some improvement. So, it’s better to carry out a PPC account audit every quarter. 

Why Hire Professionals for PPC Audits? 

Sometimes the PPC campaigns might fail to give you the desired results. At this point, you might consider conducting an audit for the campaigns by yourself. If you’re not seeing any results, you might consider hiring some PPC experts or any PPC audit company. 

When you hire any professional PPC audit company, you will be able to enjoy certain benefits. They are: 

1. Assist Your Brand to Remain on Target 

When you hire professionals to conduct a PPC audit of the ad campaigns, the target settings can be reviewed. They will ensure that the settings make sense. After the audit, the professionals can offer insight into the areas that need attention or that should be worked upon.   

2. Prevent Waste of Resources 

If you are investing in an ad campaign, but it’s not showing you any results, then it’s better to hire a professional for the job. The PPC experts have vast experience in this field of running PPC campaigns. Hence, they will ensure that businesses don’t lose their money or waste it on ads that aren’t performing well. With their help, businesses can easily avoid any waste of resources. 

3. Saves Time 

Hiring professionals for the PPC audit will save valuable time for the business houses. PPC account audits take a lot of time and effort. So, when professionals perform the job of auditing, business houses can use that time to focus on other aspects.  

Also, it doesn’t make any sense to waste time if employees don’t have any idea about the audits. The campaign will go in vain. Plus, a lot of time will get lost. However, the scenario changes when professionals take up the job. 

4. Campaign Refinement 

When you hire professionals for the audit, you can expect more refined campaigns. In other words, they will be more tuned for the target location and audience.  

This seems to be hard if one takes the job of strategic planning without knowing about the goals. With professionals by your side, tuning the right message for the target audience will be easy. 

Final Thoughts 

Pay-Per-Click advertising offers a bouquet of new opportunities for businesses. It can help business houses to become recognizable brands that people can trust. A successful PPC campaign helps businesses generate profit faster and ensure they are getting the most out of the bucks they have invested. 

Sounds interesting? Perform a PPC audit for your campaign today! 

Just call the professionals at eWay Corp for a complete PPC auditing service.