Conducting a frequent audit for a customer is essential to ensure you’re getting the most out of their ad accounts, but it’s not easy is why a PPC audit is your solution. It assesses a PPC campaign to identify how it can be improved to yield a higher return on investment.
Why a PPC Audit Is Essential
Before diving into the checklist, let’s understand why a PPC audit is crucial for the success of your campaigns:
- Identify Wasted Ad Spend: A PPC audit reveals underperforming keywords, irrelevant audiences, and high-cost placements that might drain your budget.
- Enhance Campaign Performance: By analyzing campaign components, you can improve ad copy, targeting, and bidding strategies.
- Increase Conversion Rates: Optimizing ad content and targeting can lead to better engagement and higher conversion rates, giving you a greater return on ad spend (ROAS).
- Align Campaign Goals with Business Objectives: Auditing ensures your campaigns support your business goals, whether it’s generating leads, boosting sales, or increasing brand awareness.
With these benefits in mind, let’s move into the actionable steps of a PPC audit to enhance your campaign performance.
PPC Audit Checklist
1. Review Campaign Goals and Objectives
Start by ensuring that each campaign aligns with specific business goals. Whether it’s to generate leads, drive sales, or increase website traffic, having clear objectives will guide your optimization efforts.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Review the purpose of each campaign.
- Check if the goals match your overall business objectives.
- Set clear KPIs such as conversions, CTR (click-through rate), or ROAS to measure success.
2. Evaluate Account Structure
A well-structured PPC account allows for better control and organization, ensuring each ad group and campaign is designed for a specific audience segment.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Assess the organization of campaigns and ad groups based on keywords, products, or services.
- Ensure a clear naming convention is in place for easy tracking.
- Verify that campaigns are segmented by goals, location, and audience type for targeted reach.
3. Audit Keyword Performance
Keywords are the backbone of any PPC campaign. Identifying high-performing keywords and eliminating non-performers is essential to maximize ROI.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Identify High-Performing Keywords: Focus on keywords with high conversion rates and strong CTR.
- Pause Low-Performing Keywords: Pause or remove keywords that consistently drain the budget without yielding results.
- Optimize Negative Keywords: Use negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic and improve targeting.
4. Analyze Ad Copy and Creative
Your ad copy needs to be compelling, relevant, and optimized for conversions. Regularly auditing your ad copy can reveal areas for improvement and increase engagement.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Review Ad Relevance: Ensure the ad text aligns with targeted keywords and audience intent.
- Test Multiple Ad Variants: Run A/B tests with different headlines, descriptions, and calls-to-action (CTAs) to find what resonates with your audience.
- Optimize Display Ads: For display ads, ensure images are high-quality and reflect your brand.
5. Optimize Landing Pages
Landing pages are where conversions happen, so they need to be optimized for user experience, relevance, and load speed.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Ensure Relevance: Match the landing page content with ad text to ensure a seamless user experience.
- Improve Page Load Speed: Slow-loading pages result in high bounce rates. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to assess and improve load times.
- Optimize for Mobile: Ensure your landing pages are mobile-friendly as mobile traffic continues to grow.
6. Assess Bid Strategy
Choosing the right bid strategy can significantly impact the cost-effectiveness of your PPC campaigns.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Evaluate Automated Bidding: Determine if automated bidding strategies, like Target CPA or Target ROAS, align with your goals.
- Adjust Manual Bids: If using manual bidding, monitor and adjust bids based on performance data.
- Monitor Competition: Keep an eye on competitor bids for high-value keywords.
7. Review Audience Targeting
Effective targeting ensures that your ads reach the most relevant audience, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Refine Demographics: Check that you’re targeting the right age, gender, and location for each campaign.
- Use Audience Insights: Utilize data from Google Analytics to create custom audiences based on user behavior.
- Test Remarketing: Implement remarketing strategies to reach users who previously interacted with your site but didn’t convert.
8. Analyze Device Performance
Users interact with ads differently across devices. Reviewing device-specific performance allows you to allocate budgets more effectively.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Evaluate Performance by Device: Analyze the conversion rates, CTR, and CPA across desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.
- Adjust Bids by Device: Increase or decrease bids based on device performance. For example, if mobile conversions are high, consider raising mobile bids.
- Check Ad Display on Devices: Ensure that ads display correctly on all devices to avoid a poor user experience.
9. Monitor Ad Scheduling
If your business experiences peak engagement times, scheduling your ads accordingly can improve efficiency and ROI.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Analyze Conversion Patterns: Review performance data to identify days and times with high conversion rates.
- Adjust Ad Scheduling: Use ad scheduling to increase bids or display ads during peak times.
- Experiment with Dayparting: Experiment with showing ads only during specific hours to control ad spending and focus on high-conversion periods.
10. Verify Conversion Tracking
Without accurate conversion tracking, you won’t know if your PPC campaigns are truly driving results. Proper tracking also provides insights into which keywords, ads, and landing pages are effective.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Set Up Conversion Tracking: Ensure tracking is set up correctly within Google Ads and Google Analytics.
- Monitor Conversion Data: Regularly check that conversions are being recorded accurately and make adjustments as necessary.
- Use Attribution Models: Experiment with different attribution models to understand which touchpoints contribute to conversions.
11. Analyze Quality Score
Quality Score is a Google metric that affects ad rank and CPC (cost per click). Maintaining a high-quality Score can improve your ad’s visibility and reduce ad costs.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Evaluate Quality Score Components: Review your Quality Score for each keyword, focusing on relevance, CTR, and landing page experience.
- Optimize Underperforming Ads: Make necessary adjustments to improve relevance and CTR for low-scoring keywords.
- Monitor Score Changes: Regularly monitor Quality Score to track improvements and areas needing adjustment.
12. Implement Budget Adjustments
Regularly reviewing and adjusting budgets can help you allocate resources more effectively, reduce wastage, and ensure high-performing campaigns receive enough funding.
Checklist Action Steps:
- Allocate More to High-Converting Campaigns: Shift budgets from low-performing campaigns to those with high conversion rates.
- Monitor Spend Limits: Keep an eye on daily spending limits and adjust as needed to avoid budget depletion mid-campaign.
- Control Budget by Geography: Adjust budgets based on location performance, increasing investment in high-conversion areas.
Conclusion
A PPC audit is a valuable practice for any business looking to enhance ad performance, reduce wasted ad spend, and drive conversions. This checklist provides a step-by-step approach to analyzing and optimizing each element of your PPC campaign, ensuring that every dollar spent contributes to your goals.
