Pay-per-click accounts rarely break in one dramatic moment. A conversion
action gets duplicated during a site migration, someone accepts a
recommendation that adds broad match keywords, a Search campaign starts
spending on the Display Network, and months later the cost per lead has
crept up with no obvious cause. Each change made sense to someone at the
time, and none of them shows up on the Overview page.
A PPC audit is how you find those changes before they compound. This
guide covers the order to run one in, the Google Ads settings worth
checking first, what differs on Microsoft Ads, Meta, and LinkedIn, a
copyable checklist, and a way to run it with an AI agent without letting
it touch a budget before you trust its numbers.
What Is a PPC Audit?
**A PPC audit is a structured review of a pay-per-click advertising
account (conversion tracking, settings, structure, keywords, bids, ads,
and landing pages) to find wasted spend and missed revenue, then decide
what to fix first.** It applies to paid search (search engine marketing)
on Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, where some teams call it a paid search
audit, and to paid social on Meta and LinkedIn.
If you landed here from an accounting search, "PPC" is also the name
of a line of audit guides for accounting firms. This post is about ad
accounts.
It differs from day-to-day optimization because it questions inputs: not
which keyword deserves a higher bid, but whether the conversions that
keyword gets credit for are real.
When to Run a PPC Audit (and How Often)
Run a full PPC audit whenever the person responsible for the account
changes: a new agency, a new in-house hire, or a founder handing over
the account. Export the change history first. Google Ads [keeps change
history for the past two
years](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/19888),
and anything older is gone, so a takeover is the moment to save the
record of who changed what.
Other triggers are easier to miss:
- Before peak season. Fixing tracking in November means bid
strategies learn on clean data in December.
- After an unexplained performance drop. Audit before you rebuild,
because rebuilding throws away the history that shows what went wrong.
- Before you scale budget. More money amplifies whatever is broken.
- After a platform-level change. Google changed how Target CPA and
Target ROAS behave on budget-limited campaigns starting 17 August
2026, the kind of change that makes last quarter's settings wrong
without anyone touching them.
- Before launching something new. A [preflight check on new
launches](https://syntermedia.ai/blog/campaign-preflight-checklist)
catches setup errors before they become audit findings.
On cadence, deep PPC audits twice a year plus a light monthly check
cover most accounts. The monthly check is short: tracking still firing,
no new auto-applied changes, budgets pacing to plan, and the newest
search terms. Small business owners running their own account get most
of the value from that monthly check, provided the first full audit was
thorough.
What to Gather Before You Start
PPC audits stall when you discover halfway through that you can't see
the CRM. Collect access first:
- Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, with at least the Read-only
access level, which can view campaigns and run performance reports
- Meta Ads Manager and LinkedIn Campaign Manager, if they run
- Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager
- The CRM where leads become pipeline and revenue
Pull the last 90 days plus the same 90 days a year earlier, so
seasonality doesn't masquerade as a problem. Note each account's
timezone and currency before comparing anything across platforms,
because mismatched date boundaries create discrepancies that look like
tracking bugs.
The Business Numbers That Define "Good"
Every finding in an audit is judged against the business goals behind
it, and if the target is wrong, the audit is wrong. Get these from
finance or the founder, not from the ad account:
Number Why the audit needs it
- ----------------------------------- -----------------------------------
Margin after variable costs Sets break-even ROAS and maximum
CPA
Average order value or average deal Converts conversion volume into
size revenue
Customer lifetime value Tells you how far above break-even
CPA you can bid
Lead-to-customer rate (B2B) Turns cost per lead into cost per
customer
Current target CPA and target ROAS What the bid strategies are
actually aiming at
The arithmetic matters more than any benchmark. Break-even ROAS is 1
divided by your margin after variable costs such as product cost,
shipping, and payment fees, so a business with a 40% margin breaks even
at 2.5 (a 250% return on ad spend), and anything below that loses money
on the first purchase. A target ROAS of 4 might be conservative for that
business or impossible for a business on 15% margins. Write the numbers
at the top of your audit document so every later recommendation can be
checked against them.
The PPC Audit Checklist: 12 Checks in Order of Impact
In a PPC audit checklist, the order is the point. Measurement comes
first because bidding, keyword decisions, and budget calls all read
conversion data, and a finding built on broken conversions is one
you'll reverse next month. Controls (settings, structure, budget, and
bidding) come next because they decide where money can go. Traffic and
message (keywords, search terms, ads, Quality Score, and landing pages)
follow, and audiences and automated campaign types come last because
they depend on everything above them. When you finish, log the changes
and start the loop again at the next audit.

1. Conversion Tracking and Attribution
List every conversion action in the account. In Google Ads, [primary
actions](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/11461796)
are reported in the Conversions column and used for bidding when their
goal is one the campaign bids on, while secondary actions are
observation-only and report in All conversions. The classic red flag is
a newsletter signup marked primary next to a demo request: Maximize
conversions or Target CPA counts each as one conversion, and value-based
bidding only tells them apart if you've given them different values.
Check custom goals too, because actions in a custom goal are used for
bidding whether they're marked primary or secondary.
Then check counting. "Every" counts every conversion after an ad
interaction, and "One" counts one per click, and Google suggests One
when you care whether a lead happened rather than how many. A lead-gen
account set to Every reports a prospect who submits the form three times
as three leads.
The rest of the measurement layer:
- Enhanced conversions. Confirm they're on. They use hashed
first-party data such as email addresses to improve measurement
accuracy.
- Offline and CRM conversions. For B2B, the conversion that matters
happens in the CRM. Google now [recommends enhanced conversions for
leads](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2998031)
over legacy offline conversion import, with Data Manager as the
fastest setup path.
- Consent mode. Basic mode blocks tags until a visitor interacts
with the consent banner, while advanced mode loads tags with consent
defaulted to denied. Know which one is live before you trust a
conversion drop.
- Attribution model. Google Ads now offers only data-driven and last
click; [first click, linear, time decay and position-based were
retired](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6259715)
and upgraded to data-driven.
Finally, reconcile one week of conversions across Google Ads, GA4, and
the CRM. They will never match exactly, but the gap should be
explainable. If the analytics side needs rebuilding, [check your GA4
conversion
setup](https://syntermedia.ai/blog/ga4-conversion-tracking-tutorial)
before touching the ad account.
2. Account and Campaign Settings
Settings are where Google's defaults and your intent drift apart. Three
to check on every Search campaign:
- Location option. The [default, and Google's recommended setting,
is "Presence or
Interest"](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722038),
which also reaches people who have shown interest in your target
locations; "Presence" limits ads to people in or regularly in them.
A local service business on the default can pay for clicks from people
researching the city from elsewhere.
- Search partners. Partners are included by default in new Search
campaigns and can be switched off in settings. Look at how partner
traffic has converted before deciding.
- Display Network box. Checking "Display Network" in a Search
campaign's Networks settings turns on [Display
Expansion](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7193800),
which spends unspent Search budget on the Display Network. If a Search
campaign shows cheap clicks and no conversions, check this box first.
Then open Recommendations and check auto-apply. It's controlled from
the top bar of the Recommendations page and [can cover
changes](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10279006)
such as adding broad match keywords, adjusting CPA and ROAS targets, and
adding audiences. Afterward, cross-check change history for edits nobody
on the team remembers making.
3. Account and Campaign Structure
Structure decides how much control you have. Split brand from non-brand
search into separate campaigns, because brand traffic converts at rates
that hide how non-brand is really doing when the two share a budget and
a bid target. Look for ad groups whose keywords span different intents
("pricing" next to "free template"), which force one set of ads and
one landing page to serve both.
Watch for the opposite problem too: accounts split by every match type
and city end up with dozens of ad groups holding too little data for
Smart Bidding, and consolidation is a legitimate finding.
4. Budget Allocation and Pacing
Filter campaigns by the "Limited by budget" status. Google uses it
when a campaign is underperforming because of its budget, or when a
Maximize Clicks campaign could get more traffic with more budget. A
limited campaign with the best CPA in the account is a reallocation
opportunity; a limited campaign with the worst is a budget you may want
to cut.
Shared budgets deserve a second look. They pool one average daily budget
across campaigns, and they don't work with Performance Max, so a shared
budget that once covered everything may now cover only part of the
spend. Then compare actual spend by platform against the monthly plan,
because budget allocation drifts quietly when nobody owns that
comparison.
5. Bidding Strategy and Targets
Check that each campaign's strategy matches its data. Smart Bidding
covers Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize conversions, and Maximize
conversion value, and Google [recommends judging
performance](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7065882)
over periods with at least 30 conversions, or 50 for Target ROAS. A
Target ROAS campaign with 12 conversions a month is one whose results
you can't evaluate yet.
Then check targets against the business numbers, with special attention
to budget-limited campaigns. Since 17 August 2026, budget-limited
campaigns on target-based strategies deliver closer to the stated
target, so one with a \$10 Target CPA that had been achieving \$5 now
drifts toward \$10, and Google [won't adjust the target for
you](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/17061251).
A target set years ago and never revisited is now an active instruction,
so review each one; Google added a Bid Target Adjustment Tool on 6 July
2026 to help with exactly this.
6. Keywords and Match Types
Google [defines broad
match](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7478529)
as showing ads on searches related to your keyword, phrase as searches
that include its meaning, and exact as searches with the same meaning or
intent. Its own guidance is that "It's critical to use Smart Bidding
with broad match." So the audit question is simple: is any broad match
keyword running on Manual CPC or Maximize Clicks? If so, it's matching
widely with nothing steering it toward conversions.
Also check whether [AI
Max](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/15910366)
is switched on. It's an opt-in suite for Search campaigns that adds
search term matching, text customization, and final URL expansion, so
the ad text and landing page a searcher sees may not be the ones you
wrote. That can be fine, but it should be a deliberate choice recorded
in your audit notes.
7. Search Terms and Negative Keywords
Keep this pass short and focused on spend. Sort the search terms report
by cost, filter to zero conversions, and read the top of the list.
Expect gaps: Google [omits low-volume
terms](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2472708)
from the report for privacy reasons, so you're reading a sample, and
Google's guidance is to add irrelevant terms as negative keywords.
Two quick structural checks: negatives that block your own converting
keywords, and brand terms leaking into non-brand campaigns. On large
accounts, reading thousands of rows is where a template or agent saves
real time; Synter's Search Terms Report template flags wasted queries
and recommends negatives by intent pattern for you to review.
8. Ads and Assets
For responsive search ads (RSAs), check that ad groups use the available
room: [up to 15
headlines](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7684791)
of 30 characters and 4 descriptions of 90. An RSA with five
near-identical headlines gives the system little to test, and pinning
every position removes most of what's left.
Then assets. [Sitelinks need at least
2](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375416) to
appear, and Google suggests at least 4 at account level. Check that
callouts and structured snippets exist and still match the current
offer, since an asset promoting last year's price contradicts the
landing page.
9. Quality Score Components
Quality Score is a 1 to 10 keyword-level diagnostic, and Google is
explicit that it's [not an input in the ad
auction](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6167118).
Use it as a pointer, not a target. Add the three component columns
(expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page
experience), each rated Above average, Average, or Below average, and
sort high-spend keywords by which component is below average.
That tells you where to work. Ad Rank itself draws on your bid, the
quality of your ads and landing page, auction competitiveness, the
context of the search, and the expected impact of assets, so a
below-average landing page experience on an expensive keyword is likely
costing you in every auction it enters.
10. Landing Pages
Check three things per high-spend landing page: it loads quickly on
mobile, its headline answers the query the ad was bought for, and the
form or checkout works. Broken destinations aren't just a conversion
problem, because pages returning errors such as 404 fall under Google's
[Destination not working
policy](https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/16428019).
Then check message match. Read the ad, then the landing page's first
screen, and ask whether a stranger would know they arrived in the right
place. If several ad groups send traffic to the homepage, building
dedicated landing pages around each intent is often the highest-impact
fix the audit produces.
11. Audiences and Remarketing
In Google Ads, remarketing lists now sit under "Your data segments",
and Google [recommends the Observation
setting](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7068417)
for them on Search, which doesn't restrict reach, rather than
Targeting, which does. The error to look for is a Search campaign set to
Targeting with a small list, starving itself of volume.
Check that customer lists are refreshed and that membership windows
match the sales cycle; a 30-day window on a 90-day buying cycle drops
prospects just before they're ready.
12. Performance Max and Automated Campaign Types
Performance Max serves across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail,
and Maps from one campaign, with asset groups of themed creative. As of
October 2026, four places show you what it's doing:
- Search terms report. Under Search terms, choose "Search terms and
landing pages for Performance Max", and [block
terms](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16327396)
you don't want.
- Brand exclusions. They stop ads on searches for your brand name,
misspellings, and subsidiaries, and in Performance Max [they apply to
Search and Shopping
ads](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16669487).
- Channel performance. Under Insights and reports, it breaks results
out by Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail, and Search
partners.
- Negative keywords. Performance Max accepts campaign-level negative
keywords and negative keyword lists, which [apply to Search and
Shopping
inventory](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16451273).
If Performance Max and a brand Search campaign both run without brand
exclusions, check whether Performance Max is claiming brand conversions
the Search campaign would have captured anyway. For asset group
structure and the rest of the setup, see this [Performance Max
guide](https://syntermedia.ai/blog/performance-max-ai-agent-guide).
The Copyable PPC Audit Checklist (Template)
Paste this into a sheet and add Owner and Status columns to turn it into
a working PPC audit template.
\# Check What to look at Red flag Fix
- -------------- -------------- ----------------- ------------------- ----------------
1 Conversion Primary vs Micro-conversions Demote to
tracking secondary marked primary; secondary; set
actions, lead actions One; enable
counting, counting every enhanced
enhanced conversions for
conversions, leads
consent mode, CRM
imports
2 Settings Location option, Presence or Switch to
search partners, Interest on a local Presence;
Display Network business; Display uncheck Display
box, auto-apply Expansion on Search Network; turn
off auto-apply
types you don't
want
3 Structure Brand vs Brand and non-brand Split brand into
non-brand, ad sharing a budget its own campaign
group intent
4 Budget Limited by Best-CPA campaign Reallocate from
budget, shared capped worst performers
budgets, spend vs
plan
5 Bidding Strategy vs Target ROAS on thin Revise targets
conversion data; stale targets from business
volume, targets numbers;
vs margin consolidate
6 Keywords Match type vs bid Broad match on Pair broad with
strategy, AI Max manual bidding Smart Bidding or
status tighten match
7 Search terms Top-spend Irrelevant queries Add negatives;
zero-conversion spending check for
terms conflicts
8 Ads and assets Headline count, Fewer than 4 Add assets;
pinning, sitelinks; every unpin all but
sitelinks, position pinned required text
callouts
9 Quality Score Component columns Below-average Fix page
on high-spend landing page relevance and
keywords experience speed
10 Landing pages Speed, message Ads sending to Build
match, broken homepage or 404s intent-matched
URLs pages; fix URLs
11 Audiences Observation vs Targeting on small Switch to
Targeting, list Search audience Observation
freshness
12 Performance Search terms, Brand queries Add brand
Max brand exclusions, inside PMax exclusions and
channel report negatives
Google Ads Audit: The Settings That Are Wrong Most Often
If you only have an hour for a Google Ads audit, this short Google Ads
audit checklist covers the settings that either default to on or change
the account without anyone logging in:
- Auto-apply recommendations. Look for broad match keywords,
target changes, or new audiences nobody remembers adding.
- Display Network checked on Search campaigns. Display Expansion
spends unspent Search budget on display inventory.
- Broad match without Smart Bidding. Google itself pairs the two.
- Secondary-worthy actions marked primary. Smart Bidding optimizes
toward the primary actions in each campaign's goals.
- Missing brand exclusions in Performance Max. Brand searches can
land inside PMax and inflate its results.
- Stale targets on budget-limited campaigns. Since the August 2026
change, delivery tracks the stated target more closely.
For the Google Ads audit report itself, lead with these six, then the
tracking reconciliation, then the full checklist. If you'd rather start
from a structured pass, Synter's [PPC health audit template for Google
Ads](https://syntermedia.ai/templates/audit/ppc-health-audit)
uses read-only access and covers spend, Quality Score, negative keyword
gaps, ad copy, bidding, and landing pages.
Auditing Beyond Google: Microsoft, Meta and LinkedIn
If the account spends outside Google, each platform has its own way of
drifting.
Microsoft Ads
Many Microsoft Ads accounts start as a Google import, so check that
first. With [scheduled
imports](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/advertising/msa-help/hlp_ba_conc_importschedulehistory)
enabled, bids, bid strategies, and campaign budgets can be updated to
match Google Ads, controlled by the Update bids, Update bid strategies,
and Update existing campaign budgets settings. If someone tuned
Microsoft bids by hand, the next import may have overwritten them.
Next, [ad
distribution](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/advertising/msa-help/hlp_ba_conc_aboutaddistributionhidden),
which is set per ad group: "The entire Microsoft Advertising Network"
(recommended, and including additional partner traffic) or "Microsoft
sites and select traffic". Microsoft's [auto-apply
recommendations](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/advertising/msa-help/hlp_ba_conc_autoapplyrec)
apply automatically after a 7-day review period unless you act, and can
add broad match keywords, Dynamic Search Ads, and multimedia ads. On
tracking, confirm UET sends Consent Mode if you have users in the EEA,
UK, or Switzerland, where [Microsoft enforces
it](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/advertising/msa-help/hlp_ba_conc_uet_consentfaq),
and check whether enhanced conversions are configured. Synter's free
Microsoft Ads audit connects through OAuth and reviews wasted spend,
keyword gaps, bids, Quality Score, ad copy, and account structure at no
cost.
Meta Ads
In Meta's [Advantage+
audience](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/25941857932125812),
most audience inputs are suggestions; controls such as location and
minimum age are what limit delivery, and custom audience exclusions
always act as controls. Audit whether the team believes a suggestion is
a restriction.
Check the Delivery column for fatigue: on ad sets with a single
creative, Meta shows "Creative limited" when cost per result is above
your past ads but under double, and ["Creative
fatigue"](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1346816142327858)
at double or more. On tracking, if you send events through both the Meta
Pixel and the Conversions API,
needs matching event names and event IDs, and only works when both
arrive within 48 hours of the first event. Mismatched IDs double-count
conversions, which inflates every number downstream.
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn's help now calls the unit you configure an "ad set". Each
[needs at least 300 member
accounts](https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a423690)
to run, and LinkedIn suggests 50,000 or more, rising to 300,000 for
Sponsored Content and Sponsored Messaging. [Audience
expansion](https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a418929)
is automatically enabled where it's available, so check whether a
carefully built account list is being widened without anyone deciding
to.
The LinkedIn Audience Network can extend single image, carousel,
document, and video ads to third-party apps and sites, with category
exclusions and block lists. Lead Gen Forms prefill contact and profile
information, so lead quality is the thing to audit: match form leads to
CRM outcomes before you judge cost per lead.
The same tracking-first order applies to Amazon Ads and other retail
media. Synter connects Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, and
other ad platforms through one connection, with read and write actions
that vary by platform and permissions, so a cross-platform audit becomes
one pass instead of a stack of exports.
Turning Audit Findings Into an Action Plan
A PPC audit with 60 findings and no order is a to-do list nobody
finishes. Score each finding on impact, confidence, and effort (ICE),
then sort. Tracking fixes jump the queue regardless of score, because
every later decision depends on them.
Finding Impact Confidence Effort Order
- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- --------------
Newsletter High High Low 1 (tracking)
signup marked
primary
Display Medium High Low 2
Expansion on
in two Search
campaigns
Brand Medium Medium Low 3
exclusions
missing in
PMax
Landing page High Medium High 4
rebuild for
top ad group
Illustrative example; your scores depend on your account.
Then pace the changes. Change one thing per campaign at a time, log each
change with the date and the reason, and give campaign performance time
to settle; after budget increases, Google suggests waiting 1 to 2
conversion cycles before evaluating. Change history shows what changed,
but your own log is where the reason lives, and the reason is what the
next audit needs.
Running a PPC Audit With an AI Agent
An AI agent is good at the parts of an audit that are tedious rather
than difficult: reading thousands of search terms, pulling the same
report from four platforms with one date range, and spotting the
campaign whose spend jumped on a Tuesday. It's poor at decisions that
need context it doesn't have, such as whether a high CPA is fine
because the deals are large, so keep those human.
Start read-only. Before any agent recommends changes, [start with a
read-only acceptance
test](https://syntermedia.ai/blog/google-ads-read-only-acceptance-test):
compare the last seven complete days with the previous seven in the
account timezone, then reconcile one campaign against the Google Ads
interface. The test passes when the account and period are right, a
sample matches the interface, calculations are traceable, missing fields
are flagged, and nothing in the account changed.
Synter, our own product, is one option among several here. Dedicated PPC
audit tools such as Optmyzr and Adalysis ship prebuilt Google Ads audit
checks that suit teams running only Google. Synter's strength is
breadth across platforms and acting on findings safely:
- One connection, several platforms. Connect Claude or Cursor to the
hosted MCP server at https://mcp.synterai.com with browser OAuth.
Connecting the agent doesn't connect an ad account or authorize spend
on its own.
- Read-only reporting tools. pull_google_ads_performance reads down
to search-term level, run_gaql_query runs Google Ads Query Language
(GAQL) queries, and matching pull tools exist for Microsoft Ads, Meta,
and LinkedIn. The tool reference warns against pausing or scaling from
performance data alone before checking pixel health and event
delivery.
- Changes behind approval gates. Workspaces can run in
review-required mode, hard caps are enforced before calls reach the ad
platform, and every change is logged with old and new values and a
rationale, with rollback for recent changes.
One of the example prompts Synter publishes mirrors check 7: "Audit
Google search terms for the last 14 days and flag non-converting queries
with \>\$50 spend as negative keywords." Review the list, approve what
you agree with, and keep [an audit trail of every
change](https://syntermedia.ai/blog/ai-agent-audit-trails-ad-spend)
the agent makes, so next quarter's audit starts from a record instead
of a guess.
FAQ
How long does a PPC audit take?
It scales with the number of campaigns and platforms. The first full
audit takes the longest, mostly in tracking reconciliation and search
terms; a monthly check on a known account is much shorter because
you're only looking for what changed.
How much does a PPC audit cost?
Some agencies run a free audit before an engagement; others charge for
it as a project. You can run one yourself at no cost using this
checklist and the platforms' own reports. The higher cost is usually
the time it takes to act on the findings.
Can I audit my own Google Ads account?
Yes. Everything in this checklist is visible inside Google Ads, GA4, and
your CRM. The hard part is objectivity, because whoever built the
account tends to read its settings as intended, so ask a colleague to
run the settings and tracking checks if you can.
What is the difference between a PPC audit and PPC reporting?
Reporting tells you what happened over a period, usually on a schedule.
An audit tells you whether the account is set up to report and bid
correctly in the first place, and it ends with a prioritized list of
changes rather than a dashboard.
Conclusion
Audit the measurement and the business targets before you touch bids or
keywords, because every other finding in a PPC audit is only as good as
the conversions and goals underneath it. Run the 12 checks in order, put
the platform-specific settings from Microsoft Ads, Meta, and LinkedIn on
the same list, and log every fix so the next audit can tell you whether
it worked.
If Microsoft Ads is part of your mix, [run a free Microsoft Ads
audit](https://syntermedia.ai/free-microsoft-ads-audit) as
a first pass. To audit several platforms at once, connect your accounts
to Synter, run the read-only acceptance test, and only then let an agent
propose changes behind approval gates.
discuss running a cross-platform PPC audit.