The Growth Project

Growth · Revenue and costs

Google Ads Audit

A Google Ads audit is a read-only review of where your ad money goes and what it brings back. We join the ad account with your analytics, product feed and real sales, so every finding is tied to cost per sale and profit, not just clicks.

How we do itWe run it with our own AI tooling, connected to your ad account, analytics and real orders, not a generic checklist.

Start a conversationWhat we look at
  • Read-only access to start
  • A ranked fix list, priced in sales
  • Checked against your own orders

What we join

  1. Google Ads: spend · searches
  2. Google Analytics: visits · behaviour
  3. Merchant Center: product feed
  4. Tag Manager: what's tracked
  5. Your sales and costs: real sales · margin
Revenue and costsLess waste, more profit

Results

One recent rebuild, in numbers

An ecommerce store's account we rebuilt over four days, measured against the store's own orders.

  • 2.5–3×daily impressions on the main campaign within two days of fixing sales tracking, after two months of Google seeing no sales
  • ⅓the return per dollar of the Search campaign, against the main campaign. Switched off.
  • 57%of advertised products took about half the product ad spend over 60 days without a single sale from ads
  • $1–$40+in sales per $1 spent, by product line. Budget now follows it.
  • 18% → 97%of Shopping listings carrying a brand
  • 1.7×the sales Google Ads claimed, against what the store's own orders credited to ads

That last number changed the next project. The store's records showed the biggest carts came from free search and stopped at checkout, so the next dollar went to fixing checkout, not more ads. Read the field note

What we look at

  1. Spend on searches you can't win

    Broad keywords quietly match competitors' names and products you don't sell. We read the actual search terms, not just the keyword list, and build negative lists so budget goes to people looking for what you sell.

  2. Clicks from places you don't serve

    Google's default location setting includes people merely "interested in" your area. For a business that delivers to a set region, that can be a real share of spend. We check where clicks and sales come from against where you can fulfil.

  3. A bidding system fed the wrong numbers

    Smart bidding learns from your conversions. A purchase action that stopped recording, calls counted as high-value sales, revenue including GST and shipping, or a target set too early all make Google bid confidently in the wrong direction.

  4. Your Shopping feed

    If you sell products, the feed is half your ads. Missing brands, cut-off descriptions, duplicate titles and wrong delivery rules all cost visibility. We check it against Merchant Center and what shoppers actually search.

Run your numbers

What is your wasted ad spend worth?

Your break-even return, your profit after ad spend, and whether the wasted share is worth more cut or moved to the campaigns that work.

$3,000

Using Sales per $1 of ad spend, excluding GST: 3.50× · Gross margin: 40% · Share of spend you suspect is wasted: 20%. Adjust below.

Extra profit a year, better option

$12,600

Move it. The spend that works returns about 4.38× in sales per $1, above the 2.50× you need, so more budget there earns more than it costs.

Adjust the assumptions and see the working
3.50×
40%
20%
Break-even return at your margin
2.50×
Profit after ad spend, a month
$1,200
Cut it: extra profit a year
$7,200
Move it to what works: extra profit a year
$12,600

Illustrative, not a forecast. Assumes the wasted share earns nothing today, and that the campaigns that work keep their return when they get more budget. Returns usually fall as budgets grow, so treat "move it" as a ceiling. Sales and margin both exclude GST; Google Ads often reports values including GST, which makes the return look about 10% better than it is. Nothing you enter leaves this page.

Profit, not just return on ad spend

Return on ad spend tells you revenue per dollar. It doesn’t know that one product earns 50% margin and another earns 10%, or that freight eats the margin on some orders. When we can see your costs, we can tell you which campaigns make money, not just which ones make sales. That is why this audit works best alongside the AI Bookkeeper, and why it sits under both revenue and cost on our growth page.

For the tracking underneath all of this, see our tracking kit and our guide to building a marketing data layer you can trust.

How it works

  1. Read-only access

    You add us to Google Ads, Analytics and Merchant Center as a read-only user.

  2. Join the data

    Ad, analytics and feed data are joined with your sales, so findings are measured in sales and margin.

  3. A ranked fix list

    Each item says what's wrong, what it's likely costing you and the fix. You decide what goes ahead.

  4. Apply and measure

    We make the approved changes with you, log each one, and check the numbers at two and six weeks against where your orders actually came from.

Field notes

Common questions

What does a Google Ads audit cover?

Search terms and keywords, campaign settings, location targeting, bidding strategy, conversion tracking, your Shopping feed if you sell products, and the link between ad spend and real sales. Each finding comes with what it is costing you and the fix.

Do you need full access to my Google Ads account?

No. We start with read-only access. We only make changes after you have seen the list and approved them, and every change is recorded so it can be reversed.

Why look at sales and costs, not just the ads report?

Google reports revenue, and that figure often includes GST, shipping and sales it cannot actually prove. Your margin is not in there at all. Joining the ad data with your own sales and costs shows which campaigns make a profit, which is the number that matters.

Do you also manage Google Ads?

Yes, if you want us to. Most clients take the audit first, apply the fixes with us, then decide whether to keep us on for ongoing management or run it in-house.

How long until I see results?

Cutting wasted spend shows up within days. Bidding changes need a few weeks of clean conversion data before Google adjusts, so we measure at two and six weeks.

Where to start

Google Ads audit

A one-week, read-only review with a ranked list of fixes. Nothing in your account changes until you approve it.

After the review, we build the fixes as part of MarTech Infrastructure.

Start a conversationSee all growth work