A Google Ads pay-per-click audit (shortly known as PPC audit) involves reviewing your account structure, keyword intent, and how ad spend flows through the funnel. This approach directly links campaign setup to landing page performance while identifying inefficiencies and clearer optimisation opportunities.

But it’s not that simple because most people usually focus on the less important elements and waste money. We’ve been auditing Google Ads accounts for years, so we know exactly where it goes wrong.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the complete audit process. Plus, we’ll show you the most common issues that ruin your PPC performance and teach you how to prioritise fixes for the best output.

Read on to learn how to take control of your campaigns and improve efficiency.

How to Review Your Google Ads Performance

You review your Google Ads performance by checking seven main areas in order: conversion tracking, account structure, search terms, Quality Score, keyword match types, budget distribution, and ad copy. Most audits take two to four hours, depending on your account size.

Here’s how you should audit your Ads account:

• Conversion Tracking and Analytics: Make sure conversions trigger on the right pages after someone completes a desired action. Then connect your Google Ads account to Google Analytics so you can follow what happens next, from the initial click-through to the outcome.
• Account Structure: Properly organised campaigns give you more control over budget and deliver higher quality scores. That’s why you need to separate campaigns by product type or target audience to prevent mixing unrelated keywords. Each ad group should target tightly themed keywords that share the same intent.
• Search Terms Report: The search terms report shows the real phrases people type before seeing your ads, compared to the keywords you target. For example, a plumber bidding on “emergency plumbing” may appear for “plumbing courses” or “plumbing jobs”, which leads to irrelevant clicks and wasted ad spend.
• Quality Score and Landing Pages: Your Quality Score directly influences how much you pay per click and how competitive your ads are in the auction. Higher scores often lead to lower costs and better visibility, given that your ad text, keyword intent, and landing page message are closely aligned.
• Match Types and Negative Keywords: Keyword match types control how closely search queries relate to your targeted keywords. Broad match keywords often need negative keywords to act as a safety net. It helps keep a PPC campaign focused by refining results over time instead of relying on a fixed number at launch.
• Budget and Bidding: You must check which campaigns use the most ad spend and how that compares to the conversion rate. Branded campaigns often bring paying customers at lower customer acquisition costs, yet many accounts still underfund them.
• Ad Copy and Assets: Strong ad copy supported by relevant assets can improve your click-through rate by increasing relevance and clarity. We recommend including your focus keyword in headlines for better ad quality. Also, test a minimum of two ad variations per ad group consistently, and add sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets.

When all these aspects work properly, your ads reach the right target audience and convert more potential customers.

Detailed Overview of PPC Audit

A PPC audit is a systematic review of your Google Ads account to identify wasted spend, technical problems, and missed opportunities (we discussed the techniques at length in the previous section). The goal is to find actionable insights that improve your return on ad spend.

Let’s get into more detail about the ways these audits work.

Regular Audits Reduce Wasted Ad Spend

Regular audits catch budget-draining issues before they cost you thousands in wasted clicks. They find lost budget on the wrong keywords, broken tracking, or ads showing in irrelevant searches.

We’ve found that most accounts leak one-third of their budget without anyone noticing until they run an audit.

Audits also find out which particular keywords attract potential customers versus irrelevant clicks that will never convert. For instance, a Brisbane law firm might find that they’re paying for searches like “law degree requirements” when they only want “personal injury lawyer Brisbane”.

You can also detect technical issues like broken tracking before they drain money for weeks if you perform regular checks on your Google Ads account.

Recommended Audit Frequency

The truth is, your audit frequency depends on your monthly ad spend and account complexity. In our experience, small business accounts under five thousand dollars monthly need only quarterly audits to catch issues before they become expensive problems.

Honestly, data accumulates more slowly when you’re spending less. That’s why checking every three months gives you enough information to identify certain patterns.

That said, if your account has a monthly budget of over twenty thousand dollars, you’ll need to perform checks weekly. You’ll also have to review the account every quarter to prevent budget waste at scale (especially in competitive markets).

When spending increases, a poorly set up Ad campaign can use up your monthly budget very quickly. For that reason, weekly checks help notice problems early, while quarterly reviews look more closely at strategy and account structure.

Pro tip: Run an immediate audit when your conversion rate drops suddenly, or costs spike without explanation.

What Are Common Issues Found in Google Ads Audits?

Common issues found in Google Ads audits often include poor account structure, missing negative keywords, and bidding strategies that don’t match campaign goals. From what we’ve seen, these three issues constantly appear in audits and lead to inefficient budget use.

We’ll take a closer look at these issues.

Poor Account Structure

Believe it or not, using a single campaign for everything lowers ad quality because it mixes unrelated keywords together. So when someone searches for something specific, like “men’s running shoes”, but sees a general ad, they are less likely to click.

The same problem appears at the ad group level as well. Like, when ad groups contain more than 30 keywords (as a rule of thumb), it becomes difficult to optimise them. Why? It’s because you can’t write relevant ads for many different search intents.

But a well-organised account structure gives you more control over budget distribution. It allows you to pause underperforming ads while keeping high-performing campaigns running smoothly.

Missing Negative Keywords

If you don’t use negative keywords, irrelevant searches can trigger your ads. These incidents gradually drain your budget and reduce the overall efficiency of your ad campaign.

And the problem gets worse when you use broad match keywords without any safety net. Specifically, broad match without negatives shows ads for completely irrelevant searches that only share one or two words with your target keyword.

Take an accounting firm targeting “tax services” as an example. They might show ads for “tax refund status” or “free tax calculator”. It’ll attract people looking for DIY solutions and not professional help.

This is why you need to review search terms weekly to build comprehensive negative keyword lists. This practice will protect you from losing money.

Wrong Bidding Strategy for Campaign Goals

The right bidding strategy aligns ad spend with real business goals instead of vanity metrics. For example, Maximize Clicks bidding can waste money when conversion goals are your priority, since it focuses on volume. This way, you’ll get plenty of clicks from people who have no intention of buying.

And if you go the automated bidding way, remember that it needs sufficient conversion data first to work properly (we’ve found it to be at least 30 conversions per month). Without that volume, the system struggles to learn and often makes inefficient decisions early on.

So, match your bidding strategy to your campaign goal for the best results rather than letting Google choose for you.

How Do You Prioritise Your Audit Findings?

You prioritise audit findings by fixing urgent issues like broken conversion tracking first. After that, you should address high-impact problems like wasted ad spend and then move on to time-consuming improvements, namely testing new ad copy.

Let’s start with broken conversion tracking. You have to fix it first because you can’t measure anything without it. And when it doesn’t work, you’re spending money blindly with no idea which campaigns deliver results and which ones burn cash.

Then come the negative keywords. Deal with them next to stop bleeding your budget on irrelevant traffic. Based on our experience, it takes one to two hours to complete this task, and you’ll notice its impact almost immediately.

Another thing on the priority list is managing your Quality Score. If the score is under five, you often pay more per click because your ads are less competitive than those with higher scores. More precisely, a score of three or four signals low relevance, which means Google expects weaker alignment with what people search for.

And the penultimate one on the list is improving elements that require time, like fixing weak ad copy and optimising your dedicated landing page. These changes take more time but still deliver solid returns (and the impact lasts for a long time).

Once you fix the most urgent problems, you can then focus on improving overall performance. At that point, reorganising the account structure comes last, because it takes even more time and delivers benefits gradually.

Below is an audit priority matrix to help you understand the fix order:

Get Better Results From Your Ads

You’ve reached the end of our guide on auditing Google Ads accounts like a professional. You now know the seven areas to check, which problems drain the budget fastest, and how to prioritise fixes based on impact and urgency.

If you’re looking for an expert to take a look at your account, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. We’ve been managing Google Ads campaigns for years at SlamStop. Let’s refine your campaigns so every click supports your goals and call to action.

The holiday arrives. Your competitors collect in sales like there’s no tomorrow. Meanwhile, your Google Ads campaigns just sit there gathering digital dust.

Frustrating, right? Here’s the thing: seasonal Google ads aren’t rocket science. You have to plan right and execute it at the perfect time.

In this guide, we will help you understand how to plan ads around holidays, local events, and peak shopping seasons. In the meantime, we’ll show you practical ways to grab more clicks and boost conversions. Ready to turn those quiet months into profit machines? Let’s get into it.

Why Seasonal Google Ads Outperform Year-Round Campaigns

Seasonal campaigns target the exact moments when buyers are ready to spend. So, the difference in ad conversion rates can be massive. (Holiday shoppers don’t browse aimlessly; they search with intent.)

Ever noticed your competitors seem to vanish during peak shopping seasons? You think they’re gone, but they’re not. They’re just getting cooler and advanced ideas with their ad spend.

The thing is, holiday shoppers are ready to spend money on a right-now basis. Your ads meet them exactly when they’re most likely to click that “buy” button. Want proof that this works? Google’s data reveals that advertisers who switched to optimised seasonal strategies saw conversion values jump 25% during peak holiday shopping periods.

And here’s something most businesses miss: there’s less competition during planning phases. While others struggle at the last minute, you can lock in lower costs early. Event-based marketing lets you ride these natural demand spikes without fighting for attention throughout the year.

Plan Your Event-Based Marketing Campaign Calendar

You might be thinking now: when should I start my holiday PPC strategy? The answer might surprise you.

Most businesses wait until the event starts. But that’s already too late. If you want a proper sale, you need at least four to six weeks of lead time before major holidays hit. So, start planning now, not when everyone else panics.

To start the planning, map out the big dates for your business first. Christmas and Easter are obvious ones for retail buyers. But don’t ignore Australian-specific events like EOFY sales or Melbourne Cup promotions.

Let’s talk about the service-based businesses. They can target tax season or summer renovations. The reason is that each industry has its own goldmine moments waiting to be tapped.

Want to know how to find your market pattern? Use Google Trends, and it will spot your best-selling time. You can easily type your main services or products in Google Trends and watch when searches spike. These peaks will tell you exactly when your potential customers start planning.

From our experience, businesses that plan their event-based marketing campaign early capture more opportunities, since 30% of consumers start holiday shopping as early as October or earlier. (and trust us, they’re not waiting around for your last-minute campaigns.)

Setting Up Your Google Ads Account for Seasonal Success

Most businesses make one big mistake: they try to force seasonal campaigns into their existing account structure. This creates a messy nightmare when you’re trying to track what actually works during busy periods.

To ignore this problem, you can create separate campaigns for each major holiday or event. This strategy keeps your data clean and your budgets controlled. Another advantage is worth mentioning: you can pause, adjust, or scale these campaigns without touching them. As a result, you are always advertising.

Here’s your setup checklist:

1. Build dedicated seasonal campaigns: Don’t mix your holiday deals with regular promotions.
2. Configure seasonality adjustment settings: Tell Google when to expect major changes in your conversion rates.
3. Schedule budget increases ahead of time: Always set automated rules so you don’t miss the peak rush.
4. Enable proper conversion tracking: Know which holiday-specific ad copy can drive your sales the most.

Here’s an example: We worked with a Brisbane-based furniture store. During the holidays, they created separate campaigns for each holiday season. Instantly, it helped their Easter campaign cost decrease by 22% per conversion than Christmas. That data shaped their entire strategy for future events.

Preparing Holiday-Specific Ad Copy That Converts

Holiday shoppers respond to the urgency in your ad copy. That’s why your event-based marketing language has to match the moment. Now, what kind of language works best? Well, keep reading to know.

During holiday sale periods, use words like “limited time” and “while stocks last” to trigger immediate action. These direct communications beat vague promises. These call-to-action words tell your customers exactly what they get and when the offer ends.

The reality is: a generic ad copy kills your conversion rate faster than anything else. In this case, test at least three variations of your holiday ads. Among the three, one focuses on the discount percentage, another highlights free delivery, and a third emphasises the limited availability.

Our own testing says ads with specific numbers (“Save $150”) outperform percentage-based offers by roughly 18%.

(Pro tip: match your ad copy to your landing page message. Otherwise, when customers click and see different information, they bounce faster than a kangaroo on a trampoline.)

Using Seasonality Adjustment to Control Your Ad Spend

Now, let’s talk about the features most advertisers ignore: seasonality adjustments. This tool tells your Google Ads account to expect big shifts in consumer behaviour during specific dates.

Smart bidding relies on historical data, but what happens when the holiday season throws normal patterns out the window? Seasonality adjustment solves this exact problem.

When you inform Smart Bidding that conversion rates will change dramatically during your event. Then, Google adapts your bid strategies in real time. The result? You don’t have to waste money on overbidding or missing opportunities by bidding too low.

Here’s how different campaigns respond:

That’s how you can set your new seasonality adjustment at least three days before the event starts. These adjustment gives time to Google’s algorithm to learn and adapt your budgets properly. Many businesses make a big mistake by activating it too late. That’s why, when the busiest time hits, their campaigns still haven’t adjusted yet.

Capturing Last Minute Holiday Shoppers

You think the shopping rush ends two weeks before Christmas? That’s not true at all.

Because we’ve seen some of the highest conversion rates happen in those final 72 hours. Sometimes, last-minute customers search, and they pay premium prices for speed and convenience. They are known as eleventh-hour shoppers.

So if you follow a few strategies, it shifts dramatically for these eleventh-hour shoppers. Focus on immediate fulfillment options like same-day delivery or click-and-collect. Put these options front and centre in your ads. Because these customers don’t care about browsing, they want solutions now.

(Pro tip: To capture last-minute shoppers, increase your mobile bids by 20-30%. Why? Because these searches happen on phones while people are out and busy.)

Believe it or not, retargeting becomes most powerful in this situation. Imagine someone visited your site earlier but didn’t buy anything. No problem! Hit them with urgent messaging about stock running low.

Start Planning Your Seasonal Wins Today

Seasonal Google Ads give you a genuine advantage when planned properly. Now, you’ve the roadmap:

1. First, map your event calendar early for the upcoming holidays.
2. Then, structure your Google Ads account for easy management.
3. Craft interesting holiday-specific ad copy and test it.
4. Finally, use seasonality adjustments to control costs.

The cost of ignoring seasonal campaigns? It’s massive. While you stick to the same strategy throughout the year, your competitors are capturing customers during their highest-intent moments.

So, pull up to your Google Ads account right now and mark your next three seasonal opportunities. Block time to create those campaigns four weeks before each event occurs. And the good news is: you are not alone in this journey.

Reach out to our SlamStop team. We help businesses to implement these exact strategies. We’ve guided dozens of companies through their first holiday PPC campaigns and watched their conversion rates climb. There’s a difference between floating it and having a solid plan that shows up immediately in your data.

If you’re struggling to compete with big brands on Google Ads and bring in new customers, it’s a common challenge for most small business owners. The reality is simple: you don’t need their budget to win. You just need the right approach.

In this guide, we’ll break down local business Google Ads into simple terms. You’ll know exactly how to outshine major competitors in your local area for important searches like “plumber near me” or “accountant in Brisbane”.

We’ll cover:

• Configure your Google Ads account for maximum results
• Which ad types actually work for local businesses
• Effective bidding strategies that outperform large budgets
• Target customers who are ready to buy your service

We’ve helped dozens of small businesses across Australia rank their ads and attract more customers using these exact same methods.

Read on to learn more about how to do Google Ads for local businesses the right way.

Set Up Your Google Ads Account Like a Local Pro

Most small business owners dive into Google Ads without connecting the dots between their different Google tools. Here’s your step-by-step roadmap to get everything working together:

1. Create and verify your Google Ads account with local business details: Your business name, address, and phone number need to match exactly across all platforms. Google checks this stuff and rewards businesses that provide complete information.
   
   
2. Connect your Google Business Profile for location visibility: This connection lets your ads show up in Google Maps results automatically. It’s like getting two ads for the price of one when potential customers search in your service area.
   
   
3. Set a precise geographic targeting radius for your service area: Don’t waste ad spend on people who are too far away. A 15-kilometre radius usually works best for most local businesses, but adjust based on how far you’re willing to travel.
   
   
4. Configure location extensions and call extensions: These show your address and phone number right in your Google search ads. Based on our experience, ads with location extensions get 30% more clicks from potential customers.

Pro Tip: Verify your Google Business Profile completely before launching any advertising campaigns. Google gives priority to verified local businesses in search results.

Once your foundation is solid, the next step is choosing ads that bring customers through your door.

Choose Ad Types That Bring Customers to Your Door

When you look at the Google Ads options, it can feel like trying to order from a menu written in another language. Let me break down the ad types that work for local businesses:

• Search Network Ads: When customers actively search for services like yours, your ad can appear. For instance, if someone types “electrician near me,” your ad could be shown first. These ads convert well because users are already looking to make a purchase.
  
  
• Local Campaign Ads: Instead of managing multiple campaigns, a single local campaign can cover Google search, Google Maps, and YouTube. Google automatically optimises where your ads appear based on where potential customers spend time.
  
  
• Performance Max for Local: Using Google’s AI, this tool automatically identifies new customers across all Google platforms. You just set your budget, and Google takes care of targeting the most relevant audience for your business.
  
  
• Google My Business Posts: These free posts allow you to share special offers, events, or services directly in your Google Business Profile. Appearing in local searches, they can drive more customers without any additional ad spend.

Local searches convert faster than any other type of advertising because people are actively looking for what you offer. When someone searches for a service nearby, they’re usually ready to make a decision quickly.

Now that you know which ads to run, here’s how to outbid competitors without breaking your budget.

Outbid Big Brands Without Breaking Your Budget

Budget fears keep most small business owners from even trying Google ads. The truth is, you don’t need to outspend competitors; you need to outsmart them. Successful local businesses beat much larger advertising budgets with these three approaches:

Use Automated Bidding to Your Advantage

Manual bidding is where small businesses waste money trying to guess the right price. Instead, Google’s automated bidding systems have data from millions of searches and can adjust your bids in real-time.

Simply set up Target CPA bidding and tell Google exactly how much you want to pay for each new customer. Our team has found that automated bidding reduces wasted ad spend by up to 40% for local businesses.

Focus on High-Intent Local Keywords

Big brands target broad keywords like “plumber” that cost $15 per click. You should target “emergency plumber Brisbane,” which costs $8 but converts twice as well.

Local keywords have less competition and higher intent. What this means is that people searching for local services are ready to buy, not just browsing. Your $500 budget can compete directly with their $5000 budget when you focus on the right keywords.

Schedule Ads When Your Customers Are Most Active

Don’t run ads 24/7 like the larger businesses do. Analyse when your phone rings most often and schedule ads during those hours. If you’re a tradesperson, run ads from 7 AM to 6 PM on weekdays. This cuts your ad spend in half while maintaining the same number of customers.

Pro Tip: Turn off ads during hours when you can’t answer calls because you’re wasting money on leads you can’t convert.

The next step is making sure those ads reach exactly the right people in your area.

Target New Customers Who Actually Want Your Service

Most small business owners worry about wasted ad spend on the wrong people. The good news is that precision targeting is your secret weapon against big competitors.

Start by setting your geographic radius to exactly where you can serve customers best, then layer in demographics like age and income that match your ideal clients.

After you’ve got the basics right, use competitor audience targeting to show ads to people who are already interested in similar services.

Pro tip: Target local events and seasonal trends in your area. This approach turns every advertising dollar into potential customers who are genuinely interested in what you offer.

Make Your Google Ads Work Like a Customer Magnet

Many small business owners believe Google ads are only for companies with unlimited marketing budgets and large advertising teams. The reality is that local businesses have special advantages that bigger companies simply cannot replicate or match.

We’ve covered four essential strategies: setting up your Google Ads account properly, choosing effective ad types, using smart bidding techniques, and targeting customers who actually need your service in your local area.

Ready to compete with industry leaders? SlamStop‘s Google AdWords experts will implement these proven strategies and deliver the customer growth your business deserves.