How can you tell if an Google Ads account is actually optimised? The simplest solution is to conduct an in-depth AdWords audit of the main areas and analyse the results.
But what is an Google Ads Audit?
The AdWords audit, such as the SEO audit, is used to verify the effectiveness of the campaigns, then the general setting of the account and all the optimisations related to it.
Through such an analysis we are able to understand which specific areas require a small adjustment, a partial change or a complete restructuring.
Once the problems are identified we can work on them to “fix” them and then improve the overall performance of the entire account.
Why is it important to do this kind of analysis on a Google Ads Account?
First of all, a continuous monitoring of the campaigns certainly leads to excellent results in the medium and long term, then to a correct use of the available resources and consequently to the correct achievement of the objectives.
Secondly, it is essential to perform such an activity when you find yourself working on an account that was previously managed by other people. Understanding all the operations, tests and improvements made previously is essential to not repeat the same mistakes, not to waste time on old tasks and above all, to save money!
But let’s move on to the concrete, here are 4 critical areas to check.
Ad Groups and Quality Score
The quality score has always been one of the determining factors for the success of a campaign. It is now known that the optimisation of this parameter leads to a net improvement in the overall performance of the account, both in terms of spending and results in general. Through this score (ranging from 1 to 10) we are able to understand the quality of individual keywords and understand what are the possible areas of immediate intervention.
It happens very often in fact to find in accounts values of the type 1/10, 2/10 or 3/10. In my personal opinion, however, these values should not exist within an account. Having such a value means that none of the 3 parameters that make up the QS (target page experience, ad relevance and expected click percentage) are optimised. This can happen for several reasons: lack of budget, inexperience in setting an account, poor quality of the landing pages used, on which we may have no chance to manoeuvre, and much more. But the “relevance of the ads” item, however, should always be “above average”. It can be easily obtained by inserting the keyword with a low quality score in a single group of ads, with a dedicated ad, containing the keyword itself within the title. This will lead to a QS of at least 4/10 (it may happen, however, to a maximum of 3/10) which, although slight, will allow an improvement in performance.
Keywords
Before starting to enter new keywords, pause them, change matches or anything else, it is essential to analyse the results obtained up to the time of the Google Ads audit.
The two most important things to do are surely:
a) analyse the tab “search terms”; it is essential to understand if the keywords entered are bringing results, if they are just making us accumulate impressions and unnecessary clicks or if there are frequent search queries that really do not interest us and for which we do not want to release our ads. It’s better to waste 1/2 hours checking these rather than continue wasting money unnecessarily on things that do not interest us or are not useful to our business.
b) analyse the “reverse keyword” tab; it is important to evaluate whether or not changes have already been made in this section. After having made the necessary evaluations looking at the search terms, you must start to exclude those that do not interest us, and add them to the reverse keywords already present (if there are any of course). Often there are some keywords that can be deleted immediately during the analysis, but it is not always possible because maybe it is an area that updates very quickly, so it is important to keep this under control.
Ads Content
Most of the time it happens that ads are created in an account and left there to rot without being checked anymore, maybe with a rotation setting per click or per conversion.
When analysing the Google Ads account there are some fundamental aspects to check on the ads:;
a) verify that there are at least two for each group of ads; this allows you to do a good A/B test and actually understand what users are looking for or what they are interested in.
b) setting the rotation of the ads; especially during the start-up phase it is advisable to set a homogeneous rotation of the ads, for at least 90 days if it is a fairly static sector and that does not change quickly, otherwise it is fine to set an indefinite rotation. If you find a check mark in the ad rotation settings for “rotation by click” or “rotation by conversion”, go to the ads tab and check that you have actually done the necessary tests before, then see if there are ads removed or paused.
Landing pages
Although the Landing Pages used for Google Ads campaigns are external to the platform itself, they have a fundamental impact on overall results and performance. We can set the best campaign in the world, optimised in every way, but at the end is the final page that leads the user to the actual conversion.
So it’s important to make sure that keywords, ads and landing pages, are consistent with each other; analyse the title, the url, the various titles, the content and make sure they are inherent to what you are promoting with Google Ads.
