A PPC audit is an essential tool for any business leveraging pay-per-click advertising to maximize their campaign’s performance. In today’s competitive digital landscape, a well-executed pay-per-click audit can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of PPC ad campaigns, ensuring your business is getting the most out of its advertising budget.
Despite their popularity and potential, many businesses overlook the importance of regularly conducting a pay-per-click audit. And even the most well-crafted campaigns require regular evaluation to ensure they are performing at their peak potential. In this free PPC audit guide, we will explore the critical aspects of PPC audits, including their benefits and a step-by-step process to conduct an effective audit.
What is a PPC Audit?
A PPC audit is an in-depth analysis of pay-per-click campaigns to evaluate their performance and uncover opportunities for improvement. By examining key metrics, it’s possible to identify the strengths and weaknesses of campaigns and make informed adjustments to enhance results. These metrics include overall campaign performance, keyword effectiveness, ad copy quality, landing page relevance, and more.
Even if campaigns seem to be performing well, regular PPC audits are essential. They help save money, and can also help identify and address any instances of click fraud, ensuring your budget is used effectively. Whether you’re performing a free PPC audit or using advanced tools, the insights gained can lead to significant improvements in your campaign’s effectiveness.
The Benefits of Doing a PPC Audit
PPC ad campaigns have numerous moving parts that require close attention during setup, so why should that change once the campaign is live? Every campaign setting, keyword, and ad group is subject to fluctuating performance from one quarter to the next because the ad space and your clients change over time. Here’s how a pay-per-click audit empowers your online advertising strategy:
Maximize ROI and Stay Ahead of the Competition
Return on Investment (ROI) is a critical metric in any business. When your ad campaigns underperform, your ROI suffers. By conducting a PPC audit, you can pinpoint areas where your campaigns lack impact and make informed changes to maximize ROI.
While ROI is important across various business departments, your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is crucial specifically for your ad campaigns. Having access to all the metrics surrounding your ads through a pay-per-click audit can help your business maximize how much profit you make per $1 spent on advertising.
Assess Ads Individually or as a Campaign
A comprehensive PPC audit can reveal hidden gems within your existing campaigns. You might discover long-tail keywords with high conversion potential that you were previously overlooking. Additionally, an audit can pinpoint weaknesses in your targeting strategy, allowing you to refine audience selection and ensure your ads reach the right people at the right time, instead of overhauling the entire strategy.
Optimize Bidding Strategies and Reduce Costs
Bidding strategies significantly impact your campaign costs and overall success. A PPC audit can help you identify the most effective bidding strategies for your specific goals. Whether it’s maximizing conversions or increasing click-through rates (CTR), the audit can provide valuable insights to optimize your bids and potentially reduce your cost-per-click (CPC).
Gain Insights for Other Departments
The data gleaned from a pay-per-click audit extends beyond just optimizing ad campaigns. It can provide insights for other departments within your business. Understanding user acquisition trends and customer behavior patterns collected by the audit can inform product development, website design, and overall marketing strategies.
How Do I Run a PPC Audit?
Running a PPC audit involves compiling and assessing data from paid ad campaigns to evaluate their effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. This can be achieved through a combination of manual analysis and the use of PPC audit tools. A thorough PPC audit examines campaign settings, costs, ad groups, and ad performance, aiming to uncover both strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, considering competitor strategies can provide additional insights for refining your campaigns.
Tools for PPC Audits
While a manual audit is valuable, leveraging specialized tools can streamline the process and provide deeper insights. Here are 3 popular PPC audit software to consider:
- Semrush: With SEMrush’s powerful Advertising Research feature, you can analyze competitors’ keyword strategies, dissect ad variations, and gain a comprehensive view of their overall campaign performance. It also helps you identify untapped keyword opportunities and provides insightful metrics to evaluate your ad performance.
- WordStream: A PPC management tool that offers a range of features to audit PPC campaigns. It provides detailed insights into keyword performance, recommendations for bid adjustments, and optimization suggestions for ads and landing pages. WordStream also features a Performance Grader that assesses the health of your campaigns and identifies areas for improvement.
- Optmyzr: This powerful tool delves deep into your campaign data, providing insights into keyword performance and suggesting optimal bid adjustments to maximize your ROAS. Optmyzr also offers a holistic view of your campaign health, ensuring all elements are working together seamlessly for optimal performance.
How Often Should You Conduct a PPC Audit?
The frequency of conducting a PPC audit can vary based on several factors, such as the complexity of your campaigns, business needs, and changes in the advertising landscape. However, a general guideline is to perform a PPC audit at least once every three to six months.
Conducting audits more frequently, such as quarterly, ensures you stay on top of performance fluctuations and make timely adjustments. For newer PPC accounts or during periods of significant changes (e.g., updates to Google Ads), more frequent audits may be necessary. On the other hand, if your campaigns are stable and consistently performing well, bi-annual audits might suffice.
10 Simple Steps to Do a PPC Audit
Now that we’ve covered the importance of performing a PPC audit, let’s dive into how to effectively carry one out. Whether you’re looking to do a Google Ads audit or a general pay-per-click audit, these 10 simple steps will guide you through the process.
1. Define Your Audit Goals
Before diving in, take a moment to establish clear objectives for your audit. Are you aiming to maximize conversions, boost CTR, or refine your targeting strategy? Defining your goals will help you focus on specific areas that need improvement and measure your progress effectively.
2. Review Your Account Settings
A solid foundation is crucial for success. Your audit should start by meticulously examining your account settings, ensuring they’re configured for optimal performance. This includes verifying proper conversion tracking setup, consistent naming conventions for easy organization and navigation, and establishing ad group categories and subcategories for thematic coherence. If your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts haven’t been linked yet, this is the perfect opportunity to bridge the gap and gain valuable insights.
3. Review Your Keywords, Search Terms, and Analyze Ad Copy
Customers’ behaviors and preferences change over time, making it essential to regularly review keywords and search terms. When conducting PPC audits, focus on the following:
- Keyword Quality Scores: Aim for quality scores above 6. Update or replace keywords with low scores.
- Primary Keywords: Ensure your primary keywords are present in display URLs, ad copy, and product descriptions.
- Negative Keywords: Use search term reports to refine your negative keywords list and avoid unrelated searches.
- Long-tail Keywords: Include long-tail keywords to capture more specific and high-intent searches.
- Varied Match Types: Use a mix of phrase and exact match types for a balanced approach.
Additionally, analyze search terms to see how users are actually phrasing their search and audit your ad copy for relevance, logic, spelling, grammar, images, and effective calls-to-action (CTAs). This ensures your ads are engaging and compliant with Google’s guidelines.
4. Analyze Your Click-through and Conversion Rates
Click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate are key performance indicators (KPIs) that reveal how effectively your ads are capturing attention and driving action. Use the following calculations:
- CTR: (Interactions / Impressions) * 100
- Conversion Rate: (Conversions / Interactions) * 100
Remember, the higher the CTR and conversion rate, the better. Identify any areas with low CTRs or conversion rates and consider these changes:
If your CTR is low:
- Ensure your ads are displayed during peak conversion periods.
- Adjust your CPC bidding strategy.
- Experiment with different ad copy variations.
- Sharpen your audience targeting.
- Refine your ad groups to ensure each has a cohesive theme and that the ads align with the intent of every keyword.
- Optimize your ad assets by including relevant, current information about your business and setting up all applicable manual ad extensions.
If both your CTR and conversion rates are low, prioritize improving your CTR first. However, if your CTR is satisfactory, but your conversion rate is lacking, it’s likely due to one of two issues:
- Your landing page isn’t optimized for conversions.
- Your landing page doesn’t fulfill the promise made in your ad.
5. Add or Optimize Your Ad Assets (Ad Extensions)
Ad assets, also known as ad extensions, are additional links or information that appear below your main ad link, offering users a glimpse into your business offerings. They can include sitelinks, callouts, location extensions, and more, and they can enhance your ad’s visibility. During your PPC audit, assess the performance of existing ad assets, ensure their content is clear and compelling, and consider adding new ones to improve your campaign’s effectiveness.
6. Review Your Campaign Settings
Campaign settings play a vital role in the success of your PPC ads. Key settings to review during your audit include:
- Conversion Tracking: Ensure accurate tracking of conversions.
- Ad Group Organization: Maintain organized categories and subcategories.
- Account Linking: Verify that your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts are linked.
Adjust any settings that are misaligned with your campaign goals to optimize performance. Setting up conversion tracking, relying on consistent naming conventions, and organizing your ad group categories help optimize potential returns from your ad spend.
7. Review Your PPC Ads Bidding Strategy
The ultimate goal of your bidding strategy is to maximize your ROAS. During your PPC audit, evaluate whether your current bidding strategy is achieving the desired results. Consider manual bidding for more control, especially after gathering sufficient data from automated bidding. Adjust bids based on device, location, schedule, demographics, targeting methods, and remarketing lists to maximize ROI.
8. Calculate ROI and ROAS for Your Ads
Understanding your ROI and ROAS provides a clear picture of your campaign’s profitability. Use the following formulas:
- ROI: ((Revenue – Expenses) / Expenses) * 100
- ROAS: Net Revenue Generated by Ads / Ad Cost
A healthy ROI typically falls between 25-50%, while a ROAS above 2 is considered positive. These metrics allow you to identify high-performing campaigns and areas for improvement.
If you want a detailed explanation of ROAS and its importance, we have an article on that topic for you.
9. Inspect Your Targeting Settings
Effective targeting is crucial for reaching the right audience. During your PPC audit, review and adjust the following targeting settings:
- Location: Ensure your location settings focus on areas where your target market resides.
- Devices: Optimize ads for specific devices based on performance.
- Time-of-Day: Schedule ads to run during peak engagement times.
- Remarketing: Reconnect with users who have previously interacted with your brand, significantly increasing the likelihood of conversion
Fine-tuning these settings can significantly enhance your campaign’s effectiveness.
10. Review Your Landing Pages
Finally, review the landing pages linked to your PPC ads. Ensure they are up-to-date, relevant, and optimized for conversions. Check for any outdated information, sold-out products, or broken links. A high-quality landing page can greatly improve your ad’s performance and overall user experience. You can find your landing page scores under the Ad Quality Scores section, under a separate tab.
Lower Wasted Ad Spend Further with ClickGUARD™
We hope you enjoyed our free PPC audit guide. A PPC account audit is a powerful way to improve your PPC ad campaign returns. Knowledge is power, and the first step to solving the problems that hamper your campaigns is to identify those problems.
Another factor that could hamper your campaign performance is click fraud. When your campaigns see significant interactions from fraudulent sources — such as bots —, your metrics become skewed and your ROI and ROAS become harder to calculate accurately. It can also increase your CPC unnecessarily, which can break campaign budgets.Consider using the power of ClickGUARD™, the leading click fraud protection software alongside your PPC audits to maximize your PPC campaign efficiency. Start your free ClickGUARD™ trial today and start protecting your PPC campaigns.
