Google Ads contextual advertising audit

Want to reduce the cost of attracting customers from the Internet? Do you have a customized advertising campaign, but you doubt the quality of the work done? Can’t determine which ads are effective and which ones are wasting your budget?

If you think that contextual advertising in your field is not bringing results, if you cannot assess the correctness of your account settings, or if you want to attract customers more cheaply, we recommend ordering a Google Ads audit. This will drive profit growth and open up additional opportunities for your company’s development!

Contextual advertising audits are carried out by experienced specialists in the field of contextual advertising and analytics, whose professionalism is confirmed by certificates from Google. The main goal of the audit is to find weaknesses in all campaigns that are currently active in your advertising account.

When is the best time to order a contextual advertising audit?

1. If you have set up a campaign for your website yourself, you can order a contextual advertising audit to ensure that you have chosen the right direction and that there are no errors. This option will be very useful for small businesses, where the owner often takes on the work of advertising themselves. A professional assessment will help you find missed opportunities for fine-tuning and improving efficiency.
2. When third-party contractors (agencies or freelancers) are responsible for configuration, an audit provides an opportunity to objectively assess the quality of their work before investing a large budget. This will allow you to confirm or dispel doubts about the specialist’s qualifications and get advice on how to improve results from an independent expert.
3. If a full-time marketer is responsible for setting up the campaign, an external audit will help to double-check their competence and integrity. An internal PPC specialist may overlook subtle details of working with advertising campaigns that professionals often encounter in their work. Therefore, an expert assessment will be very useful.
4. If marketing expenses exceed planned values and the desired effect is not achieved, a detailed analysis will identify ineffective keywords, optimization errors, and other factors that hinder return on investment. In this case, the goal of the audit is not simply to reduce costs, but to make the campaign truly profitable.
5. Before launching new ad campaigns, auditing existing ones will help you work on mistakes. You will see the strengths and weaknesses of your current advertising, allowing you to use this knowledge when working on a new campaign. In addition, audits often reveal missed opportunities and unused advertising tools that can enhance results.

What mistakes does an advertising campaign audit help to identify?

What mistakes lead to reduced ad effectiveness? We will discuss the most common issues identified during Google ad campaign audits.

1. Confusing structure. It is very difficult to monitor advertising effectiveness when an account has many ad groups with the same name and a large number of different queries. A campaign should have a logical and intuitive structure. Only then will it be easy to analyze the data.
2. Many rejections. To identify the source of the problem, you should analyze keywords, the usability and relevance of the landing page, and the correctness of links.
3. Insufficient relevance of the ad to the content of the landing page. In the vast majority of cases, this leads to users quickly leaving the site. Naturally, traffic and the number of transactions decline. Increasing the relevance of the ad to the content of the landing page always leads to an increase in click-through and conversion rates.
4. Low relevance of key queries. Your ad is seen by users who cannot be considered the target audience of the site, which is why the advertising is not very effective.
5. There are no extensions. If the bid is set at a high level, the service places the ad in the first position and displays all extensions. This leads to a decrease in the cost per click and an increase in their number.
6. Identical bids for all queries. The unsatisfactory results of such campaigns are primarily due to the fact that ads for conversion queries cannot reach the top positions due to cost restrictions.
7. Conversion optimization by goals for additional relevant phrases is inactive. Enabling this mechanism almost always significantly improves advertising campaign performance. However, it is important to monitor the costs of this feature.
8. There are obvious shortcomings in setting up a virtual business card. Not all users want to familiarize themselves with the website and click on the corresponding link. By adding a business card with a phone number to your ad, you will enable this audience to call you directly from the search results page. It is also important to note that you receive these leads completely free of charge.
9. Unreasonably high conversion costs for certain keywords. Advertising using such phrases will not pay off. The solution to this problem could be to reduce CPL and optimize ad impressions for “problematic” queries.
10. Refusal to use product ads. This high-conversion format shows good results for online stores with a wide range of products.
11. Advertisements get lost among the multitude of competitors. When analyzing competitors, the shortcomings of your own advertising become more apparent. This approach allows you to evaluate your strategy from an outside perspective and increase its effectiveness. An undeveloped USP, poorly written sales copy, or inconspicuous banners are just a few reasons why potential customers choose your competitors over you.
12. Sales funnel stages are not taken into account in remarketing campaigns. For each stage of the purchasing decision (from generating demand for the service to choosing the right store and closing the deal), a corresponding advertising message must be developed.

A professional audit allows you to identify and avoid the pitfalls listed above.

What does a Google contextual advertising audit include?

The main task of a marketer conducting a Google Ads audit is to reduce the cost per click and expand reach, refocus and target ads to those for whom they will be most useful. However, decisions should not be made based solely on price factors.

Important! Additional steps should be taken: track how the lead behaves after the transaction, compare yourself with competitors to understand what prevents you from using similar rates.

To this end, the following measures are taken:

Advertising account audit

It includes:

• Verification of geographic targeting, language settings, budget limits, correct display on different devices, the validity of the choice in favor of one type of campaign or another, the availability of integration with analytical services, ad display strategies, and bid determination.
• Analysis of account structure logic, ease of campaign management, scalability.
• Assessment of keyword relevance, conversion rates and positions, and the accuracy of search query grouping.
• Assessment of the budget allocated for each advertising tool.
• Verification of the correctness of working with queries and negative keywords.
• Analysis of the relevance of advertisements to key phrases, completeness, relevance, and correctness of UTM tags.
• Detecting flaws on landing pages and checking links for functionality.

Analysis of analytics systems

It includes:

• Verification of the correctness of information collection and transfer.
• Analysis of visitor interest levels, bounce rates, and assessment of campaign goal achievement.
• Forecast of losses associated with low ratings, insufficient funding, or improper allocation of advertising budget.

List of recommendations

After a thorough audit of contextual advertising in Google Ads, our specialists will compile a detailed list of recommendations for optimizing your account. You will receive information not only about problem areas and shortcomings, but also about strengths that should be emphasized to achieve maximum results. Our recommendations will include:

1. A list of important changes with detailed explanations. We will highlight the main opportunities for improving campaign effectiveness — from expanding the list of negative keywords to implementing the latest Google Ads features.
2. A well-thought-out advertising account structure. We will develop an effective account structure that takes into account the specifics of your business and your goals. Proper organization of ad groups will help you focus on the keywords that really matter and bring in real customers.
3. Strategy for further marketing activities. Our specialists will prepare proposals for connecting the latest advertising tools that are currently showing the best results in our clients’ campaigns.
4. Adjustment of rates based on data analysis. We will help you find the optimal balance between cost per click and target audience reach to make your promotion as effective and focused on potential customers as possible.
5. Suggestions for optimizing ad texts. We will provide our own versions of headlines, descriptions, and calls to action to increase the click-through rate and conversion rate of your ads.

Cost of Google Ads audit

The cost of a Google advertising campaign audit is directly influenced by the degree of immersion required to address the issue. At the initial stage, we suggest conducting a basic audit to identify all the main shortcomings of the account.

If the basic analysis is insufficient, an extended audit format is available, which will allow you to obtain information even about the most obscure and deeply hidden problems.

We will conduct a comprehensive analysis of search queries and negative keywords, dive into statistical data, and evaluate the structure of the campaign. Close attention will be paid to competitors, as well as the keywords they use for their promotion.

Additional factors that determine the price of contextual advertising audits include the amount of information in the advertiser’s Google account, the number of languages used, and the geography of targeting.

You can choose the most suitable tariff for yourself:

• Base price: $270. We will analyze the project according to all key criteria and identify areas for growth.
• Advanced — we will additionally provide a video clip where all the conclusions and findings of our specialists are explained in detail, accompanied by examples from real life.
• Expert — in addition to the services listed above, which are provided as part of other pricing plans, our specialist will conduct an hour-long consultation and answer your questions.

The cost of the “Advanced” and “Expert” packages is determined individually, based on the tasks set.

Example of a basic Google Ads audit:

Пример базового аудита по контекстной рекламе Google Ads

What will you receive after a Google AdWords audit?

1. The opportunity to increase advertising revenue without significant investment. A Google AdWords audit is an investment in the expertise of specialists that will enable you to save significant amounts on advertising. You will be able to effectively guide the work of your in-house marketer or freelancer, relying on the recommendations of professionals, and get the most out of their work.
2. Optimization of your advertising budget. Based on the audit results, you will be able to identify ineffective keywords, eliminate non-targeted traffic, and reallocate your budget to the most promising areas. This will allow you to optimize your ad impressions, attract only your target audience, and avoid wasting money.
3. Improvement of key performance indicators. The analysis will provide you with valuable recommendations that will help increase CTR, conversion, and other important metrics. You will be able to increase the profitability of advertising campaigns, accelerate lead generation, and maximize profits from every hryvnia invested.
4. List of errors found. During the audit, all possible flaws will be identified—incorrect geotargeting, irrelevant keywords, or mismatches between ads and landing pages. Fixing these errors will significantly increase advertising revenue and reduce the cost per click.
5. Analysis of key competitors. As a result of the analysis, you will receive valuable information about the strategies of your main competitors and be able to assess your business’s market share. You can use this data to develop a more effective advertising strategy and strengthen your market position.

Frequently asked questions from customers

• ‍✅ Why do I need an audit of my advertising campaign if it is already performing well?

  By ordering an audit, you will receive an unbiased expert opinion from a third party. If your advertising is optimally configured and no adjustments are necessary, you will eliminate your doubts and strengthen your confidence in your chosen advertising strategy.

  If errors are identified, you can quickly mitigate their impact on the overall effectiveness of the campaign, reduce the cost of acquired leads, and improve traffic quality.

• ‍✅ How long will the contextual advertising audit take?

  The duration of a contextual advertising audit varies depending on a number of factors, including the scope of the project, the number of advertising campaigns, the complexity of the settings, and the strategies used. On average, a basic audit can be completed within 1-2 days. However, for larger and more complex projects (a large online store or a multilingual website), the time frame may increase to 3-10 days.

• ‍✅ How often should you analyze your advertising account?

  Google’s algorithms are constantly evolving, with new tools being developed and old ones optimized and modified. The most effective strategy yesterday may cease to be effective tomorrow, so contextual advertising audits should be conducted twice a year.

• ✅ What is required to perform an advertising audit?

  To begin the audit, we will need access to your Google Ads advertising account and Google Analytics account. The analytics system will allow us to evaluate user behavior on your website pages, assess the accuracy of your target audience selection, and evaluate the relevance of your landing pages.

• ✅ Is the correction of identified errors included in the audit price?

  If you decide to order a Google Ads audit as a separate service, error correction and implementation of recommendations based on its results are not included in the base price. However, we can provide the services of our PPC specialist to implement changes for a separate fee.