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Insights on Google Ads audits, wasted spend and growth.
The Auto-Applied Recommendations Audit: What Google Changed Without You
Google can change your account without you touching it. Through auto-applied recommendations, it can add keywords, broaden match types, change bidding and adjust settings on its…
Oct 26, 2026 · jdfelstead
The Location Audit: Where Your Budget Works, and Where It's Wasted
Your ads do not perform the same everywhere, but most accounts bid as if they do. Some areas convert well and cheaply, others burn budget and rarely pay back, and a lot of…
Oct 26, 2026 · jdfelstead
The Negative Keyword Audit: Finding the Searches You're Paying For by Mistake
Most accounts are paying for searches the business would never want, and the reason is almost always the same: missing negative keywords. It is one of the least glamorous parts of…
Oct 23, 2026 · jdfelstead
Seasonality Audit: Is Your Account Ready for the Peak?
Most businesses have a peak: a time of year when demand spikes and a big share of the year's revenue is won or lost in a few weeks. And most accounts find out whether they were…
Oct 22, 2026 · jdfelstead
Match Type Audit: Are You Using the Right Ones?
Match types are one of the most consequential settings in a Google Ads account and one of the least examined. Your choice of exact, phrase or broad for each keyword decides how…
Oct 22, 2026 · jdfelstead
The Takeover Audit: What to Check First on an Account You've Inherited
Taking over a Google Ads account someone else built is a specific situation with its own risks. You are inheriting years of decisions you did not make, for reasons that are not…
Oct 22, 2026 · jdfelstead
Shopping Feed Audit: The Part of Your Account You Can't See
For an ecommerce account, the product feed is the most important thing most audits never look at. In Shopping and Performance Max, you do not write ads or choose keywords in the…
Oct 20, 2026 · jdfelstead
The Change History Audit: What's Been Done, and Did It Work?
Most audits are a snapshot: here is where the account stands today, here is what to fix. A change history audit asks a different, more revealing question: how did it get here?…
Oct 20, 2026 · jdfelstead
The Segment Audit: Where and When Your Budget Actually Performs
Most accounts are judged on their averages. One cost per acquisition, one ROAS, one headline number for the whole thing. The trouble is that an account does not perform evenly. It…
Oct 20, 2026 · jdfelstead
Quality Score: What It Really Tells You in an Audit
Quality Score is one of the most misunderstood numbers in Google Ads. People treat it as a target to chase, a score to grind up from 6 to 10 as if the number itself were the…
Oct 19, 2026 · jdfelstead
The Settings Audit: Default Settings Quietly Costing You Money
The most expensive problems in a Google Ads account are not always the obvious ones. Some of the costliest hide in the settings nobody ever opens, switched on by default or left…
Oct 19, 2026 · jdfelstead
Account Structure Audit: Is Your Account Built to Perform?
Account structure is the thing nobody notices until it is wrong. It does not show up as a single bad number. Instead it quietly makes everything else harder: the bidding learns…
Oct 19, 2026 · jdfelstead
Is Your Conversion Tracking Lying to You? A Tracking Audit
Before you audit anything else in a Google Ads account, audit the tracking. Every other number, the ROAS, the cost per conversion, the Smart Bidding decisions, is built on the…
Oct 16, 2026 · jdfelstead
Is the Right Bidding Strategy Running? A Bidding Audit
A lot of accounts are held back not by bad keywords or weak ads, but by the bidding. Either the wrong strategy is running, or the right one is set up wrong, and in both cases the…
Oct 16, 2026 · jdfelstead
How to Find Wasted Spend in a Google Ads Account
Almost every Google Ads account is wasting some of its budget, and most waste hides in the same handful of places. The good news is that wasted spend is the easiest profit in the…
Oct 16, 2026 · jdfelstead
How to Audit Your Google Ads Landing Pages
Most Google Ads audits stop at the account: bids, keywords, structure, tracking. They never look at the page the clicks land on. That is a mistake, because the account only…
Oct 15, 2026 · jdfelstead
Google Ads Audit for Lead Gen vs Ecommerce: What Changes
A Google Ads audit is not one checklist you run on every account. Lead gen and ecommerce look similar in the interface, but they are different jobs, because the single most…
Oct 15, 2026 · jdfelstead
Google Ads Audit for Lead Gen vs Ecommerce: What Changes
Most Google Ads audits are sold as one thing. They aren't. A lead gen account and an ecommerce account fail in different ways, so auditing them the same way misses what actually…
Oct 15, 2026 · jdfelstead
How to Audit Your Google Ads Ad Copy
Ad copy is the part of Google Ads most people write once and forget. The bids get tweaked weekly; the ads sit there for a year. That is a mistake, because the copy decides who…
Oct 14, 2026 · jdfelstead
How to Audit Impression Share in Google Ads
Impression share is one of the most useful numbers in Google Ads and one of the most misread. It tells you how much of the available demand you are actually showing up for. The…
Oct 14, 2026 · jdfelstead
How to Audit Your Negative Keywords in Google Ads
Negative keywords are the cheapest lever in Google Ads, and the most neglected. Every account loses money to searches it should never have paid for, and in most accounts no one…
Oct 14, 2026 · jdfelstead
How to Audit Your Google Ads Bidding Strategy
Most accounts do not have a bidding problem. They have a target problem. The bid strategy is doing exactly what it was told; it was just told the wrong thing. Smart Bidding is…
Oct 13, 2026 · jdfelstead
How to Audit a Performance Max Campaign
Performance Max is the hardest campaign type to audit, which is exactly why it needs auditing. It runs across Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Gmail and Maps from one budget,…
Oct 13, 2026 · jdfelstead
How to Audit Your Google Ads Conversion Tracking
Bad tracking is the most expensive problem in a Google Ads account, because it is invisible. The campaigns look fine. The reports look fine. The bidding is quietly learning from…
Oct 13, 2026 · jdfelstead
Ad Assets Audit: The Free Real Estate Most Accounts Leave on the Table
Ad assets are free space on the results page that lifts clicks at no media cost, and most accounts half-use them. Here is how to audit sitelinks, callouts, images and the rest, and what to fix first.
Oct 12, 2026 · jdfelstead
Device and Bid Adjustments Audit: The Modifiers Still Quietly Running Your Account
Bid adjustments are set by a human once and then forgotten, and years later they are still quietly skewing an account, often fighting the Smart Bidding that was supposed to replace them. Here is how to audit them.
Oct 12, 2026 · jdfelstead
Audience and Remarketing Audit: Who You're Really Paying to Reach Again
Remarketing is the most flattering line in a Google Ads account and often the least incremental. Learn how to audit audiences and remarketing for the value they actually add, not the credit they claim.
Oct 12, 2026 · jdfelstead
Search Terms Audit: How to Find the Queries Quietly Draining Your Budget
The search terms report is where wasted spend hides in plain sight, and most accounts review it thirty days at a time and miss the patterns. Here is how to audit it properly, at scale, and fix the negatives underneath.
Oct 5, 2026 · jdfelstead
Responsive Search Ads Audit: 10 Checks Beyond Ad Strength
Ad Strength measures whether you gave Google what it asked for, not whether the ad sells. Ten checks covering asset labels, pinning, truncation, auto-generated copy and the objections your pool ignores.
Aug 11, 2026 · jdfelstead
Google Ads Budget Audit: 12 Checks to Find Where Your Spend Is Capped, Wasted or Mistimed
Budgets override everything else in the account, yet most audits skip them. Twelve checks covering limited campaigns, shared budget pools, stale allocations, seasonal shape and month-end pacing damage.
Aug 11, 2026 · jdfelstead
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Location settings get configured once and never looked at again, which makes geography one of the most reliable places to find wasted spend. Seven checks covering presence vs interest, overlaps, exclusions and radius targets.
Aug 6, 2026 · jdfelstead
Brand vs Non-Brand Audit: What Your Blended ROAS Is Hiding
Your blended ROAS is an average of two different activities. Brand harvests demand that already existed, non-brand goes and finds it. This audit shows how to split them, measure the leakage and set separate targets.
Aug 4, 2026 · jdfelstead
Quality Score Audit: What Actually Matters and What to Ignore
Quality Score is one of the most chased and least understood numbers in Google Ads. Learn what its three components actually diagnose, when a low score matters, and when to ignore the number entirely.
Jul 31, 2026 · jdfelstead
Bidding Strategy Audit: Is Each Campaign Using the Right One?
Bidding Strategy Audit: Is Each Campaign Using the Right One? There are two separate questions in Google Ads bidding, and they get muddled constantly. The first is what target to…
Jul 31, 2026 · jdfelstead
Google Ads Account Structure Audit: When to Split, When to Merge
Good account structure is not the tidiest one. It is the one that gives you control you use and gives automation enough data to learn. Here is how to audit structure, and when to split versus merge.
Jul 30, 2026 · jdfelstead
Shopping Feed Audit: The Merchant Center Checks That Move Revenue
In Shopping and Performance Max, the feed is the campaign. Most retail accounts lose more to a weak feed than to any bidding mistake. Here is how to audit Merchant Center properly.
Jul 29, 2026 · jdfelstead
Smart Bidding Targets: How to Set, Audit and Change tCPA and tROAS
A bidding target is an instruction, not a preference. From 17 August 2026 budget-limited campaigns will be held much closer to the number you typed in. Here is how to audit and set targets before that happens.
Jul 27, 2026 · jdfelstead
Performance Max Audit: A 12-Point Review to Take Back Control
Performance Max is usually audited in one of two ways. Either it is treated as untouchable, on the basis that automation knows best and interference causes harm. Or it is blamed…
Jul 24, 2026 · jdfelstead
Google Ads Conversion Tracking Audit: 15 Checks Before You Trust the Data
Every optimisation decision in a Google Ads account inherits the reliability of its conversion tracking. Here are fifteen checks to run before you trust a single number in the interface.
Jul 24, 2026 · jdfelstead
Google Ads Conversion Tracking Audit: 15 Checks Before You Trust Your Data
Inaccurate conversion tracking can make weak campaigns appear successful and send automated bidding in the wrong direction. Use these 15 checks to verify that Google Ads is measuring the outcomes that actually matter.
Jul 22, 2026 · jdfelstead
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Google Ads Optimisation Score: Should You Aim for 100%? Your Google Ads account has an optimisation score of 68%. Google says you could increase it by: Adding broad match keywords…
Jul 22, 2026 · jdfelstead
Google Ads Wasted Spend: 17 Ways Your Budget Is Being Lost
Your Google Ads budget may be leaking through irrelevant searches, poor tracking, unsuitable bidding and overlapping campaigns. Here are 17 areas to check—and how to fix them.
Jul 22, 2026 · jdfelstead
Google Ads Not Converting? 17 Reasons You’re Getting Clicks but No Sales
Are your Google Ads generating clicks but no leads or sales? Learn how to identify problems with conversion tracking, keywords, search terms, bidding, landing pages and budget allocation before spending more.
Jul 20, 2026 · jdfelstead
How Much Does a Google Ads Audit Cost? 2026 Pricing Guide
How much should a Google Ads audit cost? Compare typical pricing models, understand what affects the price and learn what should be included before choosing an audit provider.
Jul 20, 2026 · jdfelstead
Google Ads Audit Checklist: 25 Checks to Find Wasted Spend and Improve ROAS
Not sure whether your Google Ads account is working as efficiently as it should? Use this comprehensive Google Ads audit checklist to uncover wasted budget, tracking errors, targeting problems and missed opportunities to improve revenue and ROAS.
Jul 20, 2026 · jdfelstead