Thread by @amaliaefowler

Google Ads Audits - A 🧵

Join me as I audit an ads account.

Disclaimer: There are so many ways to do this. Mine is not the only way. Nor is it necessarily the best way.

#ppcchat #googleads #marketingtwitter

Second disclaimer: There is a distinct difference between best practices and simply different ways of doing things. I try to find reasoning behind choices. The client may have requested things, etc. So I'm never harsh with my report. There's lots of unknowns.

Set a date range you keep consistent the whole time and fix your columns. This particular account has only been live since April so I'm using up until May 30th.

I also fix my columns: impr, clicks, ctr, avg cpc, cost, conv, conv rate, S-IS metrics, analytics metrics.

First: What are the account goals and do the conversions set up match those goals.

In this case, we're looking at newsletter subscriptions, contact form and landing page form goal. I'm not sure what the latter is and don't have Analytics access so keeping this mystery in mind.

If you don't have conversions or they are inaccurate this changes your ENTIRE audit process. You can't really determine success if this is set up incorrectly, which means you're left to more surface metrics to evaluate.

Now that we have the framework in mind lets tackle account settings: conversion setup, attribution, linked analytics & search console, search partners, automated extensions and extensions in general.

This is section one. I make lists of actionables as I go for the summary of my report. In this case most things look good.

I'm questioning why sitelink extensions if the goals are so single-landing page focused. I've also noted search partners outperforms search network.

They also need to turn off automated extensions and I suggest a different attribution strategy - but that's again something I define as my suggestion and not a golden rule / best practice.

Part two is account structure. This is usually where I find 97% of the things to fix. I'm looking at number of campaigns and the ratio to adgroups / keywords, budgets and watching out for any overlap.

12 campaigns (this is just search for now) and 288 ad groups with 864 keywords and shared budgets.

I can tell you right now this math doesn't work.

They have divided their campaigns by goal and location (3x4), which makes it easier for me. I can audit 4 structure wise.

Okay. And we've found major problem #1 (told you its always in account structure).

Three campaigns targeting the same location with different goals. Think "Canada - Awareness", "Canada - Newsletter", "Canada - Landing Page"

Identical adgroups and keywords in each.

Why is this a problem? There is literally no differentiation between three campaigns that are going for *different* goals except the ad copy and landing page. In every auction, only one of your ads can show up but all the targeting is identical.

They are also all SKAGs.

Except for one weird catch-all adgroup in each (which accounts for the number differences).

SKAGS is one of those difference of opinion piece. I am not using them any more because of how the variants have changed and with what matches to what. But I know people are.

We also have a bid strategy problem. Manual only really makes sense if someone is actively monitoring bids. For some reason all the display campaigns are on maximize conversions with no conversion data.

This one needs an overhaul of structure.

Because this is the case, I will move a bit faster through the rest of the audit usually.

Part Three - Campaign Targeting (location - advanced settings, ad schedule, location targets, audiences under observation)

Part Four - keywords and match types. Looking for overlaps, how many keywords have quality score data or any data (usually structure related)

Part Five - Ads. 2 ETA, 1 Responsive, ad quality, ensuring best practice.

Part Six - Look at changelog / recommendations, see if anything pops out as abnormal or needing fixing.

Part Seven - Display - audiences / overlap, creative and targeting.

Part Eight - Compile recommendations, send to client, explain thought process and hope they let you restructure it all 🙃

Finally, if you are the client. Watch out for anybody who parrots best practices back at you or doesn't ask for context. A list of "This is what Google says" should be thrown out.