An advertising audit is a structured review of paid media accounts that checks whether tracking is accurate, budget goes to the right audiences, bidding matches the goal, creative and landing pages convert, and reports reflect real business results. It should happen before any optimisation, because changing bids or creatives on top of broken measurement only moves the problem around.
Why audit before optimising?
Optimisation assumes the numbers are right. In practice, many accounts report conversions that are duplicated, misattributed or not conversions at all, such as page views counted as leads. Every decision built on those numbers, from bid strategy to budget split, is distorted.
An audit also creates a baseline. Recording the account’s state before changes means you can show later what improved and why.
Step 1: is the tracking telling the truth?
Tracking comes first because everything else depends on it. Check each platform in turn: Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft Advertising and any others in use.
- List every conversion action and the event behind it. Remove or set to secondary any action that is not a real business outcome.
- Confirm tags fire once per conversion. Submit a test form and place a test order, then check each platform’s event diagnostics (Google Tag Assistant, Meta Events Manager, TikTok Pixel Helper).
- Verify conversion values are passed and match the order or lead value.
- Check that Consent Mode v2 is implemented where required, and that consent banners do not block tags for users who accept.
- Review server-side connections: Meta Conversions API, Google enhanced conversions, TikTok Events API.
- Compare platform conversions with GA4 and the CRM or store for the same period. Note the gap for each.
A gap between platforms is normal. A gap that suddenly widened, or a platform reporting more conversions than the business recorded, points to a tracking error that must be fixed before anything else.
Step 2: account structure
Structure decides how budget and learning are distributed. Look for:
- Too many campaigns or ad groups with small budgets, which keeps them in learning permanently.
- Duplicate targeting across campaigns, which makes your own campaigns compete in the same auction.
- Naming conventions that make reports readable, such as platform_goal_audience_market.
- Brand and non-brand search separated, so brand performance does not hide weak non-brand results.
- Shared budgets and portfolio strategies used deliberately, not by accident.
Step 3: are targeting and keywords sending the right people?
For search, download the search terms report for the last 90 days and sort by spend. Mark terms that are irrelevant, too broad or competitor names you do not want to bid on. Check negative keyword lists for gaps and for negatives that accidentally block good traffic.
For social and display, review audience overlap, exclusions of existing customers, location settings (presence versus interest), age and placement reports. In Google Ads Performance Max, check the placement and search term insights available and confirm brand exclusions where appropriate.
Step 4: bidding and budgets
Match the bid strategy to the data available. Target CPA or target ROAS strategies need steady conversion volume; with very few conversions they behave erratically. Check whether targets are realistic against historical results and whether campaigns are limited by budget or by bid target.
Look at budget distribution against results. It is common to find a large share of spend in campaigns with the weakest return, kept running because nobody questioned the original allocation.
Step 5: creative and messaging
Review active ads across platforms with one question: would a customer understand the offer in two seconds?
- Count active creatives per ad group; one or two leave nothing to test.
- Check ad age and frequency to spot fatigue.
- Review responsive search ads for asset strength and pinned headlines that limit combinations.
- Check that claims, prices and promotions are current and match the landing page.
- Look for format gaps, such as no vertical video on Reels or TikTok placements.
Step 6: do landing pages convert the traffic you pay for?
Paid traffic is only as good as the page it lands on. For each main landing page, test load time with PageSpeed Insights, check the mobile layout, confirm the headline matches the ad, and complete the form or checkout yourself. Use GA4 to compare conversion rate by landing page and device.
For example, an online course provider might find that its best-performing ads send traffic to a generic homepage instead of the course page they mention. Fixing the destination often does more for cost per lead than any bid change.
Step 7: reporting and attribution
Finally, check how results are reported. Are dashboards showing platform-reported conversions only, or business outcomes such as revenue, qualified leads and new customers? Is the attribution model stated? Are marketing costs compared with gross margin rather than revenue?
A good audit report ends with a prioritised list: critical fixes (tracking, wasted spend), quick wins (negatives, exclusions, budget shifts) and longer projects (landing pages, creative pipeline, measurement upgrades).
How often should you run an advertising audit?
A full audit makes sense when you take over an account, before a large budget increase and at least once a year. A lighter monthly check of tracking, search terms and budget distribution catches most problems between full audits.
A summary checklist
For quick reference, the core questions of the audit fit in one list you can copy into a shared document.
- Do conversion counts match the business records within a known margin?
- Is any campaign permanently stuck in learning?
- What share of spend went to irrelevant search terms or placements?
- Is each bid strategy supported by enough conversion data?
- Does every ad group have at least three active creatives?
- Does each ad send traffic to the page that matches its promise?
- Do reports show revenue or qualified leads, not just platform conversions?
Answering each question with a number, a percentage or a yes or no keeps the audit factual. Opinions about creative or strategy are useful, but they belong after the facts are on the table.
Share the results with everyone who touches the accounts, including in-house marketers, agencies and developers who manage tags. Many problems an audit finds sit between teams: a developer changed the checkout page and broke a tag, or a marketer added a conversion action without telling the analyst. A shared audit document, updated after each fix, keeps that from happening again.
Where to start this week
Pick your largest ad platform and do only Step 1. List every conversion action, fire one test conversion, and compare last month’s platform conversions with your CRM or store records. Write down the gap. If it is large or unexplained, stop there and fix tracking first. That single step is the foundation every other part of an advertising audit stands on.
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