A Naver ads audit is the first thing we do when a brand hands us an account for the Korean market, and the rule is simple: nothing gets changed until we understand why the account looks the way it does. Naver Search Ads behaves differently from Google Ads in ways that matter. Bidding is still largely manual and keyword by keyword, placement is sold by position on a crowded results page, and the platform leaves more of the optimisation to the advertiser. An account that looks messy may be messy on purpose, and an account that looks tidy may be leaking money in places the dashboard does not highlight.
This is the checklist we work through, in order. The order matters, because each step depends on the one before it. There is no point judging keyword performance if conversions are not measured, and no point debating bids if the ads are showing for the wrong searches.
Is conversion tracking real?
Start with measurement. Naver’s own conversion tracking works through its analytics script, and the most common failure we find is a script installed on the landing page but not on the confirmation page, or a purchase event firing on every page view of the thank-you screen. Place a test order or submit a test form and check that exactly one conversion appears, attributed to the right campaign. If the site also runs Google Analytics, compare the two for the same week. They will not match exactly, but a gap of several times means one of them is wrong.
Check the value as well as the count. Many accounts record conversions without revenue, which makes return on ad spend impossible to calculate and turns every later decision into a guess about volume rather than profit.
Which products are actually running?
Naver sells several ad products that appear in different parts of the results page: PowerLink text ads, shopping search ads, content-style placements, brand search for branded queries, and place ads for local businesses. List which ones the account uses and what share of spend each takes. We often find a brand paying for generic PowerLink traffic while its own brand name has no brand search placement, which leaves the most valuable query exposed to competitors and resellers.
3. Keyword structure and match behaviour
Export every keyword with its spend, clicks and conversions over at least 90 days. Then sort by spend and read the top of the list with a simple question: would a real customer type this? Naver accounts accumulate keywords over years, and it is normal to find hundreds of terms with spend and no conversions, or near-duplicate variants split across ad groups that compete with each other.
- Group keywords by intent, not by the order they were added: brand, product, problem, competitor, informational.
- Look for the same keyword in more than one ad group; decide which one should own it.
- Review the search term data for irrelevant queries and add them as exclusions.
- Check that Korean and romanised spellings of the brand are both covered.
4. Quality index
Every keyword carries a quality index, shown as a bar score, which affects both position and cost. Low scores usually trace back to one of three things: an ad whose text does not reflect the keyword, a landing page that does not answer the search, or a keyword placed in a group with unrelated terms. Sort by spend and fix the expensive low-score keywords first. Raising the quality of a keyword that already spends heavily lowers the price of every click it buys.
5. Bids by position and device
Because Naver bidding is largely manual, bids tend to freeze at whatever someone set when the campaign launched. Compare each major keyword’s bid with the position it actually achieves and with what that position is worth. Paying for first position on a term where the third slot converts just as well is one of the most common forms of waste we find.
Split the results by device. Korean search is heavily mobile, but the mobile results page shows fewer ads, so the gap between top position and everything else is much wider there. PC and mobile often need very different bids for the same keyword, and a single bid applied to both is rarely right for either.
6. Ad copy and extensions
Read every active ad as a Korean customer would. Check that prices, promotions and delivery promises are current, that the tone suits the local market rather than reading like a translation, and that extensions such as sitelinks, phone numbers and images are in use where the product allows them. Extensions increase the space an ad occupies on a crowded page, and on Naver that space is often the difference between being seen and being scrolled past.
7. Landing pages
Open the landing page for each top keyword on a phone. Korean users expect fast pages, clear prices and familiar payment methods such as Naver Pay or KakaoPay. A page that loads slowly, asks for a long sign-up before checkout, or shows content written for another market will undo everything the account does well.
8. Schedules, regions and budget pacing
Finally, check when and where the ads run. Look at conversion rates by hour and day, and at whether daily budgets run out before the evening peak. An account that spends its whole budget by early afternoon is invisible exactly when many buyers are searching. Regional targeting should match where the business can actually deliver.
What comes out of the audit
The output is not a list of fifty changes. It is a short, ordered plan: fix measurement, remove clear waste, restructure the keywords that carry most of the spend, then adjust bids and copy once the data can be trusted. Most of the gains in a Naver account come from the first two steps, and they are the ones most often skipped because they feel less like optimisation. If you would like a second pair of eyes on your account, our Naver ads team runs this audit as the first step of every engagement.
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