Most business owners paying for Google Ads have never looked inside the account properly. Not because they don't care - because it looks intimidating, and because the person running it usually sends a report that says things are fine. This checklist is for anyone who wants to know for themselves, in about half an hour, whether "fine" is accurate.

You won't fix anything in 30 minutes. But you'll know whether the account is being looked after, and you'll have a short list of specific questions to ask whoever manages it. That alone changes the conversation.

Sign in, set the date range to the last 30 days, and work through these in order.

1. Conversions: what is the account actually optimising for? (5 minutes)

Go to Goals > Conversions > Summary. Look at the list of conversion actions and, for each one, whether it's set as Primary or Secondary.

What you're looking for: every primary conversion should be a real business outcome - a purchase, a lead form, a phone call over a sensible duration, a booking. If "page view", "scroll", "button click" or anything vague is marked primary, the account is telling Google to chase those things, and Smart Bidding will obediently do so.

Also check: the "recent conversions" column. If a primary conversion hasn't recorded anything in 30 days, tracking may be broken. And look for duplicates - the same purchase counted from both a GA4 import and a Google Ads tag is one of the most common reasons reported results don't match reality.

2. Search terms: what are you paying to show up for? (8 minutes)

Campaigns > Insights and reports > Search terms. Sort by cost, highest first.

What you're looking for: read the top 50. How many are clearly relevant to what you sell? How many are jobs, free, DIY, competitor names, wrong locations, or just nothing to do with you? Make a rough tally. If more than a fifth of your top spend is going to queries you'd never want, nobody is reviewing this report regularly.

Also check: the "Added/Excluded" column. If almost nothing has been added as a keyword or excluded as a negative in the last month, that confirms it.

3. Impression share: are you limited by budget or by rank? (3 minutes)

At campaign level, add the columns Search impression share, Search lost IS (budget) and Search lost IS (rank).

What you're looking for: high lost-to-budget on your best-performing campaigns means there's profitable demand you're not buying - usually the easiest growth available. High lost-to-rank on branded campaigns means competitors are outbidding you on your own name. Very high impression share on broad generic campaigns with poor conversion rates often means spend is being spread too thin across low-intent searches.

4. Brand versus generic: is the account flattering itself? (3 minutes)

Identify which campaigns target your brand name. Compare their cost per conversion and conversion rate with everything else.

What you're looking for: brand campaigns almost always perform brilliantly because those people were coming anyway. If brand is a large share of total conversions, the account-wide numbers are being propped up by it. Ask what the generic, non-brand cost per conversion is - that's the real measure of whether the advertising is finding new customers. If brand and generic are mixed in the same campaign, that's a structural problem in itself.

5. Change history: is anyone actually working on this? (3 minutes)

Tools > Change history. Set the range to 30 days.

What you're looking for: an account in active management shows regular changes - negatives added, bids or targets adjusted, ads tested, budgets moved. A handful of changes in a month, or none, means the account is on autopilot. That's not always wrong for a very mature, stable account, but it's usually not what you're paying for.

6. Ads: are they being tested, and are they any good? (4 minutes)

Open your highest-spending ad group and look at the ads.

What you're looking for: at least one responsive search ad with a "Good" or "Excellent" ad strength and a full set of distinct headlines - not the same message repeated with different punctuation. Ads with "Poor" strength, headlines that don't mention what the ad group is about, or a single ad that hasn't been touched in a year are all signs of neglect. Click a few ads and check the landing page matches the promise.

7. Settings that quietly leak money (4 minutes)

Open the settings of your main campaigns and check:

  • Networks - is Display Network ticked on a Search campaign? It shouldn't be. Search partners are worth checking by performance.
  • Locations - "Presence or interest" lets people outside your area who show interest trigger your ads. For local service businesses, "Presence" is usually right. Check the location report for spend from places you don't serve.
  • Ad schedule - if you can't answer the phone at 2am, should you be bidding at 2am?
  • Auto-apply recommendations - if this is switched on, Google has been making changes to your account by itself. Decide whether you're comfortable with that.
  • Bid strategy and target - does the target bear any relation to your actual margins? Ask how it was set.

What your findings usually mean

  • Wrong primary conversions - the single most expensive issue, because every other decision is built on it. Fix first.
  • Dirty search terms and an empty change history together - the account isn't being managed. Have the conversation.
  • Brand carrying the numbers - the real performance is weaker than reported. Ask for brand and generic split out in every report from now on.
  • Budget-limited winners - there's growth available cheaply. Move money from weak campaigns before adding new budget.
  • Leaky settings - quick wins; fix them this week.

What to do next

Write down what you found in plain language - "£1,400 of last month's spend went to searches containing 'jobs'", "primary conversions include a page view", "no changes in change history since July" - and put it to whoever manages the account. A good manager will welcome it and explain; a defensive response is information too.

If you'd rather someone experienced went through it properly, that's exactly what a free PPC audit is: the full version of this checklist, with the context and recommendations, and no obligation afterwards.

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