Yes, you read the title right! But in order to do this, your PPC campaign audit needs to focus on the most important metrics such as conversions and net profit. What’s the point of having low CPA if you’re not getting quality leads right? Here’s how an expert PPC audit agency strategically audits an AdWords account to increase ROI by 200%.
#1 Identify Loose Targeting
The main thing a PPC audit agency looks for are areas with loose targeting. When users type a search term and click on your ad (for which you pay), they expect a tailored experience where their search intent is addressed and they find relevant information on the landing page – you simply cannot have generic ads that lead to a home page. You need to narrowly target so that keywords, ads and landing pages correlate with a user’s search intent.
#2 Check Landing Page Optimization
A PPC ad leading to the website’s homepage can kill conversions because of numerous distractions and lack of specific information or a strong call-to-action. Seasoned paid search audit professionals make sure an ad leads to a dedicated landing page that’s congruent with search intent, has the same keywords as in ad copy and a robust call-to-action to push conversions. An audit is also a good opportunity to check if the landing page is mobile friendly.
#3 Look for Negative Keywords
Another practice of good PPC audit services providers is that they look for ad spend on worthless keywords that have run in the last six months without leading to conversions. You can find the information by going to All Campaigns, then clicking on the Keywords tab, then clicking on the Details drop-down menu and reviewing ‘Search Terms All’ from there. Export data onto an Excel sheet to sort by terms with nil conversions.
#4 Check for Overlapping or Bidding Against Self
A six month period is good enough to get reliable data. If you find a keyword with at least fifty clicks that hasn’t delivered even a single conversion, you should pause it. Constantly add to your negative keywords list so you don’t end up paying for search terms that are not related to your business. During a PPC campaign audit, experts make sure keywords don’t overlap and an advertiser is not bidding against himself.
#5 Review Ad Extensions
Ad extensions are a great way to obtain more real estate and provider a more relevant user experience at no extra cost. However, with Google now factoring CTRs from ad extensions to rank ads, it’s necessary to audit them, test them and tweak them so that your ad ranking does not suffer in any way. Site Link ad extensions and Call Out ad extensions are the most effective ones for improving ad rank.
#6 Conversion Tracking Set Up
A quarterly PPC audit is a great time to check if an AdWords campaign has proper conversion tracking and the AdWords account is integrated with Google Analytics. This will help understand customer journey from click to sale. It’s important to track all relevant conversions including call conversions while keeping in mind specific business goals and campaign goals.
#7 Evaluate Ad Groups
Audit experts check if an ad group is highly targeting with narrowly themed keywords, congruent ad creative and matching landing page. You should also ensure that proper spelling and grammar is being used. New offers should be tested once quarterly to review their effectiveness. If you’re using a PPC audit to test ads, test only two different ads at a time within each ad group.
Many AdWords campaigns struggle to perform because they’re not updated and a PPC audit helps you identify areas for changes and improvements. For a stress-free audit, hand it over to experts who will do all the work!
