Why I'm rethinking how I audit Google Ads accounts

I recently audited a Google Ads account for an orthodontist.

I looked at the account structure, the targeting, the ad copy and the landing pages, then discussed my findings with the client.

During the discussion, she pushed back on one of my suggestions. She used the phrase:

My gut feeling is...

I won't get into the technical details, but the account setup meant there was no way to prove which of us was right.

• I made the suggestion based on almost 20 years of Google Ads experience.
• She rejected it based on almost 20 years of orthodontic experience.

I gave her my reasons and let her go with her instinct. It's her money, her call. But because of how the account was set up, we will never know if she was right. Not eventually, never.

It was only early the next morning while I was surfing that it hit me: My case was no stronger than hers. We were both making expensive marketing decisions on experience alone.

To be clear, I'm not calling her out.

I've done hundreds of Google Ads audits over the years, and they've all followed roughly the same pattern.

• Someone contacts me because they're unhappy with performance.
• I review the account and landing pages.
• I make recommendations based on the data that's available, together with what's worked in similar businesses.
• They implement the recommendations, or they don't.

The problem is that most Google Ads decisions aren't based on complete evidence.

We make decisions like:

• Should we run ads 24 hours a day, even though we don't know if 2am clicks ever become customers?
• Should we add call assets, even though we don't know how many of those calls are genuine prospects rather than existing customers or wrong numbers?
• Should we pay Google for clicks on our Google Business Profile, even though we don't know if those clicks ever become paying customers?

At best, an audit surfaces these blind spots. It can seldom resolve them.

The old audit process ends with my recommendations. If the client implements what I suggest, performance usually improves. But we rarely know which of our changes actually caused it.

That's made me rethink how I approach Google Ads audits. Rather than starting with the account, I think we should start by mapping what we can actually prove, and where the gaps are.

We'll start with questions like:

• Can we identify which leads came from Google Ads?
• Do we know which leads became qualified?
• Which became customers?
• How much revenue did they generate?
• Which campaigns, keywords or searches produced those customers?
• What happened to the leads that didn't buy?

I'm still working out exactly how this audit will work in practice.

As for the orthodontist, we'll never know who was right this time. But her team is setting up complete click-to-sale tracking. Next time we look at the account, this particular decision won't come down to opinion alone.

Related articles

What is Google actually learning from?

Browser-based conversion tracking tells Google what the browser saw. Offline conversions can tell Google what actually happened in the business. As Google increasingly learns from conversion signals, I think that distinction matters.

Offline conversion tracking with Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is one of the most popular form plugins for WordPress. But, if you're running Google Ads, there is a problem. Contact Form 7 can tell you that somebody submitted a form. It can't tell Google Ads if that person became a customer.

The Google Ads WhatsApp conversion tracking guide

Optimising your Google Ads campaigns for a click on a WhatsApp button on your website is a waste of money. You can't sell to a click. That's why I built Convertista to track WhatsApp leads and sales as Google Ads conversions. Since building it I've spoken with hundreds of business owners and PPC professionals about conversion tracking. The same questions keep coming up. I put the answers in this guide.

Offline Conversion Tracking with Fluent Forms

Fluent Forms is a great way to capture leads from a WordPress website. But if you run Google Ads there is a gap in the system. Google can see the click and it can see the form submission. But it can't see what happens after the lead arrives. Here's how I helped a client close that gap.

The problem with call duration conversions

On the surface using call duration as a proxy for call quality is a reasonable idea. The thinking is that poor-fit leads or spam callers often hang up quickly. Good quality leads usually talk for longer. Put another way, a long call equals a good lead. But this isn't always true.

My lead count doesn't match my conversion count

The lead count from Google in your CRM almost never matches the number of conversions in your ad account. Trying to reconcile the difference is a shortcut to madness. Here's why.

Topics you'll find on this site