Most accounts underperform for a small number of fixable reasons: wrong conversion tracking, Smart Bidding pointed at bad data, keyword structure that kills CTR, and two default settings Google turns on that damage most campaigns they're left on. Surface-level audits flag the symptoms. A real audit finds which of those is the actual problem.
Check Conversion Tracking Before Anything Else
When I open an account for the first time, I go straight to conversion tracking before I look at campaigns, keywords, or bids. Not because it's always broken. But if it is, nothing else I look at means anything.
Google actively suggests conversions that inflate performance. Direction requests from your Google Business Profile. Calls from Smart Campaigns. Page views. Engaged sessions. These show up as "recommended" in the interface and a lot of accounts have them turned on, especially ones clients set up themselves where nobody explained what those events actually count.
I've opened accounts that looked like they were performing well. Good conversion volume, low CPA on paper. Then I check what's actually being tracked and find it's GMB direction requests and Smart Campaign calls. The client had no idea why the phone wasn't ringing. The campaign was "converting" the whole time. We swapped in real conversions (call from ads, click-to-call on the site, booked appointments), rebuilt around those, and calls started coming in. The account wasn't the problem. What it was counting was.
CPA, ROAS, conversion rate. All of it is downstream of what you've decided counts. Get that wrong at the start and the whole audit is wrong.
Maximize Conversions on Bad Tracking Is Actively Harmful
The most common bidding mistake I see isn't a bad strategy. It's a good strategy pointed at the wrong thing. Maximize Conversions with broken conversion tracking doesn't just waste budget. Google will find something to optimize toward. Just not what you want.
I've seen accounts where Maximize Conversions had been running with no real conversion data, and the campaign drifted into going after competitor brand searches. People typing a competitor's name and phone number trying to reach that business directly. Maybe to pay a bill, ask a question. Not leads. Google found those searches, noticed they generated calls, and kept going after them. The CPA looked fine in the account. Every lead was garbage.
You catch this in the search terms report, not in headline metrics. If you're only looking at CPA and call volume, the account looks fine. That's why it goes unnoticed.
The other issue: after Maximize Conversions has run for months on bad data, you can't just fix the tracking and swap strategies. The account's history is built on junk signals. It's essentially starting over, and the longer it ran wrong the harder that is.
My default when tracking is broken: switch to Manual CPC or Maximize Clicks, fix the conversions, let real data build, then move to Smart Bidding once Google has something real to work with. Slower, but it actually works.
Ad Group Structure and Keyword Intent
The most common structural problem is too many keywords in one ad group. 20, 50, sometimes 200 or more. Mixed intents, mixed services, all on broad match. Usually the account was built fast, or someone kept adding keywords over time without thinking about where they belonged.
When the keywords don't match the ad copy, CTR drops. Lower CTR hurts Expected CTR, which is the highest-weighted Quality Score component. Lower QS means lower Ad Rank, which means you're paying more to show up in the same auctions. It compounds. I've seen accounts where reorganizing ad groups and tightening match types brought CPCs down without touching bids at all.
The other thing I cut immediately is informational keywords. Searches like "how much does roof replacement cost" or "what is HVAC." Those are research searches. The person isn't looking for a vendor yet. Running paid ads against informational traffic burns budget on people who aren't going to call. I cut them and tell clients we can test them later once the campaign is working. They don't belong in the initial build.
Clients push back on this sometimes. They want to show up for everything. But every informational click is budget not going to someone who's actually ready to hire. The budget is almost always limited. You want every dollar going toward the bottom of the funnel.
For match types, I start with phrase or exact on new or restructured campaigns. Broad match can work, but not until there's a solid negative keyword list, real conversion data, and a Smart Bidding strategy to pair it with. Broad match on a new campaign with no negatives and Manual CPC is how you spend a lot of money fast with nothing to show for it.
The Search Terms Report Is Where You Actually See What's Happening
I spend real time in the search terms report during an audit. Not just scrolling for obvious junk. Actually reading what queries triggered the ads and what patterns show up across the data.
Competitors showing up is a red flag. People searching a competitor's name and number aren't going to convert. They're trying to reach somebody else. Wrong service searches mean keyword intent is off or match types are too loose. Geographic bleed means location targeting is set wrong. Any of those patterns in volume means something structural is broken, not just that a few negatives are missing.
The search terms report also tells you how fast an account has been getting polluted. If it's been running six months with no negative keyword work and 40% of search terms are irrelevant, that's not a cleanup job. That's a structural problem that's been running since day one.
Negative Keywords Before the Campaign Goes Live
Accounts without a negative keyword list get polluted fast. Within the first week on broad match. I add a baseline list before a campaign launches, then mine existing search terms on top of that once there's data. The preset list handles universal junk. The mined terms handle the specific ways this particular campaign is wasting money.
The negatives I add to almost every account from day one are the informational modifiers: who, what, how, why, when. If someone's search starts with any of those, they're usually researching, not buying. Then: DIY, do it yourself, free, video, videos, PDF, template, example, definition, salary, jobs, careers. These catch searches that are clearly not from someone looking for a vendor.
Beyond the baseline, every account needs its own account-specific negatives based on what's actually showing up in search terms. A roofing company will have different junk traffic than a personal injury law firm. The baseline gets you started. Regular search term reviews keep it clean over time.
Two Settings Google Defaults Wrong
These show up in almost every self-managed account I audit. Not buried in some advanced settings page. Right in the main campaign settings. Google labels them "recommended" during setup, most people leave them on, and nobody goes back to check.
Search Partners + Display Network
Google checks both by default when you create a Search campaign. Search Partners are third-party sites with search functionality. Display puts your text ads on image-based placements.
What it looks like in the data: CPCs drop, impressions spike, CTR tanks. Spam leads start coming in. Spend is going out, but not to people searching on Google.
Fix: Campaign Settings → Networks → uncheck bothLocation targeting: Presence or Interest
Google recommends "Presence or interest" by default. That means ads show to people interested in your target location, not necessarily in it. Someone in another state searching for "[city] plumber" can trigger your campaign.
The symptom clients report: getting calls from places they don't serve. It's almost always this setting. One change fixes it.
Fix: Location options → Presence: People in targeted locationsI check both in every audit. Easy to miss because Google frames them as best practices. The damage they cause doesn't look obviously wrong in headline metrics. It just looks like normal waste.
Missing Extensions Hurt Ad Rank
Ad assets factor into Ad Rank. Google's calculation includes the expected impact of extensions, so an account missing callouts, sitelinks, call extensions, and structured snippets is at a disadvantage in every single auction. You're paying more per click to hold a position a better-configured account would hold for less.
In self-managed accounts, extensions are almost always incomplete. They're not part of the main campaign creation flow. You have to set them up separately, and most people don't know to do that. The ones I see missing most often: callouts (short differentiator phrases, easy to write, almost always skipped), sitelinks without descriptions (descriptions are what actually help Ad Rank; sitelinks without them are half-done), call extensions on service business campaigns (no call extension means mobile users have to click through to find your number), and structured snippets for services, products, or categories.
Adding these doesn't fix a broken account. But when the fundamentals are otherwise solid, it's one of the faster improvements. Set them up once and they help every auction from that point on.
How I Actually Run an Audit
Operator Workflow- Conversion tracking first, always. If I see page views, GMB directions, or Smart Campaign calls in the active conversions list, I stop there. I won't look at anything else until that's fixed. Every number in the account is unreliable until the tracking is right.
- Then I look at the bidding strategy relative to what's actually being tracked. Maximize Conversions with no real conversion history is almost always a problem. I'd rather run Manual CPC with tight match types and clean negatives while real data builds than let Maximize Conversions optimize toward junk for another month.
- Campaign settings. Search Partners, Display Network, location targeting. I check all of these before I touch structure. I've seen accounts where the client had been getting calls from states they don't serve for months because location targeting was set to "Presence or Interest." That's a settings problem, not a campaign problem.
- Search terms report is where I spend the most time. Reading through what people actually searched, not just flagging obvious junk. Competitor queries, wrong service searches, informational traffic. Those patterns tell you more about what's structurally wrong than the campaign settings do.
- I add a negative keyword list before any campaign goes live. Universal junk first: informational modifiers, DIY terms, job seeker searches. Then account-specific terms based on what's already in the search history. Broad match without negatives is just paying to figure out what should have been blocked from the start.
- When I give a client audit findings, I explain why each thing is happening and what they should expect when it's fixed. "Conversion tracking is tracking the wrong events and that's why the campaign looks like it's working but you're not getting calls" is actually useful. "Conversion tracking needs to be updated" isn't.
Fixing conversion tracking will make performance look worse before it looks better.
When you replace junk conversions with real ones, the conversion count drops. CPA goes up. The account looks like it declined. Clients sometimes panic. It didn't decline. You just started measuring something real. The actual results were always this bad. Now you can see them clearly and fix them.
Most problems in a self-managed account aren't campaign problems. They're setup problems.
Wrong conversion tracking, Search Partners on, location targeting set to "Presence or Interest," no negative keywords, extensions missing. These aren't ongoing optimization issues. They're one-time fixes that should have happened at launch. An account can run badly for months or years because nobody went back and checked the setup.
Broad match is fine once the fundamentals are right.
There's a lot of debate about broad match. My view: it works well paired with Smart Bidding and real conversion data. It doesn't work on a new campaign with no negatives, Manual CPC, and bad tracking. The problem isn't broad match. It's using broad match before the account has what it needs to run it well.
Google's recommendations are not neutral.
Search Partners, Display Network expansion, "Presence or Interest" location targeting, auto-applied recommendations. These are on by default or actively pushed because they benefit Google's revenue, not because they're right for your campaign. Check every setting manually when setting up a campaign. Don't assume what Google recommends is what you should do.
An audit without a "what to expect" is just a list of complaints.
The point of an audit isn't to identify problems. It's to give someone a clear picture of why the account is underperforming and what actually changes when those things are fixed. A list of issues with no context doesn't help anyone prioritize or know what success looks like afterward.