DIY Google Ads Audit Guide

by Sam Frost - 14/08/2026 - Google Ads

Introduction

Over the past 15 years, I’ve managed campaigns for hundreds of advertisers across agency, in-house, and freelance roles, totalling millions of dollars of spend. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the very ugly. I now focus on helping business owners to identify and reduce wasted digital advertising spend.

Having reviewed hundreds of Google Ads accounts for businesses of all types, industries, and budget sizes, I consistently see the same fundamental mistakes being made. These mistakes cause advertisers to waste precious advertising budget - sometimes upwards of 80% of their spend - on irrelevant clicks that will never turn into customers.

Too many business owners treat their Google Ads accounts like a black box, blindly pouring cash into the machine and hoping for a return.

This free Google Ads audit report consolidates the most critical, actionable steps you can take today to stop throwing good money away and start maximising your return on investment. If you are lean on time, you can skip straight to the checklist at the end of this guide for a clear, concise set of steps to take.

Introduction
Who Is This Guide For?
Prerequisite: Getting The Right Account Setup
Part 1: The Non-Negotiable Rules of Account Governance
Part 2: The Core Account Optimisation Steps
Conclusion - Implement This Google Ads Audit Guide Today
Checklist
Free Tools To Help You Work Through This
Stop Guessing and Start Growing: Get an Independent Account Audit

Who Is This Guide For?

This Google Ads Audit guide is NOT intended for expert Google Ads advertisers (whether in-house, agency, or in some other role).

This is aimed at businesses that manage their own Google Ads, advertisers starting out and so on.

I just want to be clear from the outset who this is aimed at.

Prerequisite: Getting The Right Account Setup

Before we dive into the core steps, we need to address a critical foundation. Not all Google Ads accounts are created equal.

Many advertisers inadvertently wind up using ‘Smart’ accounts (formerly called ‘Express’ accounts).

Google offers this slimmed-down experience to make it as easy as possible to get started, e.g. as part of the setup of advertising from the Google My Business interfaces, but it strips away your control and gives Google too much power over your budget.

Your Action Plan: You must ensure your account is in “Expert Mode”. Log into your account and click on “Tools & Settings” in the top navigation menu. If you see an option to “Switch to Expert Mode,” click it immediately. If you don’t see this option, you are already using a full account and are ready to proceed.

I find this isn’t as common of a problem as it used to be (as Google seems instead to be taking the approach of giving new advertisers full accounts but pushing smart campaigns instead) but it’s still worth checking.

There is NO reason to have a Smart/Expert account. This is non-negotiable in my view.

Part 1: The Non-Negotiable Rules of Account Governance

Minimising wasted spend isn’t just about tweaking keywords; it is about fundamentally changing how you govern your account and manage the people running it.

Implement these rules immediately - this is critical stuff.

1. Demand Absolute Ownership and Admin Access

If you are outsourcing your ads management (whether to an agency, a freelancer, or even in-house staff who could up and leave one day), you MUST understand how the account is set up and hold full Admin access.

Let me be clear: it is never acceptable for your agency or freelancer to restrict your access. There is no good reason for this, particularly if your payment method is on file … it is doubly unacceptable for you to hand over your payment card, and then not have full, transparent access to your account (this happens more often than you might think)

They can certainly encourage you to not go in and make rogue changes while they are managing the account (nor should you … it is both very frustrating as an ad manager, and also poor practice to have a client making changes inside the account), but the data belongs to you.

The Only Exception: The only time it is ok not to have access is if you are paying purely on performance - e.g., pay-per-lead, where the agency takes the risk on all ad spend and pays it directly themselves. This model isn’t very common in New Zealand but I do see it from time to time. For example, you run an electrician business and your agency charges you a fee per lead (and they pay Google directly for the clicks, perhaps run their own landing page infrastructure etc) and you only pay when you get a lead for your electrical services.
The Rule: If you are directly or indirectly paying the ad spend, you need access. If you don’t currently have access, then ask. Walk away immediately if an agency or freelancer claims otherwise. Outside of that specific example of partnering with a pure ‘pay on performance’ agency/freelancer, any pushback you might get about not being able to have access due to ‘intellectual property’ etc is frankly bullshit and a ruse designed to try and keep you dependent on that agency/freelancer and stop you from leaving.
- Be wary when engaging an agency/freelancer of any contracts (you do read the fine print, don’t you?) that effectively take the position that work done on your account constitutes intellectual property of the provider, and therefore means you don’t get admin access. I am not a lawyer, but I’d assume that contract like this would ‘win out’ if you were to dispute access down the track.
In-House Staff: Don’t think that just because you have an in-house, on-the-payroll employee that there isn’t risk. I’ve worked on numerous accounts (including trying to restore access) where, for example, an employee has set up the Google Ads account for the employer, nobody else in the business has ever had access to the account, and that staff member leaves. In the process, their company email is disabled and cannot necessarily be restored as easily as you’d hope. Or sometimes they used a personal Gmail (due to Google’s requirement of using Google-enabled emails to use Google Ads vs your business using Microsoft suite/Outlook) to do the setup and then when they leave the company you can’t get hold of them. For example, I once worked with a business that made a marketing staff member redundant in rather unpleasant circumstances, and needless to say that person had zero interest once they walked out the door of providing any support or help to their former employer.
- You - as the business owner - MUST have full admin access to your account, or it must sit with a shared-type company email (e.g. marketing@yourcompany.com) that is accessible with backed up 2FA codes/verification etc.

2. Scrutinise the “Management Fee vs. Ad Spend” Ratio

If you are paying for outsourced management, look closely at your management fee versus your ad spend.

Once this creeps up past 20% at an upper limit (e.g., if you have a total budget of $10,000 per month, and you are spending more than $2,000 of that on management and less than $8,000 on ad spend), you need to pay close attention to what exactly you are getting. It is not uncommon to pay a premium price for “semi-automated” management, especially if the account just relies on automated PMax campaigns.

For Smaller Accounts:

On smaller accounts, this is a bit more difficult. It’s hard to find a good agency that will work for $200 per month on a $1,000 total budget account. It’s also hard to give a specific ‘management fee versus ad spend percentage’ calculation without knowing your circumstances.

For example, $500 management fee on $1500 spend might be reasonable depending on the level of proactivity, reporting requirements, your comms requirements etc (some clients insist on lots of meetings which adds cost to the agency/freelancer, same with very laborious reporting).

Equally, you might be paying $500 for somebody to send an auto report once a month and look at some automated PMAX campaigns and basically nothing else.

All that being said, you might be better off trying to work with a freelancer or specialist to get a really robust account setup that runs somewhat on autopilot (with you checking in on search terms). You can then invest the difference back into more ad spend and simply pay for periodic (e.g., quarterly) check-ins and optimisation.

The crux of this matter being that at a certain point you are potentially just propping up an agency or freelancer’s margin, when that $$$ could be better spent on paying for more ads. When I do Google Ad account audits, it’s not uncommon to work on accounts where decent campaigns are heavily budget-constrained, while the client is paying big money to an agency for seemingly little work (and if some of that was reinvested into more ad spend/budget, it would produce a far bigger impact than whatever is gained from the premium management fee)

3. Stop Blindly Following Google’s “Recommendations” & Reps

Do not go in and implement Google’s recommendations within the account “willy-nilly.” Periodically, you will see helpful hints and reminder messages (usually highlighted in some kind of yellow or orange colour) that tell you to ‘raise your budget’, or ‘change your match types’ or whatever.

You can always consider them, but unless you get some critical red warning which means you can’t proceed, you are probably getting a “recommended” warning which is typically Google-speak for: “Do this thing to definitely make us more money, and maybe benefit you.”

Treat these automated in-account prompts exactly like the “Account Specialists” or “Support Reps” who reach out to you via phone or email:

They pitch a friendly, free consultation to discuss account strategies and optimisations.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. These specialists are essentially salespeople for Google Ads.
Their primary objective is to get you on a call and push you to implement account changes that will ALWAYS benefit Google (by increasing your spend), but only sometimes benefit your business.
I have worked with dozens of business owners who have been negatively impacted - sometimes losing tens of thousands of dollars - by blindly following the advice of these sales agents who are working to hit aggressive internal KPIs.

Your Action Plan: Ignore the calls, the emails, and the automated system recommendations. If you feel obligated to listen on the phone, do not implement anything while on the phone with them. Take notes, thank them for their time, and do your own independent research before changing your account structure.

Do not give in to the pressure to make immediate changes under ANY circumstance … there is NO downside to taking your time.

Part 2: The Core Account Optimisation Steps

Step 1: Mastering the Keyword Trifecta (Read This Twice!)

The most fundamental opportunity to reduce wasted spend comes from understanding the difference between a “keyword” and a “search term”.

In fact, not understanding this difference - and not knowing how to review the Search Terms Report - is the single biggest mistake I tend to see business owners make. If you only learn one lesson from this entire report, make it this.

If you don’t understand the difference after reading the following, then I invite you to call me on 021 027 81721 (+64 21 02781721 if outside of New Zealand) and I will take the time to explain to you on the phone, on a complimentary basis. I promise that is not just a sales pitch … maybe you’ll want to hire me, but that is a totally separate matter. Just 5 minutes of your time on the phone and I’m sure I can help you understand the difference.

At a fundamental level, the difference is as follows:

Keyword: The word or phrase you provide to Google indicating what you’d like to advertise for.
Search Term: The actual query a real person typed into Google that triggered your ad to show.

It is at your own peril that you fail to learn the crucial difference between the two.

Many beginners think their ads only show exactly for the keywords they input. For example, if you provide car detailing services in Christchurch and your keyword is “car detailing services”, you might assume you only show up for that exact phrase. However, a quick look at the Search Terms Report often reveals a horrifying truth. Your ads might be showing (and spending money) on searches like:

“car detailing jobs near me” (You are paying for people looking for careers, not your service!)
“DIY car cleaning advice” (You are not in the business of giving free advice.)
“car detailing products buy online” (They want to buy soap, not hire a professional.)

The Culprit: Match Types

Google uses “Match Types” to give itself varying degrees of leeway when matching real searches to your keywords. Although this sounds like a convenient way for Google to take more of your money (and, to a certain extent, it is) there is also a legitimacy to why keyword match types exist. Without a match type system that allows Google to ‘expand’ on a keyword, you’d potentially face a scenario where you have to effectively think of every conceivable search a customer could make. This is clearly not sustainable, hence the existence of match types.

If you don’t strictly control this, Google defaults to “Broad Match,” which gives them the most freedom - and often gives you the most junk traffic.

Match Type	Format	How It Works	Risk Level for DIYers
Broad Match	keyword	Matches any related search, including loose synonyms and broad concepts. Think of this as a ‘key theme’. E.g. a keyword of ‘car detailing’ might go so far as to cover things like ‘where is the closest petrol station car wash to me’	Very High
Phrase Match	”keyword”	Matches queries that include the core meaning or intent of your keyword, typically where the phrase itself is included in the search (but this has been watered down over time)	Medium
Exact Match	[keyword]	Matches the exact meaning or intent of your keyword very closely.	Low

Your Action Plan: Open your Search Terms Report. Identify irrelevant searches, select them, and add them as Negative Keywords. This tells Google explicitly never to show your ads for those terms again. If you’re getting lots of irrelevant search terms, then it is likely that you might need to tighten your match types (e.g. go from broad to phrase).

Step 2: Tightening Your Borders (Location Targeting)

Location targeting seems foolproof: you select your city, state, or country, and your ads only show there, right? Wrong.

By default, Google’s advanced location settings are set to target: “Presence or interest: People in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your targeted locations.” This means if you run a local plumbing business in Sydney, Australia, someone sitting in London who has previously read a news article about Sydney (showing “interest”) could potentially see and click your ad. They will never hire you, but Google will gladly charge you for the click.

Your Action Plan: Go to your Campaign Settings -> Locations -> Location Options. Change the target setting from the default to “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations.” This immediately stops your budget from bleeding across borders to users who will never become customers.

Running Google Ads without Conversion Tracking is like driving down a highway at night with your headlights turned off. You know you are moving, but you have no idea if you’re heading toward your destination or a ditch.

A “conversion” is whatever action matters to your business: a form submission, a phone call, or an e-commerce purchase. If you don’t track which specific campaigns, keywords, and ads are generating these actions, you are forced to optimise based purely on clicks. Clicks do not pay the bills; sales do.

Your Action Plan: Navigate to “Tools & Settings” -> “Conversions”. Set up tracking for your desired actions. Once implemented, you can confidently pause the keywords that are draining your budget without yielding results, and double down on the keywords driving actual revenue.
Technical Warning: Conversion tracking can be quite technical and tricky to configure. In fact, a common problem I encounter when doing Google Ads audits is business owners who have ‘had a go’ and got stuck, wound up configuring things incorrectly etc. You may need to call upon web developer input in some instances (e.g. to accurately pass purchase value in an ecommerce conversion) or a Google Ads specialist can also help. If you are using a common web platform/CMS such as Shopify or Wordpress, you’ll have an easier time as there are usually plenty of instructions online.

Step 4: Cut the Sneaky “Display Network” Tax

When you create a standard Google Search campaign, Google pre-checks a sneaky little box that opts your campaign into the Google Display Network as well.

The Search Network captures people actively looking for your product or service right now (high intent). The Display Network shows visual ads to people reading blogs, checking email, or playing mobile games (low intent). Combining these two completely different psychological states into one budget is a recipe for disaster.

For DIY advertisers, Display Expansion usually results in Google quietly spending a large chunk of your budget on cheap, low-quality clicks from mobile apps that generate zero leads.

This problem isn’t as bad as it used to be, as a while back Google basically changed its system to use the Display Network as a means of backfilling unused search budget (i.e. you’d only risk having your ads show in the event the budget wasn’t spent on search network advertising) but it can and does still happen. I recently worked with a business wasting over $5000 per month on Display Network placements in search campaigns, without them ever realising.

Your Action Plan: Go to Campaign Settings -> Networks. Uncheck “Include Google Display Network”. If you ever want to run Display Ads, create a separate, dedicated Display campaign so you can control its budget and targeting independently.

Step 5: Assess the “Google Search Partners” Trap

Similar to the Display Network, Google automatically opts new Search campaigns into “Google Search Partners.”

This allows your ads to show on hundreds of non-Google websites. While it sounds like more exposure, the traffic quality can often be poor, although it can also be decent.

In New Zealand, an example of the Search Partners network is TradeMe. You can verify this by the fact that in search term reports you can often see TradeMe category/subcategory breadcrumbs listed as search terms.

However, you shouldn’t just turn this off blindly - you need to evaluate the facts.

Your Action Plan: Segment your campaign data by “Network (with search partners).” Assess the data based on your network-segmented conversion rates. If Search Partners are driving cheap, high-quality conversions, keep it on. If it’s burning cash with zero return, go to your network settings and uncheck the box.

Step 6: Sense-Check Your 24/7 Ad Schedule

By default, Google runs your ads 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For many local service businesses, for example, paying top dollar for clicks at 2:00 AM on a Sunday is a waste of money because leads go cold by Monday morning.

But again, context is everything. I have worked with business owners who do not operate 24/7 but actually get their absolute best leads at odd hours due to when their specific demographic is online and searching. In a different context, this reminds me of Xero who published some data a while back that many of their customers use the platform very late at night (because late at night is when business owners have time to do their accounts work)

Your Action Plan: “Sense check” your schedule against your business reality. Look at your “Day and Hour” conversion data. If your late-night clicks are converting into paying customers, leave it alone. If you see high spend and zero conversions outside of business hours, use the “Ad Schedule” setting to restrict your ads to profitable timeframes.

Step 7: Block Auto-Applied Recommendations

We’ve already covered ignoring the manual “Recommendations” tab, but there is a more insidious feature you must disable: Auto-Applied Recommendations. This gives Google permission to automatically change your keyword match types, alter your bidding strategies, and add new keywords to your account behind your back. It is the ultimate loss of control.

Your Action Plan: Go to the Recommendations tab, click the “Auto-Apply” icon (it typically looks like a clock or settings gear at the top right), and uncheck every single box. You are the one paying the bills; you should be the only one making structural changes to the account.

Conclusion - Implement This Google Ads Audit Guide Today

At the end of the day, Google Ads is a powerful tool, but it is built by a multi-billion-dollar tech corporation whose primary obligation is to maximise its own revenue - not your profitability.

Every default setting, every “optimisation score,” and every automated recommendation is fundamentally engineered to make it as easy as possible for you to spend more money.

Plugging the financial leaks in your account doesn’t require a master’s degree in marketing, but it does require vigilance, healthy scepticism, and a refusal to hand over blind trust - whether to Google’s algorithms or to an agency that puts your campaigns on autopilot while collecting a fat monthly retainer.

As the business owner paying the bills, you must be the ultimate gatekeeper of your budget. Demand full admin access, audit your search terms religiously, disable the predatory default settings, and hold every single dollar accountable to real business outcomes.

Don’t let this guide become another bookmark sitting unread in your browser. Use the checklist below to systematically go through your account today, cut out the fat, and take back control of your ad spend.

Checklist

Want to save time and/or ensure you’re on the right track? Follow these simple recommended steps using this checklist.

Prerequisite: Account Type

Switch to Expert Mode: Navigate to “Tools & Settings” and ensure your account is in “Expert Mode” so you have full control over your settings and budget.

Phase 1: Agency & Account Governance

Secure Admin Access: Confirm you hold primary Admin access to your Google Ads account. (If your agency refuses, fire them).
Audit Your Fees: Calculate your management fee relative to your ad spend. If fees exceed 20% of your total budget, evaluate if you are getting real value or just paying for an automated setup.
Ignore Google Reps: Commit to ignoring phone calls and emails from Google “Account Specialists” whose main goal is to increase your ad spend.

Phase 2: Budget Protection Settings

Disable the Display Network Tax: Check your Search campaign settings and uncheck “Include Google Display Network” to prevent your budget from being wasted on low-intent mobile apps and blogs.
Lock Down Location Targeting: Go to Location Options and change the default setting to “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations” to stop your ads from showing to people outside your service area.
Block Auto-Applied Recommendations: Navigate to the Recommendations tab, click the “Auto-Apply” gear icon, and uncheck every single box to stop Google from making unauthorised changes to your account.
Evaluate Search Partners: Segment your historical campaign data by network. If “Google Search Partners” is draining cash without driving conversions, uncheck it in your campaign settings.

Phase 3: Traffic & Conversion Quality

Verify Conversion Tracking: Check “Tools & Settings > Conversions” to ensure you are accurately tracking the actions that actually pay the bills (forms, calls, purchases).
Review the Search Terms Report: Check exactly what queries are triggering your ads. Identify junk traffic (like people looking for jobs or DIY advice) and add those phrases as Negative Keywords.
Sense-Check Your Ad Schedule: Review your conversion data by day and hour. If late-night clicks are burning budget without generating qualified leads, set an Ad Schedule to only run ads during profitable hours.

Free Tools To Help You Work Through This

I’ve built a few free tools that line up directly with the steps in this guide. No signup, no email required - they run in your browser.

Keyword Match Type Generator - paste in your keywords and get them formatted correctly for broad, phrase and exact match. Useful for Step 1 if you are tightening up your match types.
Search Term Calculator - work out how much of your spend is going to a given set of search terms, which pairs well with the Search Terms Report review in Step 1.
Ad Spend Tracker - keep an eye on pacing so you know where your budget is actually going month to month.
Waste Risk Score Quiz - a quick way to gauge how exposed your account is to the problems covered in this guide.

You can find all of them on the Free Tools & Guides page.

Stop Guessing and Start Growing: Get an Independent Account Audit

If you’ve read through this report and realised your Google Ads account might be leaking cash, you have two options. You can try to navigate the maze of Google’s settings and your agency’s setup yourself, or you can get a professional, unbiased set of eyes on it.

I offer a Comprehensive Google Ads Audit, designed specifically for business owners who want the unvarnished truth about where their money is going.

This is not a “free” audit, and for good reason.

Free audits are typically disguised sales pitches where an agency runs an automated piece of software, points out some arbitrary flaws, and tries to sell you on their monthly retainer. Free audits are always done with a view to try and sell you another service, rather than give you the truth. Sometimes there is crossover, but it’s rare.

My audit is a paid, fully independent, deep-dive review of your exact setup. Because I am not trying to lock you into a management contract, I have zero incentive to sell you anything other than the truth.

What You Get:

A thorough review of your account structure, keyword match types, and negative keywords.
An analysis of your agency’s setup and management efficiency (are they earning their fee, or putting you on autopilot?).
A clear, prioritised action plan detailing exactly how to plug the leaks and scale your profitable campaigns.
Complete peace of mind knowing exactly what is happening inside your account.

Don’t let Google or an underperforming agency dictate your profitability for another month. Verify the truth about your account performance and unlock a clear pathway to improve your return from Google Ads while minimising wasted spend.

Click here to book your Independent Google Ads Audit today.

I have options available from $650 + GST, depending on the complexity of your account and deliverable options (e.g. if you want just the report, or you would also like to discuss the report and any recommended next steps and findings).

Contact Now