Google Ads Audit Checklist: 50 Points That Actually Matter for E-Commerce

Verify that your primary conversion action is set to purchase (not page view or add-to-cart).

Smart Bidding optimises toward whatever you mark as primary. If it is optimising for add-to-cart, you are paying for intent rather than revenue.

Confirm that conversion values match your actual order values, not static placeholder amounts.

Static values make every order look identical to the algorithm, preventing it from prioritising high-AOV customers.

Check that Enhanced Conversions is enabled and passing hashed first-party data.

Enhanced Conversions recover 5-15 percent of conversions lost to cookie restrictions, giving Smart Bidding more signal to work with.

Ensure Google Ads and GA4 conversion counts match within a 10 percent margin.

Large discrepancies indicate duplicate tracking, missing tags, or attribution mismatches that distort your true ROAS.

Validate that the conversion tag fires only once per transaction, not on every page load after purchase.

Duplicate firing inflates conversion counts and tricks the algorithm into thinking low-quality traffic is converting.

Review your conversion window settings to match your actual purchase cycle length.

A 7-day window on a product with a 30-day consideration cycle means you are losing credit for conversions your ads actually drove.

Confirm that micro-conversions (add-to-cart, begin checkout) are tracked as secondary, not primary actions.

Secondary actions give you funnel visibility without confusing Smart Bidding about what it should actually optimise for.

Verify that campaigns are segmented by objective: prospecting versus retargeting versus brand defence.

Mixing objectives in a single campaign prevents proper budget allocation and makes it impossible to measure true acquisition cost.

Check that your campaign naming convention is consistent and includes campaign type, objective, and target audience.

Inconsistent naming slows down analysis, increases error rates during optimisation, and makes it harder to train new team members.

Ensure that no more than 2-3 campaign types are competing for the same product group.

Internal competition between your own campaigns inflates CPCs and fragments data that the algorithm needs to optimise effectively.

Confirm that branded and non-branded search campaigns are separated.

Blending brand and generic search inflates your reported ROAS and hides the true cost of acquiring new customers.

Review account-level settings for location targeting, language, and network opt-ins.

Search Partners and Display Network opt-ins are enabled by default and can quietly drain budget on low-quality placements.

Check that you are using the correct campaign structure for your catalogue size and monthly spend.

An account with 50 SKUs needs a very different structure from one with 5,000 SKUs. Over-segmentation starves campaigns of data; under-segmentation hides poor performers.

Confirm that all active products are approved in Merchant Center with zero disapprovals or warnings.

Disapproved products cannot show in Shopping or Performance Max. Even warnings can reduce impression share significantly.

Verify that product titles include the primary keyword, brand name, and key attributes like size and colour.

Google matches Shopping ads to search queries using your product title, not your keyword list. A weak title means missed impressions.

Check that product descriptions are detailed, keyword-rich, and at least 150 words.

Descriptions feed Google additional context for query matching and also affect your Quality Score equivalent in Shopping.

Ensure that Google Product Category is set to the most specific level, not a top-level parent category.

Specific categorisation helps Google understand your product and match it to relevant queries instead of broad, low-intent searches.

Validate that product images meet specifications: white background, no watermarks, no promotional overlays.

Non-compliant images can get products disapproved. Even when approved, poor images reduce click-through rates by 20-30 percent.

Confirm that pricing and availability data updates at least daily and matches your live website.

Price or availability mismatches trigger automatic disapprovals and erode trust with shoppers who click through to find different information.

Check that custom labels are set up to segment products by margin, best-seller status, or promotional category.

Custom labels let you create separate campaigns or bidding strategies for high-margin products versus clearance items.

Verify that GTIN, MPN, and brand identifiers are populated for all applicable products.

Missing identifiers can reduce eligibility for certain ad formats and decrease your competitiveness in the auction.

Ensure that supplemental feeds are configured for any attributes your primary feed cannot easily provide.

Supplemental feeds let you add custom labels, promotional pricing, and additional attributes without modifying your main data source.

Confirm that asset groups have at least 5 headlines, 5 descriptions, 5 images, and 1 video.

Incomplete asset groups limit the combinations Google can test and reduce your presence across channels like YouTube and Display.

Verify that audience signals include both your remarketing lists and custom intent segments.

Audience signals do not restrict targeting, but they tell the algorithm where to start looking. Weak signals mean longer learning periods and wasted spend.

Check that brand exclusions are enabled to prevent Performance Max from cannibalising your branded search traffic.

Without brand exclusions, Performance Max will claim credit for brand searches, inflating its ROAS while costing you incremental revenue.

Review the asset performance ratings and replace any assets rated as Low.

Low-rated assets drag down your overall asset group performance and waste impressions on creative that does not resonate.

Ensure that URL expansion is configured intentionally, not left on the default setting.

URL expansion can send traffic to irrelevant pages like your blog or about page. Either exclude those URLs or disable expansion entirely.

Confirm that your final URL is your best-converting landing page, not your homepage.

Performance Max uses your final URL as the primary destination. Sending traffic to a generic homepage sacrifices the conversion rate advantage of targeted pages.

Verify that product groups are subdivided beyond the default all-products grouping.

A single all-products group applies the same bid to your best-seller and your worst performer, guaranteeing wasted spend.

Check that negative keywords are applied at the campaign level to filter out irrelevant search queries.

Shopping campaigns match broadly. Without negatives, you pay for searches like free, DIY, or competitor names that will never convert.

Confirm that you have excluded products with zero margin or perpetually out-of-stock items.

Advertising unprofitable or unavailable products wastes budget and creates poor user experiences that hurt your brand.

Review search term reports for the last 30 days and add irrelevant terms as negatives.

Regular search term hygiene prevents budget leakage and keeps your Shopping campaigns focused on queries with purchase intent.

Ensure priority settings are correct if you run tiered Shopping campaigns for different query types.

Incorrect priority settings can route high-intent queries to your low-bid catch-all campaign instead of your high-bid priority campaign.

Confirm that each ad group contains tightly themed keywords with no more than 15-20 keywords per group.

Overstuffed ad groups dilute relevance, lower Quality Score, and prevent you from writing ad copy that matches the searcher intent.

Verify that Responsive Search Ads have at least 10 unique headlines and 3 descriptions pinned strategically.

More headline options give Google more combinations to test. Strategic pinning ensures your key value proposition always appears.

Check that all ad extensions are active: sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, price, and promotion extensions.

Extensions increase your ad real estate and CTR by 10-20 percent at no additional cost per click.

Review the search terms report and ensure irrelevant queries are excluded as negative keywords.

Even with exact match expansion, Google matches you to queries you never intended. Regular negative keyword maintenance protects your budget.

Validate that landing page URLs in your ads point to relevant, fast-loading product or category pages.

Sending a user who searched for a specific product to a generic category page increases bounce rate and kills conversion rate.

Confirm that keyword match types are intentional and you are not running broad match without Smart Bidding.

Broad match without Smart Bidding is an open invitation for Google to spend your budget on loosely related queries.

Verify that your target ROAS or target CPA is based on actual business economics, not an arbitrary round number.

A target ROAS that is too aggressive restricts volume. One that is too lenient wastes margin. Both should be derived from your break-even ROAS calculation.

Confirm that campaigns have exited the learning period and have at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days.

Smart Bidding needs sufficient conversion data to make accurate predictions. Campaigns below this threshold produce erratic performance.

Check that bid strategy changes are made gradually, with no more than 15-20 percent adjustments at a time.

Large bid changes reset the learning period and create volatility. Incremental adjustments let the algorithm adapt without disruption.

Review device, location, and time-of-day bid adjustments to ensure they reflect actual performance data.

Default bid adjustments assume all traffic is equal. Your data will show that mobile converts differently from desktop and evening traffic outperforms morning traffic.

Ensure that portfolio bid strategies are grouping campaigns with similar goals and conversion rates.

Portfolios share data across campaigns to accelerate learning, but mixing campaigns with different objectives confuses the algorithm.

Verify that remarketing lists are populated and segmented by funnel stage: viewers, cart abandoners, and past purchasers.

A single remarketing list treats a 5-second visitor the same as someone who added to cart. Segmentation lets you bid higher for warmer audiences.

Check that Customer Match lists are uploaded and refreshed at least monthly.

Customer Match lets you target existing customers for cross-sells, exclude recent purchasers from acquisition campaigns, and build lookalike audiences.

Confirm that in-market and affinity audiences are applied as observation layers, not targeting restrictions.

Observation mode lets you see which audiences perform best without limiting reach. Use the data to inform bid adjustments and creative decisions.

Ensure that audience exclusions prevent wasted spend on recent purchasers in acquisition campaigns.

Without exclusions, you pay to re-acquire customers who bought yesterday. Exclude recent purchasers for at least your average reorder window.

Confirm that all ad destination URLs load in under 3 seconds on mobile with no broken elements.

Every additional second of load time reduces conversions by 7-12 percent. Slow pages also lower your Quality Score, increasing your CPCs.

Verify that landing pages have clear CTAs, trust signals, and product information above the fold on mobile.

Paid traffic expects immediate relevance. If users have to scroll or search for key information, they leave and your cost per acquisition rises.