Most Google Ads accounts are underperforming because of configuration problems, not strategy problems. After auditing 20+ brands, we found 73% have structural gaps costing 20-40% of their monthly budget.
This quick check covers the 10 highest-impact items from our full 50-point scorecard. Each one is scored Pass/Fail. Count your passes. Your score tells you whether you need a deeper audit or you're in solid shape.
Open your Google Ads account. Let's go.
Go to your campaign list. Are branded search queries running in separate campaigns from non-brand queries?
Pass: Completely separate campaigns for brand and non-brand traffic. Fail: Brand and non-brand keywords mixed in the same campaigns.
Why this matters: Brand traffic converts at 5-10x the rate of non-brand. Mixing them inflates your non-brand performance numbers. We audited a pet products brand spending $12K/month that thought their non-brand ROAS was 2.4x. After separation, it was 0.7x. They'd been scaling a money-losing campaign for 5 months.
Go to any campaign > Settings > Locations. Check the targeting method.
Pass: Set to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations" on all campaigns. Fail: Set to "Presence or interest" (Google's default).
Why this matters: "Presence or interest" shows your ads to people who "showed interest" in your location but aren't there. We've seen US-only brands paying for clicks from India, Pakistan, and Nigeria. One electronics brand eliminated 22% of wasted clicks with this single change - roughly $3,960/month saved.
Go to Tools & Settings > Shared Library > Negative Keyword Lists.
Pass: At least one shared negative keyword list with 100+ keywords covering universal exclusions (jobs, free, DIY, wholesale). Fail: No shared lists, or lists with fewer than 50 keywords total.
Why this matters: 84% of advertisers fail this check. Account-level negatives apply to all campaigns including PMax. Without them, you're paying for clicks from job seekers, people looking for free alternatives, and completely irrelevant queries. The median well-managed account has 200-500 negatives.
Go to Ads & Assets > Assets. Check sitelinks.
Pass: 4+ sitelinks with both description lines filled, linking to relevant pages. Fail: No sitelinks, or sitelinks without descriptions.
Why this matters: Sitelinks with descriptions can double your ad's visual footprint in search results. We've measured 10-15% CTR improvements from complete extension setups across 20+ brands. This is 30 minutes of work for measurable results.
Go to Goals > Conversions > Summary. Look at the "Include in Conversions" column.
Pass: Only Purchase (e-commerce) or Lead (lead gen) is set as primary. Everything else is secondary. Fail: Add to cart, page views, or micro-conversions set as primary alongside purchases.
Why this matters: Smart Bidding optimizes for your primary conversion action. If "add to cart" is primary alongside "purchase," the algorithm treats a $0 cart addition the same as a $200 sale. One beauty brand had page views as primary - $47K wasted before catching it.
Still in Conversions > Summary. Click into your primary conversion action. Check the value settings.
Pass: Dynamic values passing actual order amounts. Spot-check against 5 recent orders. Fail: Static values ($1 or $100 for all conversions) or no values at all.
Why this matters: Target ROAS bidding needs to know what each conversion is worth. Static values mean the algorithm treats a $20 order the same as a $500 order. You can't optimize for revenue if Google doesn't know the revenue.
Look at your campaign list. Sort by ROAS or CPA. Compare performance ranking to budget allocation.
Pass: Top-performing campaigns get the highest budgets. No profitable campaigns show "Limited by budget." Fail: Budgets distributed evenly, or low-performers getting more budget than top-performers.
Why this matters: We regularly find accounts where the best campaign is capped at $50/day while an underperformer runs at $200/day. One electronics DTC uncapped their Shopping campaign and reduced PMax budget - ROAS went from 1.6x to 2.9x.
Go to Keywords > Search Terms. Check when new negative keywords were last added.
Pass: Search terms reviewed weekly or bi-weekly with negatives added each cycle. Fail: Never reviewed, or reviewed quarterly or less.
Why this matters: New irrelevant queries appear constantly. Weekly search term review is the single most impactful optimization habit in Google Ads. A supplements brand paid for 847 recipe-related search terms over 90 days - $4,712 wasted with zero conversions.
For each campaign using Smart Bidding (tROAS or tCPA), check the conversion count for the last 30 days.
Pass: 30+ conversions per campaign per month for Smart Bidding campaigns. Campaigns under 30 use Manual CPC or Maximize Conversions. Fail: Smart Bidding on campaigns with fewer than 15 monthly conversions.
Why this matters: Below 15 conversions per month, Smart Bidding is guessing. 30+ is where the algorithm stabilizes. Forcing tROAS on a 5-conversion/month campaign almost always backfires with erratic CPA and spending patterns.
Go to Account Settings. Check auto-tagging.
Pass: Auto-tagging enabled AND GCLID parameter passing correctly to conversion pages. Fail: Auto-tagging disabled, or GCLID being stripped by redirects or CDN settings.
Why this matters: The GCLID parameter is how Google Ads tracks which clicks convert. If it's disabled or stripped by your site configuration, Google can't attribute conversions to specific keywords and campaigns. Near-total attribution loss.
Count your passes out of 10.
| Score | Status | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| 9-10 | Strong | Your foundation is solid. Focus on optimization and scaling. |
| 7-8 | Good | A few fixable gaps. Each one you close improves performance measurably. |
| 5-6 | Fair | Significant structural issues. You're probably leaving 20-40% on the table. |
| Below 5 | Critical | Stop scaling. Fix your foundation before adding more budget. |
Average score across 20+ brands: 5.8 out of 10. Most accounts have 4-6 of these right.
If you scored below 8, here's the priority order based on cost impact from our audit data:
Total time for all 5: under 2 hours. Expected impact: 20-40% improvement.
This quick check covers the 10 highest-impact items. The Google Ads AI Agentic System ($4,997+) covers 50 items across 5 pillars:
Each item is scored 0/1/2, giving you a total score out of 100 with a priority fix guide ranked by cost impact. It also includes an honest assessment section on when Google Ads isn't the right channel for your business.
The quick check tells you if you have a problem. The full system tells you exactly where the problems are and what to fix first.