05/19/2022

The PPC Audit Process – Ultimate Guide

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When you invest time, money, and effort into creating a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, you want to make sure that it’s working for your business. A good PPC campaign will drive valuable results for your business. The best way to figure out if your campaign is working is with a PPC audit.

A PPC campaign that is successful can yield valuable results. An audit of your PPC campaign is the best way for you to know if it works.

This PPC Audit Guide will give you detailed information on how to set up a PPC auditor. It also includes a 10-step checklist.

Let’s get started!

Kobe Digital is here to help, regardless of whether you’re a local user looking for PPC services in your area or if PPC services are required in Detroit.

What’s a PPC audit?

PPC audits evaluate the effectiveness and performance of your paid advertising strategy. PPC audits assess the effectiveness of your paid advertising strategy by looking at individual ads and groups.

Why is a PPC Audit important?

You have likely heard that PPC audits are essential for every campaign. 

Auditing your campaign has many benefits. Here are a few:

  • This will enable you to evaluate how your strategy has performed over time. This will enable you to see how your strategy is performing over time.
  • You will discover performance issues. You will be able to find and fix any issues in your PPC campaign.
  • PPC audits can give you an insight into how your campaign compares to other campaigns. 
  • Your campaign will be improved: There’s always room to improve any digital marketing campaign. A review of your PPC campaign can reveal areas where optimizations could be made.
  • A PPC audit will help you learn more about your audience. This will enable you to understand your audience and identify areas that can be improved to make your ads more appealing.

Checklist to complete the 10-step PPC audit

Have you ever done a PPC account audit? The PPC audit checklist can help you start (and finish) your PPC account audit. 

1. Select a date range

Choosing a date range is the first step to creating a PPC audit. It’s important to have enough data to conduct analysis.

Do not examine data for less than 30 days. To track changes over time, you need to have more data.

At least three months of data should be considered. Additional data can help you see the full scope and impact of your campaign.

2. Access the data 

All data can be downloaded as you are analyzing large amounts of data. Export your entire PPC account or select campaign data.

If you run the same ads on both Bing and Google, you will need to download data for Bing ads. This will give you a greater range of results from your PPC efforts.

All data can be downloaded to Excel. This will allow data to be arranged.

3. Document your budget

You should know how much you spent on each campaign during your PPC audit. 

When conducting an audit, it is vital to keep track of your cost-per-click (CPC) and the number of clicks you have available. This information will allow you to determine the success of your campaign.

4. Have a look at your ads

This is on the ly non-metric part of your PPC campaigns that you should monitor. Your ad content directly affects how your audience responds to your ads.

First, ensure that your ads target a specific group of people. This will help you make your campaign products more successful.

Next, make sure your ad content answers the question “What’s it for me?” Next, check to see if your ad content answers “What’s in it for me?”

It is important to make sure that your ad copy contains a clear and effective call to action.

Make sure your keywords are integrated into your PPC ad 

These are just a few of the things you need to consider in your campaign. Clear and concise copy is key to effective PPC ads.                           

5. Log your quality score

Quality score is the most important aspect of your PPC campaign. To increase your ad placement, you can improve your quality score

Your ad relevance and ClClick-through (CTR), are two factors that affect your quality score. 

Quality score is an important part of your PPC audit. Increasing your quality score will improve the overall performance of your ad.

A high-quality core in your keyword selections will help you maintain your rankings.

6. Your keyword targeting

It is important to audit the keywords you choose when performing a PPC audit. Keyword selections are crucial to driving leads to your ads.

Optimizing long-tail keywords for SEO is the most important thing. A long-tail keyword would include “flower shops in Harrisburg”, PA.

Long-tail keywords are a great way to drive qualified leads to your website

7. Analyze click-throughs and conversion rates

These metrics will be examined next in the PPC audit checklist. Both are important and can have a major impact on your conversion rates.

Your ad’s success will be determined by its CTR.

If your CTR is low, you may need to modify your ad copy. It also means that your PPC ad appears relevant in search results.

It’s not enough just to have a high CTR. But once they click it, their landing page is no longer relevant.

The ultimate goal is to have high CTR and conversion rates. These metrics can be used to compare your performance and identify areas where you may be struggling.

8. Reexamine all offers

Track your bid amounts for PPC campaigns. This number allows you to keep track of how much you spend on leads for our business.

A business must have enough profit margins to make it profitable. It might be possible to reevaluate your strategy and reduce your costs to increase clicks.

A review of your bid amount will help you to determine if it could be lower. 

9. Check your location targeting

Location analysis will help you with your PPC audit. If you have a strong online presence and sell products all over the country,

Location analysis can help you track where your ads perform best. It’s a great way to determine which cities are most likely to bring you business.

This will allow you to identify areas where you could increase your advertising spend. If certain cities are delivering better results, you might spend more on them.

Location analysis can be used to help you determine where to move funds into the best Google Ads results.

10. Rectify areas in which you have spent money

Companies don’t like to waste their money. Don’t waste your time on digital advertising strategies. 

Wasted spend is the amount of money you lose on your Google Ads campaigns. This will show you where you are losing conversions and how much you’re spending to get leads.

It is important to not ignore keywords. People click your ad when they don’t find it relevant to their search. 

Let’s say you own a bakery. You created a PPC ad to advertise your red velvet cakes to brides and other party throwers. Your long-tail keyword is red velvet cake.

Let’s say someone searches for red velvet cake pops. Even though your bakery doesn’t make them, your ad shows up in search results.

Cake pops-seeking people will click on your ad and find out that you don’t have the product they need. 

These keywords are where negative keywords can be helpful. You would use the negative keyword “pop” to ensure you don’t appear in search results for “cake pops”.

This trick will allow you to cut down on advertising spend.

Increasing your leads and converting them can be improved.

About the author

Kobe Digital is a unified team of performance marketing, design, and video production experts. Our mastery of these disciplines is what makes us effective. Our ability to integrate them seamlessly is what makes us unique.