The Top 10 Things You Should Do When Reviewing a Google Ads Account for Optimization

1. Check Conversion Tracking

Why It Matters:
Conversion data is the backbone of optimization. Without accurate tracking, you’re making decisions based on guesswork, which can lead to poor strategy, wasted budget, and missed opportunities. You need to know what actions are truly moving the needle—calls, forms, purchases, etc.—and how much each is costing.

How to Do It:
Go to Tools & Settings → Conversions and confirm that the right actions are being tracked. Use Google Tag Assistant or Test Mode to verify live tracking. Ensure conversions are set to “Primary” if they’re being used for bidding.

2. Review Search Terms

Why It Matters:
Google matches your keywords to real-world search queries—and not all of them are good matches. Reviewing search terms lets you eliminate irrelevant clicks and spend, and helps you discover hidden high-intent keywords that you’re not directly targeting yet.

How to Do It::
Navigate to Keywords → Search Terms. Look for queries that are too broad, unrelated, or have low intent, and add them as negative keywords. Identify high-converting search terms and consider building dedicated ad groups or exact/phrase match variants for them.

3. Evaluate Campaign & Ad Group Structure

Why It Matters:
A messy or overly broad structure makes optimization harder and hurts performance. A well-organized structure improves Quality Score, ad relevance, and click-through rate (CTR), all of which lead to better positioning and lower costs.

Actions to Take:
Audit how campaigns and ad groups are organized. Are similar services/products grouped together? Are ad groups tightly themed around 1–3 keywords? Consider restructuring broad groups into more focused ones for better targeting and performance.

4. Check Bidding Strategy

Why It Matters:
Your bidding strategy controls how Google spends your budget and which auctions you compete in. The wrong strategy can result in overspending, under-delivering, or missing out on valuable leads. Smart bidding can significantly improve ROI when used properly.

What to Do:
Review each campaign’s bid strategy (Manual CPC, Max Conversions, Target CPA, etc.). Make sure the strategy aligns with your goals—lead volume, cost per acquisition, or visibility. Test new strategies using Experiments to avoid hurting performance during rollout.

5. Analyze Keyword Performance

Why It Matters:
Not all keywords are created equal. Some drive lots of traffic but no conversions, while others are your money-makers. You want to double down on what works and cut what doesn’t to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Action:
Review keyword-level performance metrics—especially cost, CTR, conversions, and cost per conversion. Pause or adjust bids on poor-performing keywords. Expand on high performers using match type variations or long-tail extensions.

6. Inspect Ad Copy & Extensions

Why It Matters:
Your ads are what users see first. Strong, relevant copy increases your CTR, improves Quality Score, and lowers your CPC. Ad extensions provide more real estate and clickable opportunities, making your ads more competitive.

Action:
Ensure each ad group has at least 3 Responsive Search Ads. Refresh any outdated messaging. A/B test new headlines and descriptions. Update ad extensions such as sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets to reflect current promotions and service highlights.

7. Check Search Impression Share & Lost IS (Budget or Rank)

Why It Matters:
Search Impression Share (SIS) tells you how often your ads show compared to how often they could be showing. If you’re losing impression share due to budget or low ad rank, you’re leaving opportunities on the table.

Action:
Go to the Campaign or Ad Group view and add Impression Share, Lost IS (Budget), and Lost IS (Rank) columns. If you’re losing share due to budget, consider reallocating or increasing funds. If it’s due to rank, work on improving ad quality or increasing bids.

8. Review Geographic & Device Performance

Why It Matters:
Your ads may perform very differently depending on location and device. Reviewing this data allows you to prioritize high-performing areas and cut spend from poor ones, leading to smarter use of budget.

Action:
Check performance by Location and Device. Adjust bid modifiers for strong or weak regions. If mobile conversions are low, inspect the mobile user experience on your landing pages.

9. Monitor Landing Page Experience

Why It Matters:
Your ads can be perfect, but if the landing page is confusing, slow, or off-topic, people won’t convert. A poor landing page experience hurts Quality Score and conversion rate, and can increase your cost per acquisition.

Action:
Click through your ads and audit the user experience: Is the page fast? Is it relevant to the ad copy? Does it have a strong CTA and trust signals (testimonials, reviews, etc.)? Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or Hotjar to analyze user behavior.

10. Track Trends & Month-over-Month Changes

Why It Matters:
Understanding performance trends helps you make strategic decisions and set realistic goals. Spikes or drops in key metrics (like conversions or cost per click) can signal seasonal shifts, market changes, or issues in the account.

Action:
Compare current data to the previous month and same period last year. Pay attention to CTR, CPC, conversion rate, cost per conversion, and total conversions. Document any major shifts and align future actions based on what you see.

Final Thoughts

Reviewing and optimizing a Google Ads account isn’t just about making tweaks—it’s about building momentum, reducing wasted spend, and finding ways to make every dollar work harder. By following these 10 steps consistently, you’ll uncover opportunities for growth, make smarter strategic decisions, and drive stronger results month after month.

If you want a Google Sheet template, printable checklist, or even a Notion dashboard to help manage this process, let me know and I’d be happy to create one for you!