What is a PPC Audit?

A PPC audit measures the performance and objective success of a digital advertising campaign. By assessing the performance of critical segments of the campaign, a marketer hopes to achieve a few measurables in a PPC audit such as:

  • Maximizing ROI on PPC campaigns
  • Increasing conversions
  • Fixing issues and correcting course on campaign progress
  • Decreasing CPC (cost per click)
  • Decreasing Cost per Conversion
  • Increasing CTR (clickthrough rate)
  • Cutting fat (getting rid of costs that do not benefit the business)

What does this achieve?

A routine PPC audit delivers measurable results to help gauge the overall performance of your campaign. With these results, your growth can be astronomical!

small-business-vs-corporations

PPC Audit Methods

The word “audit” is admittedly a scary word. It implies an investigation, something most people do not particularly enjoy... but this audit isn’t like that one time your uncle got audited by the IRS for years of tax evasion... no, this is an audit that will only bring actionable results into your business.

Stressful? Absolutely.

Ultimately, it is extremely rewarding and beneficial to your business to conduct an efficient PPC ad campaign audit.

A few areas to focus on during your PPC audit:

1. Ad Content

This is not a measurable objective, but ad content matters. If your ad is not grasping the viewer, your ad is going to fail and ultimately your campaign will be unsuccessful.

Make sure your ad is effective enough to encourage users to convert.

2. Analyze your Budget

Make sure your budget is being distributed wisely. After conducting an audit, you can see what parts of your campaign need funding and what parts are wasting funds.

  • If your budget is limited you can try:
  • Optimizing ad schedule
  • Target a manageable search area
  • Lower your bids
  • Add negative keywords
  • Moving lower volume keywords to another campaign

3. Ensure Conversions are Being Tracked

Without the crucial data you gain from conversions, you cannot complete an effective audit.

Conversions provide an important lens in which you can see your performance and tie results back to your efforts.

4. Check Ad Group Relevancy

Clean up those ad groups! An ad group should never contain more than 20 relevant keywords.

If your ad group has 20+, you should take a quick look into their relevancy and perhaps trim some fat.

Try to populate your ad groups with phrases that are specific and fit the theme.

5. Assess Keyword Targeting

  • Revise and edit the keywords you are targeting
  • Analyze valuable keywords your competitors are bidding on that you aren’t
  • Remove irrelevant keywords
  • Utilize negative keywords to negate useless search results

6. Analyze CTR and Conversion Rate

CTR (clickthrough rate) and conversion rate are like best friends you rarely see apart from each other. Without an appropriately high CTR, you most likely will not have a conversion.

Why is it important to have a high CTR?

It’s a crucial metric to gauge your ad’s success. The more interested the audience is in your ad, the higher the CTR will be… which ultimately will lead to more conversions.

7. Review Bids

Keep track of how much you bid on your accounts!! You need to monitor these amounts to see if you’re overspending. Do not sacrifice a heavy CPC in the hopes to create a conversion.

8. Check Ad Location Targeting

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION… for the love of everything beautiful, please make sure your ads are targeting their intended locations. Make sure to exclude irrelevant locations while also including relevant ones.

Once you complete a successful PPC Audit, monitor your campaigns on a daily basis and adjust as needed.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your paid campaigns and know the performance could improve, contact our Paid Media experts at Forthea! Our award-winning team is dedicated to improving our client’s ROI through strategic paid advertising efforts.

About The Author
Ralda

Ralda is a University of Houston graduate with a Bachelor's in Strategic Communication – Integrated and a Minor in Business Administration. Her passion for digital strategy and copywriting began during her time as a social media marketing manager. Captivated by SEO, she now focuses on driving results by keeping up with the latest search engine developments. Outside of data scraping, she enjoys updating her personal social media blog, taking her dog on long walks and creating tantalizing flavors in the kitchen.

Help! I have a Quick Question.

Submit
Desktop Tablet Mobile