01
Conversion Tracking
The most important thing to get right in any Google Ads account. Smart Bidding optimises toward whatever conversion signals it receives. Get those signals wrong and every campaign is heading in the wrong direction. I check for broken tags, duplicate counting, GA4 imports incorrectly set as primary, and whether Enhanced Conversions is set up. This is the first thing I look at because nothing else matters until it's clean.
02
Account Structure
Bad structure is usually invisible until you look for it. I check for keyword duplication across campaigns, ad groups that are too broad to generate meaningful Quality Scores, and whether the campaign hierarchy actually maps to how the business works. It's rarely the flashy problem, but it's the one that makes everything else harder to fix.
03
Bidding & Budget
I check whether the bidding strategy fits the account. tCPA and tROAS need enough conversion volume to work. Set them too early and Smart Bidding is guessing. I also flag campaigns stuck in learning phase due to constant changes, and budgets that are quietly capping campaigns that should be spending more.
04
Keyword & Quality Score
Quality Score is a diagnostic tool, not a target in itself. Low QS means there's a mismatch somewhere between keyword, ad copy, and landing page, and that mismatch costs you in higher CPCs. I check QS distribution across the account, flag the worst-performing ad groups, and look for Broad Match expanding spend into territory you probably didn't intend.
05
Audiences
Most accounts have remarketing audiences set up in GA4 and never connected to Google Ads. Customer Match lists often go unused entirely. These are free signals that help Smart Bidding understand who's converting, and most accounts are just leaving them on the table. I check what's set up, what's missing, and whether observation mode audiences are actually attached to campaigns.
06
Smart Bidding & PMax
Performance Max needs active management even though it's designed to run on autopilot. I check asset group quality (Google will auto-generate video if you don't provide it, and it's always bad), whether URL expansion is serving spend to irrelevant pages, and whether PMax and standard Search campaigns are competing with each other for the same queries.
07
Product Feed
For Shopping campaigns, the feed is everything. A well-structured campaign running on a poor feed will always underperform. I pull the Merchant Center data and check for disapproved products, missing GTINs, pricing mismatches between the feed and website, and title quality. Feed problems are usually fixable fast. They just rarely get looked at.
08
Ad Creative & Assets
RSAs need variety to work. Google's system tests headline and description combinations. Give it three headlines and two descriptions and it has almost nothing to test. I check ad strength scores, whether sitelinks and callouts are present on all campaigns, and flag asset groups where thin creative is limiting delivery without it showing up anywhere obvious in the data.
09
Landing Pages
The keyword, ad copy, and landing page need to tell the same story. When they don't, Quality Score drops and conversion rate suffers. You pay more to get traffic you then lose. I check for message match across the chain, flag slow pages (LCP above 2.5s is a known QS penalty trigger), and look for campaigns sending all traffic to the homepage when better destination pages exist.
