Confirm tracking
Check whether the account is optimizing to a real business action before judging bids or campaigns.
Audit the accountStan Consulting · DIY guides
These guides are written for operators running their own Google Ads accounts or overseeing an agency running them. Open them and you will be able to audit your account for wasted spend, broken tracking, and the structural problems that can waste budget without appearing clearly in the default dashboard.
Quick answer
This pillar covers how to check and audit Google Ads accounts without agency access: conversion tracking integrity, search term review, match type strategy, campaign structure, and Performance Max architecture. It is written for business owners who oversee paid advertising, not for in-house specialists. If you need the framework applied to your specific account rather than the framework itself, the Conversion Marketing Plan delivers written findings in 72 hours for scoped after intake.
Check next
Why this guide matters: Ad spend, clicks, CPA, or ROAS are not turning into qualified revenue. Budget keeps moving while the account, page, offer, or tracking leak stays hidden. Use the guide to check the pattern before raising budget or rebuilding campaigns.
Scanning order
Google Ads problems usually look like bidding problems from the outside. The better sequence is tracking, query quality, budget math, then tracking quality.
Check whether the account is optimizing to a real business action before judging bids or campaigns.
Audit the accountFind what Google is actually buying with your money and separate purchase intent from junk traffic.
Open search termsAnchor spend to allowable acquisition cost and the learning threshold needed for meaningful data.
Set the budgetTranslate platform metrics into revenue questions before accepting the agency narrative.
Evaluate the summaryIf Purchase, lead, phone click, page view, or imported GA4 events are all being treated as optimization goals, the build is not a setting. It is a measurement rebuild and priority decision.
The collection
Published
How to check your own Google Ads account (even if you did not set it up)
A step-by-step audit sequence for finding wasted spend, broken tracking, and structural problems in under 90 minutes.
Open guide →Published
How to assess a Google Ads search terms report (and what to do with what you find)
The search terms report shows what Google is actually spending your budget on. How to assess it, what to flag, and how to convert findings into negatives and exact-match keywords.
Open guide →Published
How to set a Google Ads budget that makes commercial sense
Budgets set by gut feel or competitor guessing produce inconsistent results. How to derive a budget from maximum customer acquisition cost and the learning threshold smart bidding needs.
Open guide →Published
How to evaluate a Google Ads performance summary without being misled
CTR, impressions, and platform ROAS are activity metrics. Which numbers actually connect to revenue, how to reconcile platform ROAS, and the six-question checklist for any monthly summary.
Open guide →Limits of a guide
A guide describes the pattern. Your account has a specific version of that pattern. The two diverge fastest in accounts running Performance Max across multiple markets with conflicting conversion events: one country sending Purchase, another sending Add to Cart as a proxy, a feed-only campaign pulling clicks away from brand search, and an agency-installed GTM container firing a legacy conversion ID that nobody has touched in eight months. The framework tells you where to look. The specific sequence of fixes, and the order that matters for your account, requires individual marketing services.
If that describes your situation, the next step is the Conversion Marketing Plan. Written findings, prioritized fix list, 72-hour turnaround; scoped after intake, no retainer. The marketing review checks your actual account: conversion actions, search terms, asset groups, the GTM container, the bid strategies, and the structural decisions the last person made. You get the specific list, not the general framework.
Related pillars
The engagement format
Scoped after intake. Written delivery. Written findings. Audit first.
Have us run itThe Account With 47 Campaigns and No Decision Logic covers the underlying rule this depends on.