Google Ads audit
See where your Google Ads budget really goes.
Find the spend that never turns into a booking.
Most ad accounts leak money quietly: clicks from YouTube videos and mobile games, searches for jobs instead of services, and tracking that counts page views as wins. We find the leaks, put a dollar figure on each one, and show you the order to fix them.
Read-only access. We never change your account during the audit.
Wasted-spend audit · Last 90 days
IllustrativeAd spend
$12,400
No bookings
$8,200
Top leak: YouTube placements on kids’ channels and mobile games. 0 bookings in 90 days.
The number that matters
Google said 180 conversions. The calendar said 12.
The first thing we compare is what Google Ads reports against the bookings, demos or sales you actually got. When those numbers don’t match, Google is optimizing your budget toward the wrong goal, and every other fix depends on correcting it.
Illustrative example.
Google Ads reported
180
“conversions”
Real bookings
12
from the CRM
Why accounts leak
Wasted spend is rarely one big mistake. It’s three quiet ones.
Google is optimizing for the wrong thing
Automated bidding chases whatever your account calls a conversion. If that's a page view instead of a booking, Google finds the cheapest page views it can, usually on YouTube and in mobile games.
Default settings nobody turned off
Display Network switched on in search campaigns, ads shown to people merely “interested in” your area, and auto-applied recommendations that let Google change your account without asking.
Nobody is actually working on it
The change history tells the truth. Many accounts go months without a meaningful human change, while the monthly management invoice keeps arriving.
2,200
clicks a week. Zero bookings.
From a recent audit
A campaign left on autopilot was buying about 2,200 clicks a week. Almost all of them came from YouTube videos. In the period we reviewed, they produced no bookings and no demo requests. The campaign looked busy on the dashboard, and nobody had checked where the clicks came from.
What we check
Eight checks. Every dollar accounted for.
We look at the last 90 days, and we’re conservative. Spend that clearly produced nothing is “wasted”. Spend that probably isn’t worth it is reported separately, so the headline number holds up.
01
Conversion tracking
Do the conversions Google reports match the bookings in your calendar or CRM?
02
Spend by channel
How much goes to Search vs YouTube, Display and apps, and what each actually produces.
03
Placements
The videos, apps and websites your ads ran on, including the ones you'd never choose.
04
Search terms
What people really typed: job seekers, DIY searches, wrong services, wrong cities.
05
Settings
Networks, location targeting, schedules, devices and auto-applied changes.
06
Bidding
Whether your bidding strategy has enough real conversion data to work.
07
Landing pages
Where each ad sends people, and whether the form or booking flow works on a phone.
08
Account activity
When a person last made a meaningful change, and what was changed.
How it works
Simple, read-only, done in a week.
Read-only access
You add us as a read-only user. We can see your account, but we can't change anything, and we don't.
Your audit in one week
A one-page summary with the waste in dollars, plus an appendix showing exactly how we calculated every number.
A 45-minute walkthrough
We go through it together and give you a fixed price to fix it. If you'd rather fix it yourself, the report shows you how.
Pricing
Flat fees. Never a percentage of your ad spend.
A percentage pays an agency more when you spend more. A flat fee means our only incentive is making your budget work harder.
Snapshot
Free
For accounts spending $3,000+ a month
- 20-minute call
- Your top 3 leaks, each with a dollar estimate
- No obligation
Full audit
From $750
Credited in full if you hire us within 30 days
- All eight checks
- Written report with the waste in dollars
- Draft negative keyword and exclusion lists
- 45-minute walkthrough
Cleanup
Fixed price
Quoted after the audit, never a % of ad spend
- Conversion tracking fixed
- Exclusions and settings cleaned up
- Campaigns restructured
- Landing pages that convert
Why SEOS
Most wasted spend starts outside the ad account.
Ads-only freelancers can adjust bids and keywords. We also build websites and run SEO, so we fix the whole path from the ad to the booking:
- Conversion tracking that records real bookings, demos and calls
- Landing pages built for the search, fast on a phone
- Keyword choices informed by your SEO data
- One team accountable for search, site and ads
FAQ
Questions about the audit
Will you change anything in my account during the audit?
No. We ask for read-only access, so we can't. If we find something that's actively wasting money, like a broken form, we tell you the same day and you decide what to do.
Why don't you charge a percentage of ad spend?
Because a percentage pays the agency more when you spend more, even if the extra spend is wasted. We charge a flat fee, so our only incentive is to make your budget work harder.
We already have someone managing our ads. Is this still useful?
Yes. Many businesses use the audit as an independent second opinion. You can share the report with your current manager, and the appendix shows our working so they can check it.
What do you need from us?
Read-only access to Google Ads and Google Analytics, and a count of the real bookings, demos or sales you got in the last 90 days. That last number is the most important part of the audit.
How is this different from an ads-only freelancer?
Most wasted spend starts outside the ad account: tracking that counts the wrong thing, or landing pages that don't convert. We build websites and do SEO, so we fix the whole path from the ad to the booking.
Free wasted-spend audit
Get your top 3 leaks, free.
Tell us about your business and roughly what you spend each month. We’ll reply within two business days with next steps for read-only access.
Free snapshot for accounts spending $3,000 or more a month. No obligation.