The situation: A PPC Specialist or agency has asked to audit your account for a cost off ####.
What exactly is it? Should you be paying for it? What can I expect to be delivered? What questions should I be asking?

So, you might have reached out to a PPC agency asking for help on your Google Ads account. The first thing they will most likely bring up is to audit your existing account. This is a normal process, where the ad agency can see if you are a good fit for each other.

You can usually expect the final result to be at least a page worth or findings from your existing PPC campaign which outlines strengths and weaknesses that you are currently facing while running your ads.

Most agencies will list points of supposed areas of improvement to your campaign, and give suggestions as to how they would improve it if they were to manage it. This is predominantly used as a sales tool and a scoping tool to set expectations and see if you are a good fit for the agency and vice versa.

Question 1: Should you be paying for an audit? Usually, the answer to this is, no.

Google Ads audits should offer a fair bit of value, so the PPC specialist will need to invest an hour or 2 of time to gain access to your ads account to look at your Google Analytics, conversion tracking, Cost Per Click and PPC performance in general. 

There are a lot of agencies that do ask for payment upfront before committing to an audit. In theory, these agencies should be providing a deeper level of analysis with more detail than that of a free audit, but this isnt always the case, so be wary.

They are well within their rights to ask for money for an audit, but you are also within your rights to say no, and to shop around instead for an agency that will audit your account for free. If an agency does agree to offering a free PPC audit, The Artisan suggests that you respect their time and effort to do this for you. Meaning, if you have any questions about the audit, you should ask them, but keep in mind that the agency is investing their time in your business by doing it for free, so kindness can go a long way.

Question 2: What is a Google Ads PPC Audit?

A PPC audit can be done in many different ways, depending on the agency that is doing it.

An audit will usually consist of the digital marketing agency getting access to your Google Ads account (if you have one). And then digging through to see what improvements they can recommend.

FYI – The agency should not be doing actual changes to your ad account unless you are in an agreement already.

Things that an agency should be looking at in your audit:

• What is your Cost Per Lead (CPA/Cost/Conversion)

 • What is being measured as a conversion & is it accurate?

• How are your ads performing in terms of CTR & CPC

• Keyword selection

• Search terms report & negative keyword selection

• Location targeting leakage

• Typos in ad copy

• Can your POD and CTA be strengthened

• Budget recommendations (are you spending too much?)

Question 3: What can I expect to be delivered in my Google Ads Audit?
Well, it depends. All agencies have different ways of doing PPC Audits.

If you are paying for an audit, you can expect a digital or physical file that outlines some of the things above, and sometimes more. If you do not have an existing ad account, the agency providing the audit should dig through competitor data at the very least and use digital marketing tools to show strengths and weaknesses for your business.

Free audits on the other hand, can be anything from a huge slide deck with all the above, to as little as a phone call going over dot points and explaining them to you. There is nothing wrong with this method, it just depends on what your goals are. Mostly, it is about building trust between agency and potential client.

The more honest an agency is, the better. So if you hear them say, your campaign is pretty good due to a, b and c, this is a good sign that they are not trying to just take your money and close the sale.

Question 4: What questions should I be asking the agency?

We suggest getting audits done by a few different agencies if you have time, so you can see what they say and get some insights .You are not obligated to work with the agency just because they audited your account for free.

Asking your PPC agency the following questions will help you get a better understanding of whether or not you trust them and are a good fit for each other:
1. How do you plan on implementing this?

2. What CPA and total conversion targets are we looking to work towards?

3. How long will it take for the desired goals to be achieved?

4. Which negative keywords do you suggest we run with (if any)?
5. How should we go about split testing our ads?

6. What will move the needle the most?

Conclusion

Google Ads audits can be a powerful way to gauge whether or not the agency in question will be able to improve your PPC marketing campaign. It will also give you a better understanding of who you are going to be working with if you do decide to sign up with them. We suggest shopping around and getting a few free audits done. If you really want to work with a specific agency, sometimes it can be justified to pay for an audit from them, but just know there are many agencies out there offering PPC audits for FREE!

Contact PPC Artisan – PPC Company In Melbourne for a free PPC audit!