Your Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign needs to be constantly updated if you want it to help you achieve your marketing goals. Some businesses crate a PPC account and then make the mistake of thinking it can run on automatic, not realizing that it has many moving parts and plenty of places where problems can arise. An account audit is simply systematic way to review your account to determine areas that could benefit from anything from a minor tweak to a major overhaul.

Remember: the purpose of an audit is to match your PPC account’s goals with its desired outcomes and to maximize the impact of your ad campaign and, ultimately, your costs per conversion and return on investment (ROI). So, at the very least, you should perform an audit on a yearly basis and then whenever you think it necessary to address any known or suspected performance issues. Most experts recommend that you have an outside agency do the work so that your account can be examined with a fresh eye and from an unbiased perspective.

There are many different audits that you can complete to help ensure that your account is operating at its peak performance. Here are some things to consider:

• Account Structure and Organization Audit – The purpose of this audit is to review and ensure that you are targeting the right location, users, and keywords. Check for duplicate keywords, variations in the ad text, and keyword match types. Make sure there are no issues or missed optimization opportunities; that there exists an adequate negative keyword list to prevent your ads from showing up for irrelevant queries; and that conversion tracking is set up to track the most important actions a visitor could take. Check for any approval issues. Review your budget; if the budget is maxed out, consider lowering your bids in order to reduce your cost per click– you just might get more clicks for your money.

• Ad Audit – The purpose of an ad audit is to find out which ads are under-performing and which are driving a positive response. Check for typos and spelling issues. Make sure your ad has a call to action. Examine any custom display URLs and ascertain their effectiveness.

• Landing Page Audit – Make sure your landing page works and sends traffic to the right page(s) of your website. Pause ads for any products or services that are no longer being offered. Optimize the landing page for conversions, and make sure it has the proper privacy policy and terms clauses on it.

• Extension Audit – If your account has site link extensions make sure they are correctly configured to include quick links to any top pages and are appropriate for your business. For example, brick and mortar businesses should always have working location extensions. Pause any under performing extensions and replace them with other variations.

Be thorough and methodical. Auditing your pay-per-click account is one of the most beneficial things you can do to improve its performance, lower cost per clicks, and increase click-through rates and conversions.

Once these and any other audits are completed, you will need to prioritize any necessary re-working of your PPC account according to what is going to affect your bottom line the most, or according to the amount of time it will take to complete particular tasks.