October 13, 2026
By the Perfect Digital Solution team

Google Ads Audit: A 12-Step Checklist for Calgary and Canadian Businesses

A Google Ads audit is a step-by-step review of your account’s tracking, settings, keywords, ads, landing pages and budgets to find where money is being wasted and where results can improve. Many costly problems come from a handful of settings, so a structured checklist catches them fast.

Below is the 12-step checklist we use, a summary table you can work through, Calgary-specific location checks, and what to fix before the holiday shopping season.

Key takeaways

Start every Google Ads audit with conversion tracking. Bad data makes every other decision wrong.
Check search terms and add negative keywords to stop paying for clicks that never convert.
For local targeting, review Presence vs Presence or interest so ads reach people in your area.
Use Quality Score as a diagnostic for ads and landing pages, not as a target in itself.
Audit in October so fixes have time to settle before Black Friday and holiday shopping.

Table of Contents

What is a Google Ads audit and when should you run one?

A Google Ads audit is a full health check of your account, and it’s worth running when results slip, when you change agencies or before a busy season.

It’s also smart after a rushed Google Ads setup in Calgary or anywhere else, since early shortcuts in tracking and targeting tend to stay in place for months. Set aside a few hours, open your account and work through the steps in order, because later steps depend on earlier ones.

Google Ads audit at a glance: the main points covered in this guide — At a glance: Google Ads audit: what to check first

The 12-step Google Ads audit checklist

Work through these 12 checks in order, starting with tracking, because every other decision relies on accurate conversion data.

Conversion tracking. Confirm that every conversion you count is real: form submissions, calls and purchases, each firing once. Check which actions are set as primary goals, since bidding uses them. Our Google Ads conversion tracking guide walks through the setup.
Account structure. Each campaign should match a clear goal, service or location, with ad groups built around tight keyword themes. Mixed themes make ads less relevant.
Search terms and negative keywords. Open the search terms report and look for searches that will never buy, such as job seekers, free or DIY queries, or services you don’t offer. Add them as negative keywords.
Match types. Check that broad match keywords run alongside Smart Bidding and solid conversion data, and that phrase and exact match cover your most valuable searches.
Location settings. Google’s advanced location options offer two choices. Presence or interest (the default) reaches people in or regularly in your area, plus people showing interest in it. Presence reaches only people likely to be in or regularly in your area. A Calgary plumber who can’t serve out-of-town searchers should test whether Presence cuts wasted clicks, while a hotel or event venue may want visitors’ interest too. Our Calgary location targeting guide covers radius and city settings.
Ads and assets. Responsive search ads accept up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, and Google’s guidance suggests aiming for Ad Strength of Good or Excellent. Add sitelinks, calls, callouts and location assets where they fit.
Quality Score. Quality Score runs from 1 to 10 at the keyword level and combines expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Google’s Quality Score page notes it is a diagnostic tool, not an input in the ad auction, so use it to spot weak ads and pages.
Landing pages. Each ad should lead to a page that matches the search, loads quickly on mobile and makes calling or booking easy. Sending every click to the home page is a common leak.
Bidding. Check that each bid strategy matches the goal and has enough conversion data. A target that is too strict can quietly limit traffic.
Performance Max. Google added more visibility and control to Performance Max in 2025, including search terms reporting, campaign-level negative keywords and a channel performance report. Use them to see where spend goes and to exclude irrelevant queries. If you’re unsure which campaign type fits, compare Search and Performance Max before adding budget.
Budget pacing. Google’s budget rules allow spend of up to two times your average daily budget on a single day, with a monthly limit of 30.4 times it for most campaigns. Watch for campaigns limited by budget while weaker ones spend freely.
Recommendations and change history. Review auto-applied recommendations and the change history so you know who changed what, and why.

Google Ads audit checklist table

Use this table as a quick reference while you work through the account.

Area	What to check	Common problem
Conversion tracking	Real actions, counted once, correct primary goals	Page views or duplicates counted as leads
Structure	Campaigns by goal, service or location	One campaign for everything
Search terms	Irrelevant queries added as negatives	Paying for jobs, free or DIY searches
Match types	Broad match paired with good data	Broad match with no tracking
Location	Presence vs Presence or interest	Clicks from outside your service area
Ads and assets	Ad Strength, sitelinks, calls	Few headlines, missing assets
Quality Score	Below average components	Ad or page doesn’t match keyword
Landing pages	Match, speed, clear contact	All traffic to the home page
Bidding	Strategy fits goal and data	Targets too strict to spend
Performance Max	Search terms, negatives, channels	No review of where spend goes
Budget	Pacing and limited-by-budget flags	Best campaign starved of budget
Change history	Who changed what	Auto-applied changes nobody reviewed

How should you prepare Google Ads for the holiday shopping season?

Run your audit in October so fixes have a few weeks to settle before Black Friday on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30, 2026.

Fix tracking first, since Smart Bidding will use holiday data to make decisions.
Write sale ads and promotion assets early so they’re approved before launch day.
Plan budgets with daily overspend rules in mind, and move budget to proven campaigns.
For short sales, consider seasonality adjustments. Google says they work best for events of about one to seven days and may hurt performance over longer periods, such as more than 14 days.

For wider planning, see our Black Friday marketing guide for Canada.

How Perfect Digital Solution can help

As a Google Ads agency in Calgary, we audit local and Canada-wide accounts using this checklist, and our Google Ads management services cover the fixes if you’d like help. You keep ownership of your account either way. Request a free audit to see what we’d check first.

Frequently asked questions

How often should you audit a Google Ads account?

Run a full Google Ads audit at least once or twice a year, and before any busy season or agency change. Lighter checks should happen more often: review search terms and budgets weekly or every two weeks, and check conversion tracking whenever your website, forms or phone system change. Small, regular reviews stop problems from building up between full audits.

Can I audit my own Google Ads account?

Yes. Anyone with access to the account can work through a checklist like the one above, and many problems, such as irrelevant search terms or wrong location settings, are easy to spot. An outside review helps when tracking is complex, results dropped without a clear cause, or you want a second opinion on structure and bidding from someone with no stake in past decisions.

Should a Calgary business use Presence or Presence or interest?

It depends on who can become a customer. Presence or interest is Google’s default and also reaches people interested in Calgary, which suits hotels, venues and attractions. A local service business that only works within the city, such as a plumber or cleaner, should test Presence to reduce clicks from people outside the area. Compare conversions after the change.

What is a good Quality Score in Google Ads?

Quality Score runs from 1 to 10, and higher is better, but there is no single magic number. Look at its three parts: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Any part rated below average tells you what to fix. Google says Quality Score is a diagnostic tool and not an input in the ad auction itself.

Should I apply all of Google's recommendations?

No. Review each recommendation before applying it. Some are helpful, such as fixing tracking issues or adding missing assets, while others may raise spend or broaden targeting in ways that don’t fit your goals. Check the change history regularly so you know which updates were applied automatically, and turn off auto-apply for recommendation types you want to control yourself.

What should I fix first after a Google Ads audit?

Fix conversion tracking first, because bidding and reporting depend on it. Next, add negative keywords and correct location settings, since those stop wasted spend quickly. Then improve ads, assets and landing pages, and finally adjust bidding and budgets once the data is reliable. Make changes in stages so you can tell which fix made the difference.

Sources

Written by the Perfect Digital Solution team. We use AI tools to support research and drafting, and every fact in this article is checked by our team against the sources listed above.