Google Ads Optimization Checklist for SaaS & Tech Companies
"Hello everyone! I'm Layla, the PPC Growth Leader at Aimers. I want to highlight the critical importance of regular Google Ads account audits for a robust advertising strategy.
Google Ads is a powerful promotional tool, but it demands ongoing oversight and adjustments. Without consistent audits, you're likely to overlook chances to enhance your campaigns and expand your business. Our experience shows that clients can significantly cut costs by spotting and fixing errors early on.
We've crafted a Google Ads audit checklist from our extensive experience with SaaS & Tech companies. Recognizing each business's uniqueness, our audit includes common issues affecting client outcomes.
The checklist addresses 6 crucial setting areas, with each section offering detailed guidance on correcting any errors or optimizing settings."
How to use our checklist
- 1Read through each statement and answer YES if it applies to your situation, or NO, if it does not.
- 2Ensure you reviewed all 6 sections of statements to cover all aspects of Google Ads settings.
Let's start
Budget and Bidding
1. Conversions are being tracked (Geo/Devices/Age/Gender/Income level/Audiences for observation)
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
If the business has accumulated customer demographic data (gender, age), we recommend applying this data by decreasing bid adjustments for age and gender of users who do not bring leads/sales to the business - this will increase advertising efficiency.
For example, we see that age 18–25 converts more expensively or does not convert at all. It is worth applying negative adjustments for these categories to reduce CPA (adjustments are possible only within the Manual CPC, Enhanced CPC, and Max Clicks strategies, however, without adjustments, there is an opportunity to completely exclude some age categories).
*If you're using a different bidding strategy, and you see a significant difference in traffic by demographic or device, you can eliminate impressions from the lagging category entirely.
🔗 Here you can learn more about bid adjustments.
For example, we see that age 18–25 converts more expensively or does not convert at all. It is worth applying negative adjustments for these categories to reduce CPA (adjustments are possible only within the Manual CPC, Enhanced CPC, and Max Clicks strategies, however, without adjustments, there is an opportunity to completely exclude some age categories).
*If you're using a different bidding strategy, and you see a significant difference in traffic by demographic or device, you can eliminate impressions from the lagging category entirely.
🔗 Here you can learn more about bid adjustments.
2. You use automated bid strategies, but your campaign generates fewer than 5 conversions per day (Maximize conversions, Maximize conversion value, Target CPA)
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Automatic bidding strategies rely on sufficient conversion data to optimize bidding decisions effectively. With limited conversion data, campaigns may struggle to learn and adapt to maximize performance. It's essential to ensure that conversion tracking is properly set up, and that campaigns have adequate time to accumulate data before expecting significant performance improvements.
🔗 Here you can learn more about the “Maximize Conversions” strategy.
🔗 Here you can learn more about the “Maximize Conversions” strategy.
Based on our experience, we can say that currently automated bidding strategies produce better results in most cases, so check out this article to find the right option for you.
Ad Copy and Extensions
1. All extensions are added to ads
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Ad extensions play a crucial role in enhancing ad visibility and providing additional information to potential customers. By including extensions such as sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets, you can improve ad relevance and user experience, ultimately driving higher click-through rates.
🔗 Here you can find all the information about each type of extension.
🔗 Here you can find all the information about each type of extension.
2. Using A/B testing of Ad copies
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
We recommend having a minimum of 2 ad variations for A/B testing to optimize campaign performance. This allows for testing different elements such as headlines, descriptions, and calls-to-action. Utilizing A/B testing helps identify the most effective ad creatives to maximize click-through rates and conversions.
🔗 You can check more insight about A/B testing/split testing here.
🔗 You can check more insight about A/B testing/split testing here.
3. Regularly checking ad copies performance
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Ad copies typically vary in their performance, which requires close attention. It's important to regularly replace underperforming ad copies with higher-quality ones to stay competitive in the auction and maximize results. Consider launching Ad Variation Experiments or categorizing ads based on different themes to compare performance effectively. To ensure accurate results, set up even rotation during experiments to gather sufficient statistical data for each ad.
🔗 Adding labels can help you track ad performance. You can learn more about them here.
🔗 Adding labels can help you track ad performance. You can learn more about them here.
4. Ad copy meets ad policy requirements
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Ensuring that ad copy complies with ad policy requirements is essential to maintain ad visibility and avoid potential penalties. You must adhere to guidelines regarding language, content, and formatting to ensure that ads are approved and displayed to the target audience effectively. Failure to meet ad policy requirements can result in ad disapproval or suspension, impacting campaign performance and ROI.
🔗 Check this article if you think that your ads were rejected incorrectly, and you want to appeal to them.
🔗 Check this article if you think that your ads were rejected incorrectly, and you want to appeal to them.
Landing Pages & Conversion Tracking
1. Conversions are being tracked
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Failure to track conversions prevents you from accurately assessing the performance of advertising campaigns and making informed adjustments. Without conversion tracking, it becomes challenging to evaluate campaign effectiveness, optimize targeting strategies, and allocate budget efficiently.
2. Conversions are divided into macro (primary) and micro (secondary)
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Segmenting conversions into macro and micro goals allows you to track various levels of user engagement and conversion actions. By defining primary and secondary conversion actions, you gain deeper insights into user behavior and campaign performance. Incorrect division of conversions can lead to misinterpretation of data and ineffective optimization strategies.
How to change the conversion priority:
1. Go to your Ad account, then to the “Goals” -> “Summary section”
How to change the conversion priority:
1. Go to your Ad account, then to the “Goals” -> “Summary section”
2. Select the desired conversion and click “Edit goal”
3. In the drop-down field, change to the desired priority level
3. Landing page has a clear submit form
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
A clear and prominent submit form on the landing page is essential for facilitating user interaction and capturing lead information effectively. A poorly designed or unclear submit form can lead to user confusion and hinder conversion rates. Optimizing the submit form layout and placement enhances user experience and increases the likelihood of conversion.
🔗 Learn more about why it's important to pay attention to Conversion Rate Optimization of your website/landing page in this article.
🔗 Learn more about why it's important to pay attention to Conversion Rate Optimization of your website/landing page in this article.
Landing Pages & Conversion Tracking
1. At the geotargeting level in large countries the location is added not by the entire country, but separately by each state (for example, the USA)
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
We recommend dividing large countries, such as the USA, into individual states, cities, or regions; this allows optimizing advertising campaigns at the geolocation level, removing irrelevant ones, or making increasing/decreasing adjustments. For example, we see that some states bring conversions much more expensively than others. Since the campaign uses an automatic strategy, and it is impossible to make decreasing adjustments, such states can be moved to a separate campaign and control CPA there or even can be removed from the campaign.
2. At the campaign level, the location option is set to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations"
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Inaccurate GEO settings at the campaign level, particularly when selected as "Presence or Interest," can lead to inefficient targeting and wastage of ad spend. Proper GEO targeting ensures that ads are displayed to the most relevant audience segments, maximizing campaign effectiveness and ROI.
How it should look: in the campaign settings, expand “Location options” in the Locations section and select the desired setting.
How it should look: in the campaign settings, expand “Location options” in the Locations section and select the desired setting.
3. Negative keywords are added to Search campaigns
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Insufficient use of negative keywords in Search campaigns leads to irrelevant traffic and wastage of ad spend. By adding negative keywords at the group, campaign, and account levels, you can refine targeting and improve the quality of traffic, ultimately enhancing campaign performance and efficiency.
🔗 Read more about negative keywords and their match types in this article.
🔗 Read more about negative keywords and their match types in this article.
4. Branded, competitor, and generic keywords are grouped separately
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
We recommend separating search campaigns based on the following criteria:
— Search campaign for relevant keywords
— Search campaign for competitor brand queries
— Search campaign for company brand queries
This allows for convenient separate control of budgets, bids, adjustments to individual segments, as well as writing the most relevant ads for different categories of keywords.
— Search campaign for relevant keywords
— Search campaign for competitor brand queries
— Search campaign for company brand queries
This allows for convenient separate control of budgets, bids, adjustments to individual segments, as well as writing the most relevant ads for different categories of keywords.
5. Correct grouping of keywords is conducted in the campaign: for each category of keywords separate Ads are used
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Improper grouping of keywords within campaigns diminishes ad quality and relevancy, negatively impacting CTR and cost per click. Categorizing keywords and assigning separate ads to each category improves ad relevance and enhances Quality Score, which positively influences Ad Rank. By aligning ad messaging with specific keyword categories, you can optimize campaign performance.
🔗 Find out the main nuances that affect Ad Rank here.
🔗 Find out the main nuances that affect Ad Rank here.
Campaign settings
1. Search Partners generate a large volume of traffic within Search campaigns
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Search Partners often contribute a substantial amount of traffic to Search campaigns, albeit of lower quality compared to primary search traffic sources. It's crucial to evaluate the effectiveness of Search Partners' traffic and adjust targeting strategies accordingly to maintain campaign performance and ROI.
You need to go to the campaign settings and select the “Network” section to disable impressions everywhere except Google search.
You need to go to the campaign settings and select the “Network” section to disable impressions everywhere except Google search.
2. Display Network is enabled within Search campaigns
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Based on our experience, the best option is to separate search and display into different campaigns to separately analyze statistics, make adjustments, and control the volume of search and display traffic if necessary. Typically, Display Network spent the majority of funds and bring more expensive conversions.
🔗 Details about what a Display Network is you may find here.
🔗 Details about what a Display Network is you may find here.
3. Audience Expansions/Optimized targeting is enabled in Display/Demand Gen/YouTube
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
In our experience, enabling optimized targeting can lead to an increase in inappropriate budget spending and a decrease in conversion rate. Therefore, we recommend being careful with this setting and not use it in situations where you need special control over the audience for targeting and on projects with a limited budget.
Consider running these types of campaigns if you want to reach a new audience across various channels, increasing brand visibility and engagement. Additionally, they provide valuable targeting options, including demographics, interests, and behaviors, ensuring that your ads are shown to the right audience at the right time.
You can disable this setting at the ad group level:
You can disable this setting at the ad group level:
4. Ad placements on irrelevant websites and devices are excluded
(apps, TV placements, topics related to kids, gaming, etc.)
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Excluding irrelevant placements and topics in Display and YouTube campaigns helps ensure that ads appear in suitable contexts that match brand values and audience preferences. Avoiding TV displays on YouTube minimizes ad spend wastage for users unable to interact effectively with ads. By excluding placements on kids' channels, gaming channels, mobile apps, and unrelated topics, you can enhance ad relevance and boost campaign performance.
🔗 All articles on how to exclude placements can be found here.
🔗 All articles on how to exclude placements can be found here.
5. Maintaining a high Optimization Score
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Maintaining a high optimization score is essential for effective campaign management and algorithm training. Adhering to recommended optimization practices and implementing relevant recommendations ensures that campaigns are optimized for maximum performance and efficiency. Rejecting irrelevant recommendations while maintaining a 100% optimization score helps improve campaign effectiveness and achieve better results.
🔗 More details about the Optimization Score and how to calculate it can be found here.
🔗 More details about the Optimization Score and how to calculate it can be found here.
6. Auto-applied recommendations are enabled
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Enabling auto-applied recommendations streamlines campaign management processes but requires careful monitoring to ensure that applied recommendations align with campaign objectives and performance goals. Regular review of auto-applied recommendations helps maintain campaign effectiveness and optimize ad spend allocation.
Auto-applied recommendations can be disabled here:
Auto-applied recommendations can be disabled here:
Analytics & Reporting
1. Data-driven attribution is selected
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Choosing data-driven attribution is crucial for optimizing advertising performance and training algorithms effectively. By selecting data-driven attribution, you gain insights into the true impact of their marketing efforts across various touchpoints, leading to more accurate attribution modeling and better decision-making.
To select data-driven attribution, press on the conversion name:
To select data-driven attribution, press on the conversion name:
Select the desired attribution in the drop-down window below:
2. UTM tags are set up (checked at the account, campaign, ad levels)
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
The absence of UTM tags hinders accurate tracking and attribution of campaign performance across different levels, including the account, campaign, and ad levels. Implementing UTM tags lets you capture valuable data on campaign traffic sources, mediums, and campaigns, facilitating comprehensive performance analysis and optimization.
🔗 Here you can find a detailed guide about UTM tags.
🔗 Here you can find a detailed guide about UTM tags.
3. Google Analytics is linked to the account
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Failure to link essential tools such as Google Analytics, Google Merchant Center, and Google Search Console to the account limits the depth of insights available for campaign optimization. Linking these platforms provides access to valuable data on website performance, product feeds, and search queries, enabling you to make informed decisions and maximize campaign effectiveness.
🔗 Here you can read about how to link Google Analytics with your Google Ads account.
🔗 Here you can read about how to link Google Analytics with your Google Ads account.
4. Auto-tagging is set to "YES"
🔥 Good job! Keep using this best practice in your Google Ads campaigns for continued success.
Auto-tagging enables accurate tracking of campaign performance and attribution within Google Analytics. By enabling auto-tagging, Google Ads automatically appends unique parameters to destination URLs, allowing for comprehensive tracking of ad clicks and conversions. This data is essential for evaluating campaign effectiveness, optimizing targeting strategies, and refining ad messaging to enhance overall performance and ROI.
🔗 Want to apply this setting? Find out how to set it up in 5 steps here.
🔗 Want to apply this setting? Find out how to set it up in 5 steps here.