They can be very disturbing words if it was coming from the Internal Revenue Service, but to calm your anxiety I am just talking about auditing a Paid Search campaign. In my years of experience in online marketing, I have found that it is very important to have your accounts audited by a second set of eyes at least twice a year. So I decided to develop my own basic system for people to use as their auditing system to gather many insights into a paid search account. Every account is different in many ways, some have different goals, locations, demographics, etc…but with these 8 points, you should be able to complete a basic PPC audit.

1. Structure of the Account – The campaign should be organized by subject matter, with high segmentation. Structure will also help you allocate your budget correctly, by breaking it out to various campaigns you can give higher performing ad groups more budget, and put lower budgets in place for lower performing ad groups.

2. Match Type – A properly built out campaign should use all match types. If you have an account that is running 95%-100% broad match, you are not doing yourself any favors. Each match type acts differently and these levers should be used to create the best performing paid search account possible. If a client wants you to only run broad match terms to generate the highest volume of traffic, I would highly recommend the use of negative keywords, and a lot of them.

3. Brand Campaigns – This is the one scenario, where you can choose to use just a single match type, but it’s not broad match, it’s exact match. Most search queries on the brand terms are exactly typed in as they should be. I often set-up brand terms just using exact match, but I will build out an extraordinarily large sum of misspellings and variations. Always check that your brand terms are bid above the minimum did to show on Google for visibility, and always make sure your brand terms are going to the correct landing page, which in most cases is probably the home page.

4. Negative Keywords – Unless you are running a full campaign on exact match, you must incorporate negative keywords into your arsenal. Every campaign should have it’s set of unique keywords. The amateurs out there will create campaigns fully compiled of broad match terms with not one negative keyword and then wonder what the problem is. When used correctly this tactic should increase your CTR, as it weeds out the searches that are not relevant to your program.

5. Destination URL’s (Landing Pages) – Why even buy a keyword if you aren’t driving the traffic to a relevant page? Sounds funny, but you would be surprised on how many keywords drive traffic to the wrong page. Landing pages need to be the absolute most relevant page possible for the keyword to land on, this will improve conversion % and quality score. If you are a retailer selling “soccer balls”, please drive the traffic to a soccer ball page and not basketballs.

6. Creative (Ad Copy) – Ads should also be very specific to the product. If you have a “clean” landing page with the proper keyword and ad creative, Google will reward you with a higher quality score. General ads will not convert as well as specific ads. I also recommend checking to make sure your ads are not outdated and always promote what is going on within your site so the searcher had reason to visit and convert.

7. Content Network – The content network brings a load of traffic, but be careful. You always need to check and optimize those sites on the content network that your program is running on. You don’t want all your traffic driving to an error page, or even worse a pornographic page. When utilized correctly, the content network can be a very useful resource to your program.

8. Geo-Targeted Campaigns – Most marketers build a campaign and just throw it live to the entire United States. Different geographic areas act differently, therefore they should be marketed differently. People in the Northeast are probably not as interested in playing baseball outside in the winter, as people in Florida would be. The one thing I would never recommend is Geo-targeting your brand terms. They are your most efficient terms no matter the state.

So take a look at your current account, take a few or all these tips and see what kind of paid search audit you complete. Feel free to share your results!