Paid advertising campaigns are an effective way for businesses to drive traffic and increase sales, but it’s important to audit them regularly in order to ensure that the campaigns are performing optimally. People often discuss using paid advertising to drive results, but rarely discuss the need to audit active campaigns. I always recommend clients to regularly audit their campaigns annually. Let’s break down some of the reasons why paid advertising audits are so important.

Identify Areas Where Campaigns Are Underperforming

Even the best ad accounts have places where they can optimize. Auditing paid advertising campaigns can help identify areas where your ad account is underperforming, such as keywords, ad groups, placement types, etc. that have low CTR (click-through rate), poor CVR (conversion rate), or high CPC (cost per click). By identifying these issues, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize campaigns and improve the performance of your campaigns. For example, if a campaign is not delivering a high enough conversion rate, you could look at the demographics or behavior targeting being used in the campaign to determine where the campaign is falling short, and if there is a subsegment of your current audience that you should focus on. Other common areas to focus on include device type, location targeting, budgeting, and bidding strategy. Analyzing the results of all of these helps determine what areas of your ad account are underperforming and need reconfiguring.

Identify Areas Where You May Be Overspending

Auditing paid advertising campaigns is not only good for determining underperforming elements, it can also help identify areas where you may be overspending. Advertising campaigns can sometimes spend aggressively in attempts to drive a conversion. This leads to an imbalance between the best performing low cost ad elements and the worst performing high cost ad elements. For example, if your Google Search campaign has relatively high CPCs but low CTRs and/or CVRs for certain keywords, it may be time to consider pausing those keywords or placements. By pausing those keywords , you’re saving money by not spending on high cost keywords, while ensuring that your ad dollars are only focused on keywords that have shown success at a reasonable cost.

Uncover Unseen Areas of Optimization

Overall, auditing paid advertising campaigns is an important process for businesses looking to get the most out of their marketing efforts. Audits allow business owners to identify areas where their campaigns are underperforming as well as areas where they may be overspending money without getting any return on investment (ROI). They also provide valuable insights from fresh eyes who might have different perspectives on how best to optimize existing strategies for maximum ROI potential. Auditing paid advertising campaigns should be done regularly in order to ensure optimal performance and maximize ROI potential! I highly recommend investing in a paid advertising audit annually. If you want to learn more about the benefits of a paid advertising audit for your company, contact me here.