Ideally, every 3,000 to 5,000 miles you bring your car in for an oil change.  With that, a reputable shop will perform diagnostic tests that could potentially reveal a range of issues with your car.  Every year you get a physical exam.  Well, at least we all should.  Your doctor then performs a health diagnostic, hopefully letting you know that you’re in the peak of health. There are some things that we do on a regular basis to help ensure we are up to date, everything is working the way it should, and evaluate what, if any, changes and updates need to be made so we are prepared for the future.  

This very same concept must be applied to your PPC campaigns.  

Some of you are probably thinking, my campaigns are doing well for me, why should I bother with a PPC audit?

Because a new perspective and a fresh set of eyes could be more valuable than you think. Removing yourself from a habituated view of your campaigns and broadening your PPC vision will often reveal unexplored areas of potential ROI improvement.

• Are new opportunities being overlooked?
• Is wasted and unprofitable spend being curtailed?  
• Are all the resources available within the platform being used to their fullest potential?  
• Is there a clear overall strategy that is visible from the account structure?  
• Has my organization outgrown its original PPC strategy?
• Do I have fragmented Campaigns or Ad Groups that need to be reorganized?
• Is my account too aggressive? Is my account too conservative?
• Am I using sophisticated bidding automation strategies to target a healthy ROI?
• Are conversions and key visitor engagement metrics being tracked and optimized for?
• Does your account manager understand your profit margins and the lifetime value of your customers?

If you’ve answered yes to some of the questions above, you should consider a PPC audit.  Those are just a few of the questions you should ask yourself.  A PPC audit will provide clear guidance on the overall account and help determine if your investments are yielding incremental positive results.

The PPC audits should consist of the following and more:

• Review of key PPC indicators (cost per conversion, converted clicks, conversion value/cost and conversion value/click)
• Evaluation from the search term level, through to the keywords, ad groups, ads and campaigns
• Focus on best practices, strategic objectives, and specific PPC functional areas
• Collect and analyze data as it relates to both PPC campaigns and the analytics associated with those campaigns.
• Benchmark the findings
• Provide feedback about results
• Create an actionable plan for improvement

Once the audit is completed, it is important to take action.  Of course, critical needs should receive the highest priority.  Once a new course is set, your internal resources or PPC agency should be able to implement the changes or, if it is not part of their core competencies, outsourcing the task is a great option.

Just like taking your car in for regular oil changes or getting a physical, a regular PPC audit will help you keep your campaigns healthy and your marketing efforts current.