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1. Ownership and access
Who owns the account, who holds admin access, and who pays Google. An account you do not own is the first thing to fix.
Free Google Ads audit for UK small businesses
Read-only access. A straight answer.
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If you already advertise on Google, David Domingos will review the account with read-only access: conversion tracking, settings, search terms, structure, ads and the landing page. You get the faults costing you the most money, in order, and what to fix first. There is no obligation to hire Lucent afterwards.
Read-only access that you grant and can remove. Nothing in the account is changed during the audit.
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- Read-only access you control
- 02
- Ten checks, tracking first
- 03
- The biggest leaks, in order
Who the Google Ads audit is for
The audit is for businesses already spending on Google Ads who suspect the account is not doing what the reports say. If you have not started yet, the Google Ads management page explains the readiness check instead.
Worth doing if
- You spend on Google Ads now, or did recently.
- The account reports conversions but the phone and inbox do not agree.
- Cost per enquiry has risen and nobody can say why.
- An agency or freelancer runs the account and you want a second opinion.
- You are about to raise the budget and want to know it is safe to.
- You are unsure who owns or has access to the account.
It will not help much if
- You have never run Google Ads: there is no data to audit yet.
- You want a guaranteed plan to double enquiries: no honest audit offers that.
- You cannot grant access to the account.
- You need an audit of Meta, LinkedIn or Microsoft Ads accounts.
Not advertising yet? Start with the Google Ads management page, where the free audit checks the website, tracking and auction before any spend.
Account auditWhat we check first
3/6
- ✓Conversion tracking firingOK
- ✓Search terms reviewedOK
- !Negative keyword listFix
- !Calls counted as leadsFix
- ✓Landing page matches the adOK
- !Budget on the searches that buyFix
Live in ten working daysFixed price, in writing, before anything startsOne person accountableReplies within one working dayYour account, your card, your siteLeeds, working UK-wideLive in ten working daysFixed price, in writing, before anything startsOne person accountableReplies within one working dayYour account, your card, your siteLeeds, working UK-wide
Tracking is where most accounts go wrong
On the Procon 24/7 account, a site rebuild once silently stopped the Google Ads conversions firing until it was caught, and call tracking arrived months later than it should have. The account's figures stayed trustworthy only because results were checked against the client's own revenue reports rather than the platform. That is why every audit starts with tracking.
- Tracked revenue
- £1,337,693
- Google Ads spend
- £150,443
- Return on ad spend
- 8.9×
- New customers
- 2,055
What is on record: Over nearly five years that account recorded the figures below in the client's own reports. One client's result, not a forecast, and not a promise of what an audit will find. Read the documented Google Ads result →
What the Google Ads audit checks
Ten checks, in the order that matters. The first two decide whether any number in the account can be trusted, so they come before anything about keywords or bids.
02
2. Conversion actions
Whether the primary conversion fires on a real enquiry, only once, and is not inflated by page views, button clicks, duplicate tags or spam form fills. Calls counted by duration, not by tap.
03
3. Enhanced conversions and offline imports
Whether won customers can be matched back to ad clicks, so bidding learns from sales rather than form fills.
04
4. Campaign settings
Location targeting set to people in your area rather than people interested in it, the networks in use, and auto-applied recommendations that change the account without anyone deciding to.
05
5. Search terms and negatives
What the account actually pays for, line by line, and whether irrelevant searches are being excluded.
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6. Structure and match types
Whether ad groups are themed tightly enough for the ads to match the searches, and whether broad match is running without the conversion data it needs.
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7. Ads and assets
Whether ads say what the landing page says, and whether call, sitelink and location assets are in place where they help.
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8. The landing page
Whether the page matches the ad, loads quickly on a phone and makes the next step obvious.
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9. Budget and bidding
Whether the bid strategy suits the volume and quality of conversion data, and whether budget is capped where it should be.
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10. Reporting
Whether the monthly report leads with enquiries and cost per enquiry, or with clicks and impressions.
The full reasoning behind each check is in the journal: what a Google Ads audit should check.
What the audit judges the account on
The same measures a well-run account should report every month, so the audit tells you what the account is actually producing.
- 01Whether the conversion count reflects real enquiries and sales
- 02Cost per real enquiry, recalculated where tracking is inflated
- 03Spend on irrelevant searches
- 04Settings working against the business
- 05Clicks and click-through rate as context only
- Ownership
- You grant read-only access from your own account and remove it afterwards.
- Access
- Nothing in the account is changed during the audit.
- Payment
- The findings are yours to act on yourself, with your current agency, or with Lucent.
- Lucent access
- There is no fee and no obligation to hire Lucent.
- Scope
- If the account is sound, you will be told so.
How the free audit runs
01
Send the request
01 · Request
Tell David the business, the website and roughly what you spend. No call is booked at this stage.
02
Grant read-only access
02 · Access
You add read-only access from your own Google Ads account. Nothing is changed.
03
Ten checks
03 · Review
Tracking first, then settings, search terms, structure, ads, the landing page, bidding and reporting.
04
A 30-minute call
04 · Findings
The faults in order of cost, what to fix first, and a straight answer on whether the account needs outside help at all.
What you get back from the audit
A short, ordered list rather than a long report: the faults costing the most money first, and what to do about each one.
01
The faults, ordered by money
The problems costing the most first, with the evidence from your own account for each one.
02
Tracking verdict
Whether the conversion numbers can be trusted, and what a corrected cost per enquiry looks like where they cannot.
03
Wasted search terms
The searches you are paying for that no customer of yours would make, and the negatives to add.
04
Settings to change
Location, network, recommendation and bidding settings that are working against the business.
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Landing page notes
Where the page and the ad disagree, and what stops a visitor from getting in touch.
06
A straight next step
Fix it yourself, ask your current agency to fix it, or talk about Lucent running it. All three are valid answers.
01Is the Google Ads audit really free?
Yes. There is no fee and no obligation to hire Lucent afterwards. It exists because the fastest way to show how an account should be run is to look at yours.
02What access do you need?
Read-only access to your Google Ads account, which you grant from your own account settings and can remove at any time. Access to Google Analytics or Tag Manager helps with the tracking checks but is not required.
03Will you change anything in my account?
No. The audit is read-only. Any change is yours to make, or your current agency's, or Lucent's if you later decide to work together.
04What does a Google Ads audit check?
Ownership and access, conversion tracking, enhanced conversions and offline imports, campaign settings, search terms and negatives, structure and match types, ads and assets, the landing page, budget and bidding, and reporting. Tracking comes first because it decides whether any other number can be trusted.
05My agency runs the account. Is a second opinion awkward?
It is your account and you are entitled to know how it is run. The findings are written so you can take them to your current agency. Plenty of audits end with advice to stay where you are and fix two settings.
06Can you audit a Performance Max campaign?
Yes, within what Performance Max shows. The most important check is the same: whether the conversions it is optimising towards are real enquiries or sales.
07Can the audit guarantee more enquiries?
No. An audit finds faults and wasted spend. What the account produces after they are fixed depends on your market, your offer and your website.
What clients actually say.
Within two weeks of launching the new site, we saw a 37% increase in quote requests.
David GrayshonProcon 24/7He researched our sector before writing a single word, and asked better questions than agencies three times his size.
Neil GallagherGoogle reviewWe didn't think a website could feel like us, but this does. Our regulars kept saying it looks exactly like Andrews.
Johnny HuntAndrews of HolmfirthHe wanted me to be the most satisfied client he had, because he wasn't going to let that referral down.
Paul HughesProMax RoofingRelated Google Ads pages
- What a Google Ads audit should check The ten-point checklist in full, with what bad looks like for each.
- Why Google Ads conversions are wrong Seven tracking faults and how to fix them.
- Google Ads management How accounts are run once the audit is done.
- Google Ads consultant One person running your account, in your name.
- Procon 24/7: Google Ads case study Why tracking checked against real revenue matters.
Find out what your Google Ads account is really doing.
Read-only access, ten checks, and the faults costing the most money first. No fee and no obligation.
Nothing in your account is changed. You remove access afterwards.