Google Ads audit checklist (2026): 40 checks, each with the data that proves it

A Google Ads audit in 2026 is 40 yes-or-no checks in ten areas, run by money at risk: conversion measurement first, then the settings that route spend, then the defaults Google changed in 2025 and 2026¹. Each check below names the screen to open, the API field that proves it where one exists, and who has to make the call.

I run a performance agency and I build AdCtrl, which connects Google Ads to Claude or ChatGPT, so where AdCtrl can do a read I give the exact words to type. Tracking gaps have their own article, GA4 conversions don't match Google Ads. Checked 5 November 2026 against Google's help pages and the v26 API reference².

What does a Google Ads audit check in 2026?

A Google Ads audit checks three things: that the account measures the outcome the business is paid for, that spend goes where the business sells, and that Google's automation is switched on deliberately. The 40 checks below cover that in ten areas, from conversion goals to change history, and every check ends in a yes or a no.

This covers Search, Performance Max and Demand Gen. It leaves out Shopping feeds and Merchant Center, Video, App and Local campaigns.

• 40 checks in ten areas
• v26.1 latest Google Ads API, 28 Oct 2026
• 2 years of change history in the interface³
• 30 days of change history through the API

Each check carries one of three marks:

• AI can verify: the answer is in the data. A setting is on or off, a column has a value.
• Human judges: the data can't answer it, because the answer turns on what you sell and at what margin.
• Both: an AI or a script pulls the numbers and flags what looks off, and you make the call.

Across the 40, that comes to 7 an AI can settle from the data alone, 23 Both and 10 Human judges.

What changed in Google Ads in 2025 and 2026?

Google changed several defaults that older checklists never mention. AI Max is now on by default for new Search campaigns, Performance Max gained search terms and a channel report, and Display campaigns are moving into Demand Gen^{4, 5}. Every line in the timeline turns into a check further down; "check now" marks what is already live in accounts, "plan for" what is still coming.

1. 6 May 2025: Google announces AI Max for Search campaigns, rolling out in beta
2. 7 Aug 2025: Check now: Performance Max gets search terms reporting in all campaigns and campaign-level negative keyword lists
3. 6 Nov 2025: Check now: channel performance report in all Performance Max campaigns
4. 28 Jan 2026: Google Ads API v23 adds an ad network breakdown for Performance Max
5. 15 Apr 2026: AI Max leaves beta; Google announces the Dynamic Search Ads upgrade
6. Jun 2026: Check now: offline conversion imports move to the Data Manager API (15 June); enhanced conversions become one switch; the Display to Demand Gen migration tool starts rolling out
7. Sep 2026: Check now: Search campaigns with automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match start auto-upgrading to AI Max¹
8. Feb 2027Latest: Plan for: the Dynamic Search Ads auto-upgrade begins; Search campaigns with Display Expansion move to channel prioritization

Google names only two kinds of Search campaign for the September upgrade: those with automatically created assets and those with the campaign-level broad match setting. Whether yours were upgraded is a date you can read per campaign (check 16), so don't assume either way.

Which checks should you run first?

Run the checks in order of the money a wrong answer puts at risk, and put measurement first, because every other number in the account is judged against it. The order is my agency's method, not Google's.

Short on time? Fix these ten first, in this order. They cover measurement and the settings that move the most money.

• Check 1: only real business outcomes are primary conversions.
• Check 2: the goals each campaign bids toward match the business goal.
• Check 3: counting fits each action.
• Check 7: offline and lead uploads are healthy.
• Check 8: each bid strategy has enough conversions and isn't limited.
• Check 10: impression share lost to budget and to rank were read.
• Check 12: Search partners and Display earn their spend.
• Check 13: the location option fits the business.
• Check 16: you know which campaigns run AI Max and which were auto-upgraded.
• Check 27: search terms that spend without converting were reviewed.

Set the full audit up in four steps before you open a single report:

1. Write the business goal in one line: the action that makes money, and a target cost per lead or return on ad spend.

   Manual: agree it with whoever owns the numbers; the measurement and target checks are judged against it.

   With AdCtrl: write "List my conversion actions with their settings, so I can say which one is the real goal."

2. Pick a date range of complete weeks, long enough to hold conversions you can judge.

   Manual: set the same range on every report you open during the audit.

   With AdCtrl: write "Use the last eight complete weeks for everything in this review."

3. List your brand terms, so brand and non-brand searches can be split later.

   Manual: include misspellings and product names that only you sell.

   With AdCtrl: write "Split last month's search terms into searches that contain our brand name and searches that don't."

4. Work down the checks in order and mark each one yes or no.

   Manual: use the printable checklist at the end of this article.

   With AdCtrl: paste the audit prompt from the AI section and tick the list off as answers come back.

Is conversion tracking measuring the right thing? (checks 1–7)

Conversion tracking is right when the actions marked primary are the outcomes the business gets paid for, each counted once. Get it wrong and the bid strategy optimizes toward the wrong thing, which is why I fix it before touching anything else.

Check 7 matters if a script, CRM or tool uploads conversions. Google says that from 15 June 2026, offline conversion imports and enhanced conversions for leads uploads "will be migrated to the Data Manager API and blocked in the Google Ads API"⁸. Consent mode is a check you do on the site: it passes consent status to Google, but it "doesn't provide a consent banner or widget"¹⁰.

If a check fails, make the real outcome the one primary action for that sale or lead and set the rest to secondary, then give bidding time to adjust before you judge anything downstream.

• Manual: open Goals → Summary, then each conversion action's settings; for check 5, Goals → Settings → Customer data use; for check 7, the upload diagnostics.
• In AdCtrl, write: "List my conversion actions with their settings and the offline upload diagnostics. Flag any that count the same lead or sale twice."

Lead uploads have their own walkthrough in Google Ads offline conversions.

Are bidding, budgets and campaign settings sending spend to the right place? (checks 8–15)

Bidding, budget, network and location settings decide where the money goes. The bid strategy needs enough conversions to work with, the budget should be the real limit rather than ad rank, and networks and locations should match where the business sells.

Two findings from audits we've run. Campaigns on the default location option paid for clicks from people who only showed interest in the area, in one account mostly from outside the market it served. And Search campaigns served on Search partners and the Display Network, with spend and no conversions there.

Neither setting is a mistake by default. Google's default location targeting "includes both physical locations and locations of interest"¹², and from February 2027 Search campaigns with Display Expansion move to channel prioritization¹¹. If a check fails, segment by network and by location first, and switch off only what the segment shows isn't converting.

If a campaign loses more impression share to rank than to budget, a bigger budget won't buy those impressions back. Fix ads, keywords or bids first.

• Manual: add Bid strategy type, Search impr. share and both lost IS columns to the Campaigns view; open each campaign's Settings for networks and locations.
• In AdCtrl, write: "For each campaign, show the bidding strategy and its status, the target, search impression share and the share lost to budget and to rank, the networks it serves on, its location option, and its targeted and excluded locations."
• In AdCtrl, write: "List my budgets with the daily amount and which campaigns share each one."
• With AdCtrl: it reads campaign settings, impression share and bidding status directly from Google Ads, so the two requests above bring back the data for most of these checks. Whether the settings fit the business stays your call.

Which campaigns run AI Max, and should they? (checks 16–20)

AI Max is a Search campaign setting that adds search term matching, text customization and final URL expansion, and new Search campaigns have it on by default. The audit question is which campaigns run it, whether Google switched it on for you, and whether the pages and ads can take it.

Three rules from Google's own pages decide checks 17 and 18^{14, 4}. AI Max "won't be effective if campaigns are limited by budget". Its features need "conversion-based Smart Bidding strategies in order to function effectively". With final URL expansion on, "pinning of RSA assets will not be respected", so a pinned legal line can stop showing where you expect it.

If pinning matters more than the extra reach, Google lets you switch text customization and final URL expansion off one by one. My reading of the three rules, per campaign:

Google's documentation also contradicts itself on API support, which matters if you audit with a script or an AI:

Trust the field reference over the FAQ. A timestamp in either migration field means Google moved that campaign to AI Max; an empty field means no auto-upgrade is recorded there.

• Manual: add the AI Max columns to the campaign list (Google says the settings "can be filtered or added as columns"), then open Settings → AI Max per campaign; in the Search terms report, filter match type "AI Max" and read the Source column.
• API: read the three campaign fields above, and ai_max_search_term_ad_combination_view for search term, headline and landing page together.

What are Performance Max and Demand Gen spending on? (checks 21–26)

Performance Max is a single campaign that runs across Google's channels and inventory, and Demand Gen is the campaign type Google is moving Display campaigns into, with channel controls per ad group^{16, 17, 5}.

You can audit Performance Max properly now. It has search terms reporting in all campaigns, campaign-level negative keyword lists and a channel performance report showing where ads ran¹⁸. Demand Gen gets the same channel report, and migrated Display campaigns land there with the Display Network switched on.

Two limits to know. Performance Max negative keywords "are applicable to Search and Shopping inventory only"²⁰, so they don't block YouTube, Display or Gmail. Brand exclusions on Performance Max cover Search, Shopping and YouTube search inventory, with an option to let Shopping ads still show on excluded brands.

We keep finding the same thing here: brand searches flatter Performance Max or the whole account, because brand-heavy conversions make the non-brand work look better than it is. Split brand from non-brand before you judge Performance Max.

If check 22 fails, add campaign-level negatives or a negative keyword list; if check 23 fails, decide on brand exclusions with whoever owns the brand budget.

• Manual: Campaigns → Insights and reports → Channel performance, then Search terms; Demand Gen ad group settings for channels.
• In AdCtrl, write: "Show the Performance Max search-term insights and asset group reporting for last month."
• API: the channel breakdown is segments.ad_network_type on a Performance Max campaign (since v23), and search terms come from campaign_search_term_view.

Which search terms and keywords are costing money? (checks 27–32)

Search terms with spend and no conversions are usually the quickest money an audit finds. Zero conversions alone doesn't make a term irrelevant, though, so check its intent and whether tracking works before you exclude it.

Google's report doesn't show everything. Terms that "don't have enough query activity are omitted from the search terms report" for privacy²², so some spend never shows up as a term and you can't negative it from the report.

Which search terms cost money last month without a single conversion? Show the match type for each, split brand searches (anything containing our brand name) from non-brand, and show Quality Score with its components for the keywords that spent the most.

• Manual: Insights and reports → Search terms, sorted by cost, with Conversions, Match type and Source added; Keywords → Quality Score columns.
• With AdCtrl: write "Find search terms that don't fit my business and prepare negative keywords." AdCtrl prepares the negatives as a preview, and nothing changes until you approve it.

The full process for exclusions, match types and shared lists is in Google Ads negative keywords.

Do ads, audiences and landing pages hold up? (checks 33–35)

Ads, audiences and landing pages decide what a click turns into. Look for an approved responsive search ad in every ad group, audiences set the way you meant them, and pages that load fast on a phone where the spend lands.

• Manual: Ads and Assets with Ad strength and Status; Audiences with the targeting setting; Landing pages with Mobile speed score.
• In AdCtrl, write: "Show ad strength and approval for every responsive search ad, the sitelinks and callouts per campaign, and my audience and Customer Match lists with their size."

Who can change the account, and what changed? (checks 36–40)

The account checks look at who can change the account, which of Google's recommendations get applied, and what changed before results moved.

In audits we've run, the recommendations behind optimization score have included switching on Search partners and Display, adding a target CPA and moving to broad match, all choices the account had deliberately made the other way. My reading: the score tracks how many suggestions you adopt, so dismiss the ones that undo a deliberate decision.

Auto-apply is set for the whole account only, so if check 38 fails, switch off the recommendation types that work against those choices.

Change history has two lengths, which matters if you audit through the API:

• Manual: Admin → Access and security; Recommendations → Auto-apply; Tools → Change history, filtered to the weeks before the drop.
• With AdCtrl: write "List the open recommendations, say which would undo a setting we chose on purpose, and show what changed in the last 30 days by campaign or ad group." It sees what changed, when, and on which campaign or ad group, not who made it or the before and after values.

The API fields behind each check

38 of the 40 checks map to fields in the Google Ads API v26 (consent mode and hidden search terms have none), which you can read with GAQL, the Google Ads API's query language, from a script, your own code or Google's MCP server. Two traps catch scripts: search_term_view "does not include Performance Max data"²³, so Performance Max terms come from campaign_search_term_view, and change_event only goes back 30 days.

Performance Max's network breakdown arrived in the API in v23. Don't treat it as the channel report: Google's release note calls it an "ad network type breakdown" and doesn't promise the API rows match the channel performance report row for row.

Can AI audit a Google Ads account?

An AI connected to the account can run most of this audit: 7 of the 40 checks it can settle from the data alone, and it can prepare the 23 marked "Both" for you. The 10 marked "Human judges" stay with someone who knows the margins and what the business wants to sell more of.

• Google Ads MCP server: Google's own server; search "Executes GAQL requests to fetch resource metrics, budgets, and status", and the docs give the mode as "Read-only (current release)"³⁰

  (Official)

• Recommendations: Google's built-in suggestions and optimization score; can be auto-applied for the whole account

  (Built in)

• AdCtrl: Reads reports, settings, search terms, conversion actions and change history in Claude or ChatGPT; changes wait for your approval

  (Connector)

• MA

  Markifact: Its page: Google Ads "inside Claude, ChatGPT, and other MCP clients for audits, reporting, optimization, and campaign actions", and you "approve actions before anything goes live"

  (Connector)

• RA

  Ryze AI: Its Claude page: "14 Google Ads tools: 8 read including raw GAQL and Keyword Planner, 6 approval-gated writes"

  (Connector)

• 

  Adspirer: Its homepage: "Ask for a campaign, audit, report, or recurring account check."; "Every high-impact change stays yours to approve."

  (Connector)

Google's docs list its server as read-only, and the three other connectors each say changes wait for your approval. AdCtrl doesn't read user access (check 36), and I don't claim its reads for AI Max settings (checks 16–20), the Performance Max channel breakdown (21), or auto-tagging and auto-apply settings (37–38) today, so check those by hand.

The prompt below is the one behind the conversion-actions table in the measurement section, run with read-only requests on our own paused test account.

Audit my Google Ads account: list conversion actions and their settings, campaign settings, impression share and bidding status, the last 30 days of search terms with match type, and open recommendations. Flag what a human should judge.

None of these tools makes the judgement calls for you, and none of them should. I'd let the AI do the reading and keep the decisions on brand, Search partners and AI Max with a person.

The full Google Ads audit checklist

The full Google Ads audit checklist below has all 40 checks in the order above, one yes-or-no line each, so you can tick it off as you go. A "no" in the measurement checks comes first.

• Check 1: Only real business outcomes are primary conversions.
• Check 2: The goals each campaign bids toward match the business goal.
• Check 3: Counting fits each action (one per click for leads).
• Check 4: Conversion values are set and reflect real value.
• Check 5: Enhanced conversions are switched on.
• Check 6: Consent mode is in place for EEA and UK traffic.
• Check 7: Offline and lead uploads are healthy, and API uploads go through the Data Manager API.
• Check 8: Each bid strategy has enough conversions and isn't limited.
• Check 9: CPA and ROAS targets are realistic against actual results.
• Check 10: Lost impression share to budget and to rank were read before raising budgets.
• Check 11: Shared budgets and budget channel settings are known.
• Check 12: Search partners and Display on Search campaigns earn their spend.
• Check 13: Each campaign's location option fits the business.
• Check 14: Targeted and excluded locations match where you sell.
• Check 15: No campaign is quietly limited.
• Check 16: You know which Search campaigns run AI Max and which were auto-upgraded.
• Check 17: AI Max campaigns use conversion-based Smart Bidding and aren't budget-limited.
• Check 18: Final URL expansion and text customization are on only where pages and copy can take it.
• Check 19: AI Max URL exclusions and brand settings are set.
• Check 20: AI Max search terms, headlines and landing pages were read together.
• Check 21: You know where Performance Max spends by channel.
• Check 22: Performance Max search terms were reviewed and negatives added where needed.
• Check 23: Performance Max brand exclusions are decided.
• Check 24: Asset groups have decent ad strength and generated assets were reviewed.
• Check 25: Performance Max placements were checked for brand suitability.
• Check 26: Demand Gen channel controls are intended and migrated Display campaigns reviewed.
• Check 27: Search terms with spend and no conversions were reviewed.
• Check 28: The match type and match source mix is known.
• Check 29: Hidden low-volume search terms are noted as a blind spot.
• Check 30: Negative keywords and lists block waste without blocking good traffic.
• Check 31: Quality Score was read by spend and by component.
• Check 32: Brand and non-brand are reported separately.
• Check 33: Every ad group has an approved responsive search ad, plus sitelinks and callouts.
• Check 34: Audiences are on observation or targeting as intended, with usable list sizes.
• Check 35: Landing pages that get the spend were checked on mobile speed.
• Check 36: Only the right people have admin access.
• Check 37: Auto-tagging is on and account settings are recorded.
• Check 38: Auto-applied recommendations were reviewed.
• Check 39: Recommendations that undo deliberate choices were dismissed.
• Check 40: You know what changed before any drop in results.

Frequently asked questions

What to do next

Start with the measurement checks. If the primary conversion is wrong, fix it before you judge anything else, then work down the list by money at risk: settings, the AI Max and Performance Max defaults, search terms, then ads, audiences, pages and history. Mark every line yes or no, and keep the "Human judges" lines for someone who knows the business.

Learn more: GA4 conversions don't match Google Ads goes deep on measurement, Google Ads MCP compares the official server with hosted connectors, and Claude for Google Ads covers day-to-day use.

Try it: connect AdCtrl with the getting started steps, paste the audit prompt above into Claude or ChatGPT, and go through what comes back with this list next to you. Try every feature free for 3 days, no card needed³¹. AdCtrl can apply nothing until you approve it.