This checklist collects every step from the Ad Account Audit series into one table that pastes into Excel or Google Sheets. It’s built for agency onboarding: the first 30 days with a new client account, when ownership, measurement, and settings all need verifying before any optimization starts.
The order follows budget at risk. Access and measurement come before campaign settings so that every later finding rests on trustworthy data.
The Checklist
| # | Area | Check | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Access and ownership | Does the client hold at least one Admin seat in Google Ads on a company email? | ☐ |
| 2 | Access and ownership | Is the Google Ads payments profile owned by the client? | ☐ |
| 3 | Access and ownership | Is the Meta ad account owned by the client’s business portfolio? | ☐ |
| 4 | Access and ownership | Is the Meta Pixel or dataset owned by the client’s business portfolio? | ☐ |
| 5 | Access and ownership | Does the client have admin access to GA4, Google Tag Manager, Merchant Center, and Search Console? | ☐ |
| 6 | Access and ownership | Have former employees and previous agencies been removed? | ☐ |
| 7 | Access and ownership | Is the asset ownership and offboarding clause in the contract signed? | ☐ |
| 8 | Access and ownership | Were the last 90 days of metrics and settings exported before any change? | ☐ |
| 9 | Measurement | Are Google Ads conversion actions free of “Tag inactive” and “Unverified” statuses? | ☐ |
| 10 | Measurement | Do primary conversions reflect real business outcomes only? | ☐ |
| 11 | Measurement | Is any purchase counted as primary by both a Google Ads tag and a GA4 import? | ☐ |
| 12 | Measurement | Are the consent banner and Consent Mode working in EEA and UK traffic? | ☐ |
| 13 | Measurement | Do platform conversions roughly reconcile with the client’s order system or CRM? | ☐ |
| 14 | Google Ads settings | Does the location option (Presence vs Presence or interest) fit the service area? | ☐ |
| 15 | Google Ads settings | Is Display Network expansion on Search campaigns intentional? | ☐ |
| 16 | Google Ads settings | Has auto-apply recommendation history been reviewed and auto-apply set deliberately? | ☐ |
| 17 | Google Ads settings | Are bid targets aligned with the last 30 days of actual results? | ☐ |
| 18 | Google Ads settings | Are budget-limited and underspending campaigns identified? | ☐ |
| 19 | Google Ads settings | Have costly non-converting search terms been added as negatives? | ☐ |
| 20 | Google Ads settings | Do shared negative lists block any valuable keywords? | ☐ |
| 21 | Google Ads settings | Are there disapproved or limited ads? | ☐ |
| 22 | Meta signal and structure | Are Pixel and Conversions API events deduplicated with event IDs? | ☐ |
| 23 | Meta signal and structure | Is Event Match Quality at Good or Great for key events? | ☐ |
| 24 | Meta signal and structure | Are multiple integrations sending the same events? | ☐ |
| 25 | Meta signal and structure | Are most ad sets stuck in learning or “Learning limited”? | ☐ |
| 26 | Meta signal and structure | Does prospecting get meaningful spend under campaign budget? | ☐ |
| 27 | Meta signal and structure | Is frequency rising while CTR falls on top-spending ads? | ☐ |
| 28 | Meta signal and structure | Are attribution settings consistent across campaigns? | ☐ |
| 29 | Diagnostic readiness | Are site releases and tag changes logged with dates? | ☐ |
| 30 | Diagnostic readiness | Are Search Console impressions and year-over-year baselines tracked? | ☐ |
| 31 | Diagnostic readiness | Can GA4 checkout funnel steps be broken down by device? | ☐ |
| 32 | Reporting | Is spend reported including platform fees and country surcharges? | ☐ |
| 33 | Reporting | Are brand search and retargeting on separate report rows? | ☐ |
| 34 | Reporting | Are metric definitions fixed in the report template? | ☐ |
| 35 | Reporting | Is there a change log with reasons for every significant edit? | ☐ |
| 36 | Reporting | Are campaign links tagged with a consistent UTM taxonomy? | ☐ |
How to Use It
Add two columns next to Status: a short finding and its estimated budget impact. At the end of onboarding, sort failed checks by impact to set the order of fixes.
Run the full table at onboarding and once a year after that. Monthly, rechecking rows 9–13, 17–18, and 32–35 covers the areas that break most often.
Details for Each Section
- Rows 1–8: Taking Over an Ad Account
- Rows 9–21: Google Ads Account Audit
- Rows 22–28: Meta Ads Account Audit
- Rows 29–31: Why Did Conversions Drop?
- Rows 32–36: Monthly Ad Report Template