What a Google and Facebook ads audit actually checks

“Ads audit” can mean very different things depending on who’s offering it. For some agencies it’s a free review of your campaigns, designed to lead into a pitch. For others it’s a long list of settings to tick off. Neither is much use if the numbers your ads are judged on are wrong to begin with.

Here is what we think a Google and Facebook ads audit should check, in the order we check it, and what you should have in your hands at the end.

1. What counts as a sale

Before looking at a single campaign, we look at what each platform is counting as a result. This is the part most reviews skip, and it’s the part that changes everything else.

We check which actions each account is set up to record, such as purchases, enquiry forms, phone calls or newsletter sign-ups, and which of those the platform is using to judge success. It’s common to find an account treating something minor, like a visit to the contact page, as if it were a sale. That makes the account look far better than it is, and it teaches the platform to find more people who visit pages rather than people who buy.

We also look at each platform’s rules for how long after someone sees or clicks an ad it will still claim a sale, and whether it counts people who only saw an ad. These settings explain a lot of the gap between what platforms report and what you actually sold.

2. Whether the tracking works

Next we test the tracking itself. That means placing test orders or sending test enquiries and watching what each platform records.

We’re looking for three things:

• Missing sales. Sales that happen but never reach the ad platform, often because a checkout page or payment provider changed.
• Doubled sales. One sale recorded two or more times, for example because the tracking code was added twice or a shop app sends a second copy.
• Wrong values. Sales recorded with the wrong amount, such as including shipping and tax in one place but not another, or using the wrong currency.

We check Google Analytics as well as the ad platforms, because many businesses use it as their referee and it can have the same problems.

3. Your real sales

This is the step that makes it an audit rather than an opinion. We take your actual sales from your online shop, such as Shopify or WooCommerce, or from your customer database, such as HubSpot or Salesforce, and line them up against what each ad platform claims.

We do this campaign by campaign where we can, and over a long enough period to smooth out a quiet week. The result shows how much each platform over-counts or under-counts, and which campaigns look good on the platform’s own report but bring in few real customers.

For businesses where sales happen later, over the phone or after a quote, we also check whether those sales ever find their way back to the ad platforms. If they don’t, the platforms are learning from enquiries rather than paying customers.

4. Where money goes without results

With trustworthy numbers in hand, we look at spend. We look for campaigns, keywords, audiences and placements that have cost money over a sustained period without bringing in customers you can see in your own records.

We also look at overlaps, where Google and Facebook are both paying to reach the same people, and at brand search, where you may be paying for clicks from people who were already looking for you by name. Neither is automatically wasteful, but both are worth knowing about.

5. Who has access

It’s not glamorous, but we check who can get into your ad accounts, Google Analytics and the tools connected to them. We regularly find former staff, old agencies and long-forgotten freelancers who still have access. Removing them is quick and protects both your budget and your customers’ information.

6. Your reports

Finally, we look at the reports your team or agency uses to make decisions. Which numbers come straight from the ad platforms? Which come from your sales records? Are they being added together in a way that double counts? We tell you which figures you can rely on and which to stop using.

What you should get at the end

A good audit leaves you with something you can act on, not just a score. At a minimum, you should get:

• A plain-English comparison of what your ads claim and what you actually sold
• A list of problems in order of what they cost you, with who should fix each one
• Clear tracking fixes your web developer or agency can follow
• A conversation to walk you through it and answer questions

An audit should also be independent of whoever runs your ads. That doesn’t mean your agency has done anything wrong. It means the person checking the numbers shouldn’t be the person whose results depend on them.

How we do it

Our Ads & Analytics Audit covers everything above for a fixed fee, with view-only access that’s removed when we’re done. If you’re an agency and want to run the same check on a prospect or client under your own brand, see our white-label agency audit.

Not ready for an audit yet? The free Data Maturity Assessment gives you a quick score on how well you track and report on sales, with the first fixes to make. And if you’re seeing more sales in your ad reports than in your shop, read why your ad platforms report more sales than you made.