A PPC audit is only useful if it changes what happens next. Most audits are a list of observations. The ones worth doing produce a prioritized plan with a number attached to each item: what it is costing, and what fixing it is worth.
This is what our audit covers, in the order we run it. It is the first stage of the Xtreme Growth Framework and the same process for every account, whether it goes on to become a client or not.
What we need before we start
An audit from screenshots is a guess. We ask for:
- Read-only access to the advertising console, or bulk file exports and search term reports covering 60 to 90 days.
- Business Reports by ASIN for the same period (sessions, unit session percentage, ordered product sales).
- Landed cost or contribution margin per ASIN, so targets can be set from economics rather than benchmarks.
- A list of the products that matter most to the business, because the audit prioritizes by revenue and margin, not by ASIN count.
With these, the audit takes days, not weeks, and the findings are specific.
1. Unit economics and targets
Before looking at a single campaign, we compute break-even ACoS for every priority ASIN. Everything that follows is judged against that line. A campaign at 28% ACoS is a problem on one product and a success on another; without margin data, an audit cannot tell which.
2. Wasted spend
The search term report is sorted by spend, and every term above a product-specific click threshold with no orders is flagged. The total is the account's wasted spend for the period. It is usually the largest single number in the audit and the fastest to recover, because the fix is negatives, not strategy.
We also flag near-waste: terms converting at two or three times break-even that should be bid down or moved.
3. Structure
Each campaign is scored on whether it has a defined role, isolated match types, and a harvesting path. Common findings:
| Finding | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Auto campaigns with no negatives | Research spend never gets cheaper |
| Broad, phrase and exact in one ad group | Broad takes the budget; exact never serves |
| No exact-match profit campaigns | Converting terms have nowhere to go |
| Ranking campaigns with no end date | Rank spend continues after organic took over |
| Duplicate targeting across campaigns | The account bids against itself |
Structure findings are scored by how much spend they affect, so the report shows which fix matters most.
4. Keyword coverage
Using search term data, Brand Analytics and competitor reverse-ASIN research, we list the queries the account should be winning and check whether it is bidding on them, indexed for them and ranking for them. Gaps are usually in the long tail, where competition is lower and conversion is higher.
5. Placement and bidding
Top-of-search multipliers, dynamic bidding settings and budget caps are reviewed by campaign role. A profit campaign running "up and down" with a large top-of-search multiplier is a frequent finding, and an expensive one.
6. Listing conversion
For each priority ASIN, unit session percentage is compared with what the category and price point should support. Products with strong traffic and weak conversion are flagged for listing work before any bid increase, because advertising cannot fix a page that does not convert.
7. Catalog health
Suppressed listings, broken variation families, wrong browse nodes and missing attributes are checked, because each one caps what advertising can achieve. Many audits find at least one product family where the fastest win is a flat-file, not a campaign.
8. The 90-day sequence
Findings are sequenced by impact and dependency. Negatives and wasted spend first, because they are immediate. Structure second, because everything else depends on it. Listing and catalog fixes in parallel, because they take time to show results. Ranking campaigns last, because they should only start once the page can convert and the structure can measure them.
Why we give this away
The audit is free because it is the beginning of the work, not a sales document. If the findings show that the account is well run, we say so. If they show problems we can fix, the plan is already written. Either way, you leave with a clear picture of where the money is leaking and what it would take to stop it.
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