Free Google Ads
+ PMax audit.
Most PMax campaigns we audit have 30–50% of spend going to brand-search, irrelevant placements, or low-intent audiences. Grant read-only access — we'll show you in 7 days exactly where the spend is leaking. No obligation.
Most PMax campaigns waste 30–50% of spend — the question is on what.
Performance Max became Google\'s default campaign type for Shopping + cross-channel coverage in 2023 — and it became the single largest source of unaccounted ad waste in mid-market accounts. The structural problem is that PMax is a black-box bidder: you give it a conversion signal (any conversion, ideally a value-weighted one), audience signals, creative assets, and a budget — and it decides where, when, and to whom to serve. Without aggressive brand-term negative-keywording, audience-signal hygiene, conversion-value modelling, and exclusion lists, that black-box behaviour reliably leaks 30–50% of spend on traffic Google would have given you free, retargeting traffic that converts at a fraction of cold cost, and placements that match no commercial intent.
The audit examines eight surfaces — campaign-type split, PMax asset-group performance, audience-signal effectiveness, brand-search cannibalisation, placement/topic exclusions, conversion-tracking integrity, Shopping/PMax feed quality, new-customer-vs-returning revenue ratio. Each surface gets a Top-3 recoverable-spend recommendation. Brands that ship the recommendations typically recover 18–40% of monthly spend in the first 30–60 days post-audit. The audit is delivered free; no sales call required unless you request one.
- 1. Brand cannibalisation by PMax: 20–40% of branded clicks claimed by PMax that Google would have served free. Negative-keyword brand from PMax + dedicated brand-search.
- 2. Missing first-party audience signals: No customer lists + no high-LTV segments fed to PMax. Black-box optimises against whoever Google guesses looks like a converter.
- 3. No Enhanced Conversions / GTM Server-Side: 11–22% of conversions invisible to Google\'s bidder. Smart bidding under-paces high-intent users.
- 4. No conversion-value modelling: All conversions valued equally. PMax optimises for cheapest, not most valuable. New-vs-returning split missing.
- 5. Auto-applied recommendations on: Google\'s in-platform recommendations grow spend more than revenue. Audit reverses the structural bias.
Common audit questions.
What does the audit actually examine?+
A full Google Ads + Performance Max audit covers eight surfaces: campaign-type spend split (Search / Shopping / PMax / Display / Demand Gen), asset-group performance inside PMax (which signal combinations are converting and which are leaking), audience-signal effectiveness (custom-segment reach, in-market efficiency, customer-list match rates), brand-search cannibalisation (how much PMax spend is claiming branded clicks Google would have given you free), placement + topic exclusions on Display + Demand Gen, conversion-tracking integrity (Enhanced Conversions deployed, GTM Server-Side, offline-conversion imports), feed quality for Shopping + PMax, and the ratio of new-customer revenue vs returning. Each surface gets a Top-3 recoverable-spend recommendation ranked by leverage.
Why do most PMax campaigns waste 30–50% of spend?+
Performance Max is a black-box bidder that optimises against whatever conversion signal you give it. Three structural problems compound: (1) without aggressive brand-term negative-keywording, PMax claims 20–40% of brand-search traffic Google would have served free; (2) without first-party audience signals (customer lists, high-LTV segments), PMax burns the early-learning budget on whoever Google's lookalike model decides looks like a converter — usually low-intent retargeting traffic; (3) without proper conversion-value modelling (LTV-weighted, new-vs-returning split), PMax optimises for whatever conversion is cheapest, not most valuable. The audit identifies which of the three are leaking and quantifies the recoverable spend.
How long does the audit take and what is the deliverable?+
Seven calendar days from access grant to delivery. You receive a written report (typically 12–18 pages) with: an executive summary covering total monthly spend, identified waste, and recoverable opportunity; a per-campaign performance table; the Top-3 recoverable-spend recommendations ranked by leverage with effort estimates; a priority-fix sequence (week 1 / month 1 / quarter 1); and benchmark context vs anonymised category peers in your spend tier. Followed by a 30-minute readout call if you request one. No sales pressure — most audit recipients self-implement the Top-3 recommendations.
What level of access do you need and is it safe?+
Read-only access to your Google Ads account at the standard or admin email level — you grant via Google Ads → Tools → Access and Security → Add User → Read Only. We do not need ownership transfer, do not modify settings, and do not run any automated changes. Read-only access can be revoked instantly the moment the audit is delivered. We also accept MCC-level read access for agencies whose clients we are auditing. We do not need login credentials, API keys, or write access for any audit.
What is the difference between this audit and the paid audit Google sends?+
Google's in-platform "Optimisation Score" and Recommendations tab favour changes that increase total spend with Google — auto-applied broad match, auto-targeting expansion, PMax campaign creation, smart bidding migration. Most of these recommendations look helpful and on average grow the spend more than the revenue. Our audit benchmarks against your CAC, LTV, and recoverable-waste threshold — the recommendations are designed to reduce wasted spend and increase profitable scale, not to grow the platform spend automatically. The difference is whose interest the audit is built around.
I am at $5k/mo — is this audit overkill?+
No — the leverage is often higher at smaller spend tiers because misconfiguration percentages tend to be larger (single PMax campaign mixing brand + non-brand, no audience signals, no Enhanced Conv.). At $5–15k/mo we typically identify 25–40% recoverable spend; at $15–50k/mo it is 18–32%; at $50k+/mo it is 12–22% (more sophisticated baseline). The audit is free regardless of spend tier; we accept submissions from any size brand currently spending on Google Ads. There is no minimum-spend threshold for the deliverable.