Free vs Paid Pay Per Click Audits: The Ultimate Guide

There’s no doubt that pay-per-click adverts are one of the most effective marketing tools for your business. Not only do they expose your brand to a broader audience, but the ads can also generate quick results when you’re running a promotion or unveiling new products.

One of the biggest mistakes we often see from businesses that utilise PPC ads is their failure to audit their accounts regularly.

On top of that, when they perform audits, it’s usually with free tools that fail to provide an in-depth look at what’s really going on beyond the surface of the accounts.

In this guide, we’ll explore the benefits of free PPC audits and whether they measure up to paid audits, so you can decide which one best suits your needs.

What is a PPC audit?

Every business using PPC campaigns knows that it’s not just a case of creating an advert, hitting publish, and then waiting for customers to roll in (but it would be nice, wouldn’t it?).

Whether you’re using Google Ads, Bing Ads, or social media advertising, you have to plan every element of your campaigns, including keyword research, optimisation, targeting, and creating dynamic copy for your adverts.

On top of that, you need to track your conversions, determine where the campaigns are going wrong, and make changes.

Luckily PPC audits make it easy

Instead of digging through heaps of data manually, a PPC audit looks at your accounts and provides valuable data that you can action.

When you can monitor the performance of each advert and evaluate which changes need to happen, you’ll be able to get the most out of your budget.

The benefits of PPC campaigns

As pay-per-click marketing provides ample opportunities to generate traffic quickly, it will always have its place alongside long-term strategies, such as search engine optimisation and content marketing.

There are numerous benefits of conducting regular PPC audits – especially if this form of marketing is a significant component of promoting your business.

Here are the main advantages of auditing your ad accounts:

You can check if your landing pages still work

A PPC account audit will often highlight any issues you might not know exist. For example, if you have adverts that link to landing pages, the URL should function flawlessly.

Many businesses find their URLs are broken or directed to a completely different page during the audit.

If the content on the landing pages has changed, it can also cause issues, but a PPC campaign audit will highlight these problems so you can make changes.

Analysing the structure of your accounts

Just as you’d organise your work desk to improve productivity, you’ll also need to structure your PPC accounts. If you don’t manage your campaigns properly, you won’t be able to track your business goals and individual campaign performance.

Audits often highlight any issues with PPC account structure, ensuring nothing holds you back, and you can save time.

Trying to find information within disorganised accounts causes numerous problems, and it can take ages to gather the data, but these audits give you a comprehensive report to follow.

Refining your target audiences

Every campaign and single advert should have a specific goal and target to reach. Some businesses create an advert and unleash it across the internet for ‘quick wins’.

Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a quick win with PPC, and this kind of mentality wastes your budget.

A thorough PPC audit will evaluate your location targeting and whether you’re distributing ads to the right audiences.

Once you understand how to target your adverts effectively, you’ll be able to secure better results from campaigns and appeal to different demographics.

Conversion tracking

Conversion tracking is a valuable tool for businesses using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Not only does it allow you to track campaign conversion rates, but it can also save money.

Understanding which adverts perform best is critical to maximising your budget. For example, if you run various campaigns targeting the same audience, you’ll want to identify which has the least impact.

You can also evaluate account performance, seeing whether Google Ads or social media offers the most consistent results.

These audits prevent wasted spend and allow you to prioritise the most effective adverts.

What does a free PPC audit offer?

When trying to secure you as a new business, some PPC audit services will offer free PPC audits. Before signing up, you need to ask yourself – do these free audits provide any real benefits?

We can’t judge every company out there, and perhaps some do offer a complete look at your accounts – but here are the standard features of zero-charge audits.

A look at your Google ads account

Free audits will look at your Google ads account, including:

• Ad campaigns
• Ad groups
• Individual adverts

As Google Ads is the most popular option, it’s more common for companies to audit that account instead of all your platforms.

Summarising your PPC efforts

Free audits will also summarise how your current campaigns perform and whether you’re making sales from the adverts. The report will usually contain an overview of your best-performing ads and keywords, including where you’re losing money.

Recommendations

Most marketing agencies will provide some actionable recommendations that allow you to reduce the chances of a wasted budget and offer guidance on what you can do to improve your accounts.

However, many of these agencies use their free audits as a lead generation tool and will want you to give them your business.

For these reasons, you’ll often receive some basic recommendations but won’t get an in-depth report that analyses your campaigns in depth.

How are paid PPC audits different?

As a company offering in-depth audits, we understand that a surface look at your accounts is like giving a patient some medicine without diagnosing the root problem.

Yes, our PPC audits cost money, but they’re designed to provide actionable insights and are always carried out by a team of PPC experts.

Here’s what we can offer you.

Evaluating your negative keywords

As well as looking at your keywords, we’ll evaluate the negative phrases to see if you’re getting enough bang for your buck. Negative keywords play an essential role in the success of a digital marketing campaign.

These words act as filters to ensure your ads don’t appear when particular phrases and search terms are used in a query.

By strategically adding these words to your campaign, you’re able to ensure your ads are targeted towards audiences more likely to convert, saving time and money.

We’ll identify how often you’re paying for clicks that lead nowhere and help you find the right negative keywords.

Analysing ad copy

The advert copy you create will ensure people viewing your content take the action you’d like them to. We see poor copy all too often, which can negatively affect your campaigns.

Prospective clients will only trust your product or service if you display yourself as a reputable brand, and a proper analysis of your copy will identify any problems.

Whether your copy lacks a proper CTA or doesn’t include important information, we’ll help you refine your campaigns, ensuring you don’t waste your ad spend.

Fine tune your bid strategy

Pay-per-click marketing requires some investment, but most companies are on a budget. Trying to balance different campaigns without spending too much money can be highly problematic, but it is possible.

The key is to evaluate which keywords are best for your budget and choose the right ones. High competition phrases will always cost more, but our experts will help you manage your budget effectively through a tailor-made bid strategy.

Boosting your ROI

Perhaps most importantly, our detailed PPC audits can significantly boost your return on investment. All PPC campaigns require an investment, but when that money isn’t coming back in, you’re throwing it away.

Once you receive our detailed PPC audit report, you’ll be able to manage your budget and identify where you can make more money.

Fully bespoke to your needs

Every company has specific goals it wants to achieve from pay-per-click marketing, but a free audit doesn’t consider them.

For example, if you choose a paid audit, you can explain your goals to the company, ensuring they track the most critical aspects of your business.

Work With a Team That Specialises in Auditing PPC Accounts

We founded our company because we’ve seen the true power of pay-per-click advertising first hard – but also know that many businesses don’t get to see powerful results.

There’s no doubt that PPC requires a great deal of planning, including technical expertise – and creativity in copywriting. It’s a lot to handle, isn’t it?

When you understand how to manage your PPC account and nail each element that goes into a campaign, you can secure the best possible results.

1.Save Time

Doing your own PPC audits can be time-consuming – especially as you need to perform them regularly. If you invest money in your audits, you want to be sure that outgoing spending will bring profits into the business.

We can offer guidance on your campaigns by performing regular audits and help you avoid going through manual data.

2.We Dive Deep

Our PPC experts offer a full-service audit and will analyse each ad account, including Bing Ads, Google Ads and social media marketing platforms. While a free audit will usually examine one platform, we analyse them all.

3.Receive Actionable Insights

Once we complete your PPC campaign audit, you’ll receive a full report, essentially a PPC audit checklist of improvements. Instead of just providing a brief overview, you’ll have actionable recommendations that our team will go over in more detail.

As part of our PPC audit services, we also offer a phone call or video chat to discuss the results further.

Is a free or paid PPC campaign audit better?

There’s no set answer to whether you should opt for a free audit or invest in a paid one, but many professionals agree that paid audits are best. Not only are they bespoke to your needs, but they also provide in-depth insights that ensure your campaigns perform better.

If you’re willing to invest in PPC, professional audits will ensure you maximise your budget by securing a positive return on your spending.

We’d love to explain how we can help you see an improvement in your advertising efforts and create successful PPC campaigns.

Don’t hesitate to contact us for a free consultation; we can get started immediately.