PPC Audit Tools

Pay-per-click advertising is one of the most valuable tools for marketing a business. Companies of all sizes use it, from sole traders up to international organisations.

If you have a Google Ads account, work with Bing Ads, or trust social media for your PPC campaigns, you’ll know that plenty of things can go wrong.

Many companies ask themselves whether they should pay for a PPC audit or do it themselves using one of the many tools available.

As a professional auditing company, we know that a professional PPC audit is the best way to gain complete clarity of your accounts. However, we also get that you might be on a budget and prefer to use tools instead.

So, for those who like to get their hands dirty, the following tools have their benefits and can be suitable for a cost-effective way to evaluate your campaigns.

Let’s dive in.

PPC Analysis Tools

When it comes to software solutions, it seems the market just keeps getting more crowded. From AI content generators, to SEO software, we have many powerful weapons at our disposal.

However, pay-per-click tools are still rare, with manual audits being the preferred method to evaluate campaigns.

But, the two tools you’ll want to use to carry out an initial audit of your ads and get an overview of your accounts are:

1. Google Ads Performance Grader

As the name suggests, this free PPC audit tool is only available for your Google Ads account. Wordstream built the performance tool, which measures eight metrics to give you an overall score of your PPC campaigns.

The metrics include the following:

• Quality score overview.
• Negative keywords analysis.
• Impression share and CTR (click-through rates).
• Long-tail keywords.
• Advert copy quality.
• Evaluating landing pages.
• General account activity.

Don’t expect many extras with a free tool, and the general recommendations are relatively generic.

Is it OK for someone who’s just getting to grips with PPC? Yes. But the Google Ads Performance Grader won’t provide in-depth analytics for growing businesses.

2. Adalysis Performance Analyser

The Adalysis Performance Analyser can evaluate your advert performance and provide valuable metrics if you understand how to use PPC. For example, it will look at how many impressions and conversions you generate and your ROI (return on investment).

Unfortunately, the tool doesn’t provide any actionable insights, nor will it help you manage your PPC accounts, but it does offer an observation of whether you’re meeting specific goals.

As the performance analyser comes with a two-week free trial, it’s worth a go – but you will have to pay $99 a month after the trial ends.

Bidding and account management solutions

Professional marketing agencies often manage dozens of accounts at a time and hundreds of PPC campaigns. As you can imagine, doing everything manually would take a lot of time and potentially impact the account’s performance.

Luckily, there are automation tools available that make the bidding process more straightforward:

Optmyzr

Two former Google employees created this automation tool, so you know it will improve your PPC performance. The software was named the best PPC Management Tool in 2018 and can enhance your bidding strategy.

You can set your account to adjust bids automatically and set flexible settings to make the most of your ad spend. Is it an effective tool? Absolutely. But – it will set you back $499 a month, which many businesses cannot afford.

Wordstream Advisor

Wordstream created their advisory tool for small to medium businesses, and after your free trial, it will set you back $264 a month. The software enables you to simplify the audit process across numerous platforms, including Facebook Ads, Google Ads and Bing Ads.

It works by regularly scanning your accounts, offering insights into the best-performing ads, and highlighting ones that require further optimisation.

Overall, Wordstream Advisor is ideal if you’re confident in PPC techniques because it’s there to evaluate ad performance and will only help if you know how to set up a PPC account correctly.

Conversion tracking tools

Conversion tracking measures how successful your marketing campaigns are, and lets you see when users complete an intended action or “conversion” after viewing an advertisement.

Marketers and businesses can evaluate which ads are performing well and reduce the risks of wasted spend by tracking conversions on a range of platforms.

Software solutions take the manual work away and give you automated reports instead of manually inputting the information into spreadsheets.

AnyTrack

If you want to track conversions across numerous platforms, then AnyTrack could be the ideal solution. It performs automatic conversion monitoring on Google Ads, Microsoft advertising accounts, and social media ad accounts.

The company also offer a simple TAG solution, which means you can easily install it without needing a technical specialist.

Supermetrics

The Supermetrics interface is similar to Google Analytics in many ways, but it’s designed specifically for PPC campaigns. The great thing about the software is that it generates an audit report covering all your platforms.

If you want to see the numbers for each campaign in a simple format, Supermetrics will be highly beneficial – but it’s more for analysis than insights.

Keyword Research Tools

Isolating relevant keywords and search terms is central to a successful campaign. These keywords are necessary for the right audience to find your content, which results in wasted ad spend.

Keyword research is hard enough for general SEO, but your PPC strategy must incorporate negative keywords to target your ads effectively.

While keyword research tools don’t allow you to audit your accounts, finding the correct phrases will make the process much easier.

Google Ads Account Keyword Planner

Everyone knows Google Keyword Planner, but we can’t ignore its effectiveness in this post. You’ll probably use the keyword planner when creating expanded text ads, display campaigns, or any Google ad format.

Even better, this tool is free and offers a range of long-tail keywords to maximise your advertising campaign and reach prospective clients.

SEMRush Keyword Magic

SEMRush is a must-have tool for marketers everywhere, and it offers a wealth of features to simplify keyword research. With a whopping 10.6 million search terms, it has the world’s most extensive selection of keywords.

While the tool offers a similar experience to Google Keyword Planner, you can find better long-tail phrases and maximise your budget.

However, it will cost you a minimum of $99 a month, which is too much for some people.

PPC audit tool versus a professional audit

Which is better? So, now you know some of the many available tools, it’s time to consider whether they are more cost-effective than an audit from a professional company.

To ensure you make the right decision for your needs, we recommend you consider the following questions.

Are you a professional marketer?

Professional marketers have so much to balance, and software allows them to streamline operations and ensure they can stick to time limits. Most software solutions make the process easier, but they don’t do everything for you.

PPC Software might seem like a great solution if you’re a business or aren’t a PPC expert, but it won’t necessarily improve ad or account performance.

Can you afford to pay for the tools?

While there are some free PPC analysis tool options, most require some investment. When you consider the cost of each tool to help you audit your accounts, they’re less cost-effective than a professional auditing service.

Do you have time to go through a regular PPC audit checklist?

Running a business is stressful; you have to live in the present and future simultaneously. Regularly auditing your PPC accounts requires a significant time investment and a financial one.

When you use a company offering PPC audits, you don’t have to make many sacrifices and can focus on other areas of your business.

Our Service Helps You Improve Your PPC Account Performance

If you’re looking for a way to reduce wasted spend and get the most out of your PPC strategy, we provide dynamic audits that identify issues with your current strategy and suggest actions to take.

Our team of professional analysts will hold nothing back and ensure your campaigns can stake their claim on the search results page.

Here’s what we offer:

1. Get the most out of your targeting

Both audience and location targeting are central to ensuring your campaign reaches the right people. We also need to confirm that your ads are optimised for mobile devices, as mobile responsivity is crucial for digital marketing.

Our team can also optimise your adverts for various audiences and locations, ensuring everything is on point and won’t impact your efforts.

2. Restructure your accounts

One of the most common mistakes we see from clients is disorganised campaigns. Ensuring you separate each separate campaign and ad group name makes conversion tracking easier and simplifies the analysis of your PPC accounts.

We’ll help you restructure your accounts and offer support for Google, Microsoft Ads and social media platforms.

3. Create a bid strategy

Unless you have unlimited funds, you’ll want to ensure you identify a suitable budget and split it between adverts effectively. If you don’t invest the right amount into your ads, people won’t see them, resulting in wasted money.

We’ll evaluate each search term and develop an effective strategy that allows you to increase your ROI.

4. Define a goal-based plan of action

We don’t just dive into your accounts and provide information about them. Instead, we ask for details about your goals and devise a way to reach them.

You can achieve so much with well-planned PPC marketing, but the strategy is key to overall success.

Working with us gives you a realistic opportunity to set achievable goals in place through actionable insights.

5. Evaluate your ad copy

Let’s not forget that ad copy is a crucial part of the PPC process. You could have all of the technical elements in place, but while the search engines might love your copy – humans ultimately make or break the campaign.

Powerful copywriting increases conversions and builds a brand that people want to be a part of. We’ll analyse your copy to see where it needs improvements and help you create stronger CTAs.

Book a free consultation today

If you’d like a simple way to succeed with pay-per-click marketing and boost your profits, we’d love to explain how we can help you. Our convenient and professional service gives you a solid foundation to build more effective campaigns for your business.

Please contact us for a free consultation, where we’ll explain the service in more detail. We can get started immediately, so what are you waiting for?

Access our PPC auditing service today and look forward to better results and more customers.