How to Audit an account?

July 23, 2016
Accounting And Auditing

How to Audit a PPC Campaign You may be performing a pay-per-click (PPC) account audit on behalf of a prospect in hopes of winning the business. You may also be auditing a current account with a new set of eyes in hopes of expanding their business with help from your agency. Whichever the case may be, account audits are vital to showcase your PPC skills and win over the prospect or client.

Below are eight tips to provide you with the necessary ammunition to learn how to audit a PPC account.

Tip #1: Block off a set amount of time in your day so you can focus exclusively on being the PPC ninja that you are without any distractions. Here are a few suggestions to help you achieve this:

Close your email (if something is urgent, you will get a phone call)

Work in a conference room

Set aside an amount of time you want to spend before you start, so it doesn’t consume your entire day

Tip #2: Create an audit template that you can use (not just for your current audit, but moving forward as well)

Within this template, I’d recommend having key sections such as:

Executive Summary

Campaign Settings

Budget/Impression Share

Ad Extensions

Ad Copy

Keywords

Negative Keywords

Landing Page

You could also have a separate section on display tactics, YouTube and others if it applies to the account.

If you are auditing various search engines, be sure to distinguish those as well.

Tip #3: Know your audience

Understand who will be reading the audit. Will it be a CMO or a PPC strategist, for example? These are obviously two different positions. If the audit is only being read by a CMO, you will want to keep the topics much more high level by focusing on the key observations. However, I may still have a separate, more detailed audit to pass along to other team members.

Tip #4: Cite articles

Refer to any articles that you believe further make the case for what you are trying to say. Prospects or clients generally like this. They have more of a comfort level with your recommendations if they are backed up elsewhere.

Tip #5: Make it Visual

Take screenshots from the AdWords or Bing interface or Excel. Using SmartArt (in Microsoft Word) is another way to add a visual touch. These are just a couple of the ways to make your audit more visually appealing.

Tip #6: Tell a Story

Rather than just explain what needs changed in the account, elaborate on why it is important and what the consequences may be from not making the adjustment. Then make a recommendation on what specifically needs done. Try to use as few words as possible and get to the main point quickly.

Tip #7: The Layout

Earlier, I mentioned the various sections to use within your audit, but the presentation within those sections is crucial as well. Use bullets and sub bullets, don’t just write a paragraph. Providing a recommendation in each section is useful as well to give the prospect/client key takeaways.

Tip #8: You most likely will be reviewing your audit with the prospect or client so you want to make sure it is in an easily digestible format. I would pull out the key insights from your Word doc audit into a PowerPoint That way you have two documents in total, which should include:

The very detailed Word document audit with everything included for the prospect or client to reference.
The PowerPoint deck taking the insights from the Word document and boiling them down into the key topics to be reviewed with the prospect or client, perhaps on the phone or in person.