Google Ads Agency Audits: How to Separate Genuine PPC Problems From FUD

What does FUD mean in PPC?

FUD stands for Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. It's a sales technique that focuses on making a buyer nervous about their current situation rather than proving the commercial value of the proposed alternative.

In Google Ads, that might sound like "Why is your agency spending money on people searching your own brand?" Or "Performance Max is letting Google decide how to spend your money." Or "You're not appearing for this important search."

These statements might identify genuine problems. But none of them, in isolation, proves anything. That's the important distinction: a finding tells you something happened, an analysis tells you why it matters, and a strategy tells you what should happen next. Too many Google Ads audits stop at the first one.

"You're spending money bidding on your own brand"

This is probably one of the easiest ways to make a Google Ads account look wasteful. Imagine an agency discovers you've spent £300 bidding on your own brand. They present this to you: "Why are you paying Google £300 for customers who already know who you are?"

It sounds terrible. But £300 tells us almost nothing. Before deciding whether that spend is wasteful, we'd want to understand:

• —How much revenue and contribution did the £300 generate?
• —Which branded queries actually consumed the spend?
• —How many conversions were incremental?
• —Are competitors bidding against the brand?
• —What happens to organic traffic when brand ads are removed?
• —What is the difference between new and returning customers?
• —Does Shopping appear alongside branded searches?
• —What happens to total revenue when brand activity is reduced?

At JudeLuxe, we're actually sceptical of blindly spending money on branded search. We regularly separate brand from generic activity precisely because otherwise brand performance can make an account look considerably healthier than it really is.

The first is an observation. The second is useful analysis. If branded search is genuinely incremental and profitable, we'd keep it. If it isn't, we'd reduce or remove it. The objective isn't to eliminate brand spend. The objective is to eliminate unprofitable or non-incremental spend.

Performance Max vs Standard Shopping: the wrong debate

Another common Google Ads audit argument is that Performance Max gives Google too much control. The proposed solution is often Standard Shopping. There are absolutely circumstances where we agree: Standard Shopping can provide greater visibility and control over how Shopping traffic is managed. Performance Max can also work extremely well.

The mistake is turning this into an ideological argument. Performance Max isn't a strategy. Standard Shopping isn't a strategy. They're campaign types.

At JudeLuxe, we're not interested in being a "PMax agency" or a "Standard Shopping agency". We're interested in the commercial outcome. If Standard Shopping allows us to allocate budget more effectively and generates greater contribution, we'll use Standard Shopping. If Performance Max generates greater contribution, we'll use Performance Max. Frequently, we'll use both. The campaign architecture should follow the commercial problem you're trying to solve, not the agency's preferred Google Ads feature.

"You're not eligible for this important search"

Another effective audit technique is showing a client an important keyword or search term that appears to have limited coverage. Again, it can be completely legitimate. If you're an online cycling retailer and commercially valuable searches around "gravel bikes" aren't being captured effectively, that deserves investigation.

But Google Ads doesn't exist to maximise the number of keywords you can appear for. It exists to generate commercially valuable outcomes. So the question isn't simply "Are we appearing?" It's "Should we be appearing, how aggressively should we compete, and what is that traffic worth?"

Search volume without economics is just traffic. And traffic doesn't pay your VAT bill.

More clicks and lower CPCs don't necessarily mean more profit

This is where Google Ads analysis becomes considerably more interesting. Imagine impressions have increased, clicks have increased, average CPC has fallen from 54p to 47p, and revenue or profit hasn't increased proportionately. Has Google Ads failed?

Possibly. But not necessarily. You're now acquiring more traffic at a lower unit cost. The next question should be: why isn't that additional traffic translating into additional profit? That investigation could include:

These are commercial questions. And they're why we believe Google Ads should be managed alongside business economics rather than judged purely inside the Google Ads interface.

ROAS can hide the problem

This becomes particularly important in ecommerce. Two products can both generate a 500% ROAS. That does not mean they're equally valuable.

Imagine Product A has a 70% gross margin and Product B has a 25% gross margin. After accounting for COGS, fulfilment, payment processing, shipping, discounts, returns and advertising costs, Product A might be extremely profitable while Product B is losing money.

This is why JudeLuxe increasingly structures Google Ads around product economics and contribution, not simply revenue. We call this principle: Every SKU Has a Job.

Some products exist to generate profit. Some are appropriate for aggressive scale. Some acquire valuable new customers. Some help recover cash tied up in inventory. Some should barely receive advertising investment at all. Treating every SKU identically because Google reports the same ROAS is commercially dangerous.

The question every Google Ads audit should answer

There's one question we think should be asked repeatedly during any PPC audit: what's the counterfactual? In plain English: what would have happened if we hadn't spent this money?

Take branded search. If you spent £300 and generated £5,000 in sales, that sounds excellent. But what if £4,900 of those sales would have happened through organic search anyway? Very different conclusion.

Now take Performance Max. Suppose PMax generated £100,000 in revenue. Excellent. But what if Standard Shopping could have generated £95,000 while producing significantly greater contribution because spend was allocated towards higher-margin products? Again, very different conclusion.

This is why attribution and incrementality matter. Google Ads reporting tells you what Google has attributed to advertising. It doesn't automatically tell you what advertising caused.

What a good Google Ads audit should contain

A serious Google Ads audit should go considerably further than identifying strange settings or isolated examples. We'd expect it to examine areas such as:

1. 01
   Commercial performance. Not just ROAS. Look at contribution, profitability, customer acquisition cost and margin.
2. 02
   Product-level economics. Understand which SKUs deserve investment and which don't.
3. 03
   Brand vs non-brand. Separate existing demand capture from genuine demand generation.
4. 04
   New vs returning customers. Understand whether Google Ads is creating customers or repeatedly paying to reacquire existing ones.
5. 05
   Campaign architecture. Assess whether Search, Shopping and Performance Max are being used appropriately for their specific jobs.
6. 06
   Product feed quality. For ecommerce businesses, the Merchant Center feed is one of the biggest remaining areas of leverage. Titles, attributes, GTINs, imagery, pricing and product categorisation all matter.
7. 07
   Search coverage. Identify commercially valuable queries where visibility is insufficient.
8. 08
   Budget allocation. Determine whether advertising investment is flowing towards the products and customers capable of producing the best commercial return.
9. 09
   Measurement. Make sure the numbers being optimised towards actually represent business value.
10. 10
    A clear action plan. What should change? Why? What do you expect to happen? And how will success be measured?

Without that final part, an audit is largely a collection of observations.

Should you let another agency audit your Google Ads account?

Absolutely. We don't believe businesses should blindly trust their incumbent agency. Including us. Clients should challenge their agencies, ask difficult questions, request explanations, get second opinions and test assumptions.

If another agency reviews an account we manage and discovers something we've missed, we'll investigate it. If they're right, we'll fix it. If Standard Shopping would perform better, we'll use more Standard Shopping. If branded search isn't incremental, we'll reduce it. If Performance Max is allocating spend poorly, we'll change the structure.

Because the objective isn't to prove that JudeLuxe was right. The objective is to make the client more profitable. That's the difference between protecting an agency relationship and protecting a client's commercial outcome. We care considerably more about the latter.

How to evaluate a competing PPC agency's audit

If another Google Ads agency presents you with an audit, ask them these five questions:

A good agency should be comfortable answering all five.

Google Ads doesn't need to be mysterious

Google Ads is complicated. That doesn't mean agencies should use complexity as a sales tool. Our job should be to make the complicated understandable.

A client should be able to ask "Where did my money go?" and receive a clear answer. "What did it generate?" Clear answer. "What's working?" Clear answer. "What's not working?" Clear answer. "What are you changing?" Clear answer. "How will we know whether you were right?" Clear answer.

That's the standard we try to hold ourselves to at JudeLuxe. Not because we'll always get every decision right. Nobody does. But because clients deserve to understand how their money is being invested and why.

Final thought

The easiest Google Ads sales pitch in the world is "Here's everything your current agency is doing wrong."

The harder conversation is "Here's what we'd do differently, here's why, here's the expected commercial impact, and here's how you can hold us accountable if we're wrong."

That's the conversation worth having. Because control isn't the outcome. Performance Max isn't the enemy. Standard Shopping isn't the saviour. ROAS isn't profit. And a scary-looking screenshot isn't strategy.

The job of a Google Ads agency is ultimately very simple: invest the client's money where it has the best chance of producing a commercially valuable return. Everything else is just buttons.

FAQ