Guides to auditing Google Ads and Meta Ads
Every module of the AdStake Assurance Standard™, explained — how to check it manually, and how AdStake automates it. No sales pitch, just the methodology.
Audit types
Broad guides to auditing a specific platform or campaign type.
Google Ads Audit: What It Checks and Why It Matters
A systematic review of your account against the things that actually cost you money — not a punch list of settings someone forgot to check.
Meta Ads Audit: A Real Review of Your Facebook & Instagram Spend
Meta's automation is powerful and opaque at the same time — an audit is how you find out what it's actually doing with your budget.
PPC Audit: The Complete Guide
"PPC audit" covers Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and paid social — the discipline is the same across all three: verify before you trust.
Independent Google Ads Audit: Why Independence Is the Entire Point
The value of an audit is proportional to how little the auditor has riding on the outcome.
Marketing Agency Second Opinion: Verify Before You Trust
The equivalent of a financial audit for the advice you're already paying for.
Google Ads Wasted Spend: Where It Hides and How to Find It
Waste in Google Ads is rarely one big obvious mistake — it's usually a dozen small ones that never get added up.
Performance Max Audit: Verifying the Campaign Type You Can't See Inside
Performance Max trades visibility for automation — an audit is how you recover some of that visibility after the fact.
Facebook Ads Audit Checklist
The manual version of what AdStake automates — useful either way you run it.
Advertising Waste Calculator
A rough estimate is a starting point — an audit against your own data is the actual answer.
How to Audit Google Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide
The manual process, laid out in order — and where automation genuinely helps versus where it's just faster.
Audit methodology
Individual findings the AdStake Assurance Standard™ checks for — one module at a time.
Search Term Waste: Finding Queries That Never Convert
The single largest weight in the AdStake Assurance Standard™ — 25% of every score.
Duplicate Auctions: Bidding Against Yourself
One of the few Google Ads problems where the algorithm can't save you — it doesn't know two of your campaigns are actually the same advertiser.
Creative Fatigue: When Your Ads Stop Working
The same ad that performed well in week one is quietly costing more every week it isn't refreshed.
Budget Allocation: Is Your Spend Where It Should Be?
The question that matters isn't 'is this campaign profitable' — it's 'is this the best use of the next dollar.'
Conversion Integrity: The Module That Invalidates Every Other Number If It Fails
Every bidding strategy, every budget decision, and every audit finding downstream of your conversion data is only as trustworthy as the tracking itself.
Audience Overlap: Competing for the Same People
When two of your own campaigns target the same audience, Meta's auction treats them as competitors — because, functionally, they are.
Landing Page Quality: Where the Ad's Promise Gets Kept or Broken
A high CTR and a low conversion rate together usually point to the same place — not the ad, but what happened after the click.
Budget Pacing: Is Your Spend Actually Hitting Its Target?
A campaign that consistently under-delivers its budget isn't 'saving money' — it's leaving reach on the table for a reason worth understanding.
Attribution Issues: Getting Credit It Didn't Earn
The most flattering-looking campaign in your account is sometimes flattering because of how it's measured, not how it performs.
Campaign Structure Problems: When the Architecture Fights the Strategy
A well-structured account makes every other optimization easier. A poorly structured one makes every other finding harder to trust.