Welcome to Week 1 of Audit Month!

It’s 2018 folks! Time to get your AdWords accounts in shape for the new year.

Today, we’re covering the essentials of auditing your own AdWords account.

Having a process to audit your account will help you:

•  Make better decisions
• Communicate and manage with confidence
• Improve strategy and performance
• Avoid and fix mistakes

 

 

James: You’re listening to the Paid Search Metric podcast, your weekly deep dive into search engine marketing, AdWords, client management, and so much more. This is Episode 24, and I’m your host, James Hebdon, joined by my cohost and wife, Amy Hebdon.

People tend to have a visceral reaction when they hear the word audit. It often tends to have a negative connotation, and they connect it with the IRS. In fact it’s one of the scariest things that many people can imagine, is to be audited by the IRS, to have every tax form you filled out reviewed, every receipt scrutinized … To have a group of experts poring over your finances to find out if you’ve made a mistake, and to punish you if you have.

But in the paid search world, audits are something very different. They’re a good thing, a methodology that you can use to make your account or your client’s account sing with efficiency and profit. For a long time, Amy and I have wanted to dive into and formalize audits. But they’re simply not something that you can tackle in one episode. And so today, and throughout January, Amy and I will be showing how an audit just may be the best thing you could possibly do in 2018. And there’s no better time to do it than the start of the new year.

So buckle up, open your mind, and get ready to understand your paid search account like you never have. To hear an accounting, and to make your account sing like it never has. You can find show notes and a complete transcript of this episode, at paidsearchmagic.com/24.

James: Amy, thanks so much for all the work you’ve put into this.

Amy: Yeah, definitely. And it has been a lot of work. I signed up for courses, and was reading books on audits, because I’m not a professional auditor, so I wanted to make sure that I approached this with the right background and framework. And at a certain point, I was like, I could go to school and become an auditor, and still not feel like I had everything under control. But I definitely have enough that we can do a very good month of audits for paid search. So no worries there.

James: For those of you listening, Amy is literally looking at the theory of what an audit is. Just in the most abstract sense possible. She’s been pouring her heart into this. So … And there’s a lot … And it’s showing. There’s a lot of good stuff to go through here.

So Amy, we’ve been working on audit month for a while. Just tell us about why this seems important. Tell us, tell the listeners why this is an important thing.

Amy: Yeah, so I think that audit … You mentioned in the intro, it can instill fear in people. And a part of that is, especially if you’re the one who’s expected to perform an audit, and you don’t have a set of standardized processes. People assume that an audit is very … There’s a clear method, there’s a clear structure. But a lot of times, there just isn’t one. And a lot of times, what an audit is can vary so much from company to company, or client to client. We had the situation a few years ago, you were working at a company, at an agency where an audit was a quick and free acquisition tool. Right?

James: Yeah, it was an acquisition tool.

Amy: Where you were going in with no knowledge, no prior knowledge of the account, trying to find as many insights as you can without investing any real hours into it-

James: Right. It’s like, look, do this incredibly great job, but don’t put any time into it.

Amy: Right. You’ve got three hours. So for you it was one thing. I was probably on the other side of the spectrum at my agency, where we were … An audit was a deliverable that was at least four figures. At least mid-four figures, sometimes more, where we were producing a hundred-page document that was very detailed, with all sorts of insights, and people were paying for it. And we weren’t even allowed to use the word audit to mean anything other than a deliverable. That’s what it was. Capital A. So if we were gonna audit an account, or audit some sort of process, no. That wasn’t an audit. Audit meant something very, very specific. Whether or not there was a structure in place, it still meant a specific outcome.

James: Right. It had a value attached to it.

Amy: Right, and so I think just … Even just given those two data points, and everything else that an audit can be, there are so many question marks around it, but we lose sight a lot of the time of what we’re trying to accomplish. And I wanted to put together a method or a process that people can go through, and really gain insights into their accounts for how to make it better for the new year.

So our goal with doing this series is to help eliminate confusion for people who are tasked with doing audits. Just to set the stage, this is primarily for our own accounts, not how to audit someone else’s account, but for your own account. So to eliminate any sort of confusion, provide clarity, get really clear on what’s going on inside the account, and then also drive and improve results.

James: Right.

Amy: Which is basically an outcome of getting clarity, and getting rid of confusion, is that you’ll be able to do it better. The other goal that I have for what we’re doing for this whole month, is making sure it’s very accessible. I think it’s hard to come by training materials for audits, that are just specific to the theory. Because a lot of times it can be a step-by-step walkthrough … And we wanted to make sure that this was designed for someone who’s listening to it.

James: Right. Because something that’s really lacking is training, or articles, or whatever, that gives people the broader perspective to put everything else in context. Right?

Amy: Yeah. It’s more like, go to this screen, and check this box. And there’s value in that, for sure. But I think that one of the advantages of having podcasts be the format that we’re doing this, doing it audibly, is that we’re gonna be talking about high level concepts, and principles, and theory, and just the ways to approach it, and think of it, so that when you get to the point where you’re actually looking at the account, you know what you’re doing. You’re not just following a sequence, but you understand why you’re doing it.

James: Okay. Great. So the people who are commuting, basically-

Amy: Yeah, exactly. We were toying around with calling this An Audit for Commuters or something, right?

James: The Commuter’s Guide to Audits.

Amy: The Commuter’s Guide to Paid Search Audits.

James: Which we thought was really clever, and then it turns out there’s a million of those types of things. Not for paid search audits, but the commuter’s guide to-

Amy: Yeah I think that’s like-

James: Variable X. Right.

Amy: A copyrighted thing or something. But-

James: Okay, well … So you had mentioned, just like with our two companies, that difference between what’s considered to be an audit, even within the paid search arena. As you’ve been doing research, as you’ve been looking into this, is there any consensus on what an audit is, or how it should be approached, or anything like that?

Amy: Yeah, so I think an audit itself can refer to a lot of different things. There’s the self-audit, or self-check or quick assessment. It can be used for something very informal. And then it could also be referring to something very formal, like the IRS, if you’re in the United States. Anything that’s a very official auditing procedure.

James: The scary audit.

Amy: Right. And I think even specific to paid search, obviously it can mean a lot of different things. In addition to what we’ve talked about, there’s an audit that you’ll see when people are trying to … Get a free audit for your account, where a lot of times, that’s referring to someone trying to shark you. Someone trying to … They’re gonna find as much wrong with it as possible, so they can have … Found a bunch of flags, and say, “Hey. Here’s how much wasted spend you have,” or, “Here’s all these things wrong with it”-

James: Which is such a favorite thing, is, you’ve wasted X amount of spend. It’s like, no you haven’t.

Amy: Right. Oh and sometimes people have. Sometimes there’s huge waste.

James: Yeah, let me be clear. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever audited an account where I haven’t found a lot of wasted spend. But usually the way that they’ll do it, is to say, “Oh well, with 20/20 hindsight, we can see that these keywords have lost money. And we’re gonna just say that you’ve lost all that money.”

Amy: Yeah. And that definitely happens. And there can be some element of value for that. There can be value for raising the flag, and for looking at what specific is going wrong and calling everyone’s attention to it. And then there’s also another type of audit that’s really common is an inventory audit, like the WordStream kind of audit, where you’re going through a checklist or series-

James: Just the programmatic-

Amy: Right. Just taking note. Has this many keywords. We have got this many campaigns, or this many ads in an account, or in an ad group. And then trying to assign some value to it, like this is good or bad. And one of the weirder things for me, one time when I had a WordStream account, and this is some … I’m sure it was an anomaly, but I think my quality score was an eight, and it was like, oh, seven is good. And so it gave me a worse score for it. And they’ve since corrected it. I don’t mean at all for this to be bashing WordStream, it’s just an interesting anecdote.

James: Well I think-

Amy: The earlier stage of the software.

James: It reflects the potential and inherent limitations of programmatic audits, at least right now. They’re getting better all the time. But yeah, they can only check against predefined conditions.

Amy: And then, just another really common way that we’ll refer to audits, is just a quick internal review. Like, I’m going to audit my landing pages, or audit my ad groups. And it just means just a quick manual check, just to make sure everything’s in good shape, right?

James: Right.

Amy: And so it really can refer to a lot of different things, totally valid different things. But like I said, we’re gonna focus on the internal audit, where you are going through your own account, you have the backstory, you are making notes, and you don’t have to report your grade or what you find to anyone else. This is just something for you, to be able to make improvements and improve the account performance.

James: So again, you did a crazy amount of research on this. I know that you were really pouring yourself into this. But I also know you have a lot of experience. We both do, doing audits. Did you learn anything as you were going through this process, as you were researching, that you didn’t know before?

Amy: Yeah. So I was really trying to get a better idea of an internal auditor’s job, or what happens when there is a universally accepted procedure for what goes through an audit. And to be honest, what happens in the formalized profession of account auditing is pretty different from what we’re doing. I didn’t see a whole lot that I could apply and say, “Here’s the one right way to do a paid search audit.” There’s a lot that goes on with risk and transparency that just doesn’t quite apply to somewhere where there’s no question. The spend is the spend from … It’s hard to mask what’s happening, because it’s all out in the open.

But one thing I thought was really, really interesting as I was researching, was the definition of etymology of what an audit is, or how it came to be, which is that apparently this goes back to Rome, where they had … Trying to understand what was going on, within accounts. So there’d be government officials who weren’t the people who were doing the record keeping, doing what they called an audit of the accounts. Audit, coming from the word … And I never really thought of this before, but related to auditory, or hearing, right?

James: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Amy: So listening to the accounts. Listening to what’s happening. And they would listen to-

James: Oh I remember that. It was the hearing of accounts.

Amy: Right. They would listen to each other. So someone would read something off, and the other person was just auditing or providing a check, to make sure that what one person said was the same thing as what the other person said. So that was the origin of what later became an entire profession of auditing, which I thought was really cool. And I just love the idea of auditing means listening to an account. Because I think our AdWords accounts are so dynamic, and there’s so much to be aware of, that to really be able to listen to it and get a feel for it, and pick up on the rhythm and the flow of how an account is working, will give you a huge advantage, a huge competitive advantage, for what changes to make and how to manage everything.

James: Well and also part of that is just the implicit transparency of hearing of accounts. Is essentially to take the facts of the situation, of whatever your status is, and make sure that that’s public. Or to give it out to your group. That’s something that I know a lot of clients often feel like they haven’t gotten. They feel like they really have no idea if you’re doing anything. So this can be really effective across the board that way.

Amy: Yeah, for sure.

James: So over these next few weeks, what are we going to be focusing on, specifically for this series?

Amy: Well, so I think one really important thing that we’re gonna focus on is just getting clarity. I was listening to something that was talking about goal-setting for the new year, and it was saying how important clarity is, both in the goals that you’re setting and where you’re at right now, in making those goals. And the person said something that was essentially, “Clarity is more important than strategy.”

James: I’ve heard that before.

Amy: Which caught my attention just because strategy is so important, but you can’t create a strategy blindfolded. You have to have clarity to inform your strategy. And so by doing an audit, what … One of the byproducts of what we’re doing is we’ll get to the point, by the end of the month, we’ll actually put together a strategic roadmap that is a client deliverable. Because we’ll have all the ingredients for that, so it will go fast, and we’ll be able to get that going. But really getting clear on what is going on within the account before we take action.

James: Uh-huh (affirmative). Yeah one thing that I’ve had this pop up several times where I’ve gotten bad data, for whatever reason. I’ve been making assumptions. I’ve been determining strategy based on bad data. It’s worse than having that data unknown. Because at least if it’s unknown, I know that. When it’s just bad, then I’m making bad decisions. I’m just approaching it incorrectly.

Amy: Right.

James: So, how’s it gonna work?

Amy: Well so every week, we’ll focus on a different lens, or approach, for the account. So next week, we’re gonna look at goals and tracking and conversions. And this is definitely the most technical, the part where people probably will need the most outside help to really be able to approach it, but it’s so good, because if you’re looking at something that it’s just easier not to look at, so you avoid, you’ll really dig in and get some clarity that maybe you didn’t even want. But-

James: Well and let me just add, as we were going through this, as we were figuring out what was going to go into this, what made sense given the medium and everything, we executed on this ourselves. We took some of our own accounts, and started processing through them using the audit that we’re going to go through now. And we found just a stupid amount of stuff there, that maybe we should have caught before, but the audit helped us find it.

Amy: Well I don’t even want to say it’s things we should have caught before, but there are just questions that … Where you know that they’re questions. Like, what is this conversion action that we are importing? What does it actually reference? Is it a duplicate of something else? There’s just a lot to figure out that we don’t necessarily have access to, but it was really pushing those questions in a way that we’ve asked a million times, but we’re actually getting to the bottom of it and saying, “We need this information to move forward.”

James: Well it’s the difference between being reactive and proactive. And especially for people that work in agencies, or just people who are overwhelmed by it all, it’s so easy to fall into a reactive rhythm, instead of being proactive about it.

Amy: Yeah. And then, in addition to that, what goals should be. I think that can be a really circular argument of, well, what should our goals be? Or just picking a number. So we’ll go through how to audit that, how to make sure you have appropriate goals, that they’re being tracked correctly, and really get into the weeds there a little.

Then, the following week we’re gonna talk about the relevancy and account structure. And I’ve talked about this before. I really believe that account structure is the unsung hero of account performance. You can double your return on investment, just overnight, without changing a single bid, just by getting account structure correct. It’s not as fun, but it’s so useful.

James: Right. And conversely, you can make an endless number of optimizations, but if the account structure is bad, then it doesn’t matter.

Amy: Yeah, absolutely. So then the next week, we’re gonna look at audience and settings. So Google’s moving away from keywords, and it’s moving towards intent. And so we’ll be looking at just what we need to know, to be able to improve account health across all those different settings that are now available to us.
James: Okay.

Amy: And then the final week, we’re gonna be looking at performance and strategy. So this is where we put it all together. It’ll be a two-parter. We’ll go through account optimizations, just how to maximize performance, and then as I mentioned, we’re going to be building out a strategic roadmap, just so that it is something you can share with clients. You do have something you can go to them and say, “Hey, here’s the lay of the land. Here’s our roadmap. Here’s where we’re going forward.” And just make sure you have account buy-in from the people you need account buy-in for, so if they ever have a question, they know where to go, and just make sure everyone’s on the same page. Just get it all documented.

James: Okay, so we’re not only just gonna have the theory of it, and the actual walkthroughs, but there’s gonna be some client management stuff in there?

Amy: Yeah. All of a sudden I feel like we’re doing a commercial for QVC or whatever. But wait, there’s more. But yeah. So the whole point of what we’re doing with the podcast is again, to talk about the theory, the way to approach it. But then there will also be worksheets that will walk through, step by step, what actions to take, that you would need to be at a computer, looking at your account, to go through. But specific steps to be able to get there.

James: So Amy, you mentioned worksheets. How is that gonna work along with the podcast?

Amy: So, the pod … The worksheets are gonna be a supplemental resource. So the podcast is designed to be listened to, like we said. It’s designed for the purpose of just being able to understand concepts at a high level. And then, the worksheets are designed to be used at a computer, with your account open, walking through what exactly is going on inside your account.

James: Okay.

Amy: So we’re kicking off this week. The worksheet’s gonna be about account settings. So each week, there’ll be a new worksheet. You can find the worksheet at paidsearchmagic.com/24, and go there to download the worksheet. And then signing up will automatically give you access to all of the future worksheets as well, as they become available.

So, let’s talk about account settings, if that’s okay. We can just go through that.

James: Yes.

Amy: Okay, cool. So what you’ll get in the worksheet, once you download it, is we’ll be walking through just basically the account setup portion of AdWords. And this is fully in the weeds. This is not essential for regular day-to-day account management, but it’s really good to review, especially if you’re not really familiar with what lives in account setup. But even if you are, this is just a really good review.

So depending on your role, and your relationship with the account, this might be something you look at a lot. Most likely it’s not. Most likely … Some people probably have never looked at it before. But either way, what we’ll do is take you through each section of the account setup, and just talk about how to interpret it, and how to decide if anything needs changes.

James: Okay.

Amy: So, we’ll be looking at things like billing setup, linked accounts, account access and preferences, and really getting under the hood in sections that don’t get reviewed too often. And I think one thing that’s really interesting about this worksheet, and just this section of what we’re gonna be auditing … It’s difficult to audit, because there’s nothing to compare it to. We’re not checking anything for accuracy. There’s no right or wrong. We’re not looking for red flags. It’s not like invoicing is right, and prepay is wrong, or vice versa. Everything just is. And when things just are, it’s really hard to evaluate and to take any sort of action on it.

So the worksheet is designed to really bring issues to the surface, and get you to take a closer look at them. So there’ll be things like, is there an old agency on the account that may have seemed harmless, like okay, they exist also. But basically they’re stealing your spend credit, because they were-

James: Like if they’re attached as MCC accounts.

Amy: Right, if they were on there before your account was. Or, is there someone who’s receiving notices, like every time there’s a disapproved ad that a notice gets sent to them, who probably shouldn’t be receiving that level of granularity for what’s happening in the account, because they’re just not handling it at a granular level? I think we all have had a client who’s like, “Why am I getting this?” And oh-

James: Because Google is stupid.

Amy: Because they’re … It’s nothing. But it makes them think that it’s something.
Or another thing to look at, if your account’s on a credit card, is, is it at risk of going dark, because there’s no backup, and your credit card is about to expire or is gonna reach its spend limit? Just things to look at, and just make sure you’ve reviewed, and that you can … If there are any issues, you know how to take care of them.

So this is really where you’ll get those answers, and you can start to make decisions or review with other people just what the protocol should be for your account, so everything really is buttoned up there.
James: That sounds great. As far as people’s level of experience, what do they need to know? What’s the expertise level, for people that are going into this? Do they need to be experts, beginners, intermediate?

Amy: So really the walkthrough is going to be for anyone. And I think that the difference between being a newbie or being really advanced is just how long it takes you to go through it. So if you’re super-advanced, you can look through it, and you only need a single pass, and it’s hot knife through butter, and you’re done in five minutes. If you’re brand new to this, and you’re following the directions of where to even access some of the settings, it’s gonna take you a lot longer and you’ll probably spend more time on it. But it’s just as useful for whatever level experience you have, to understand what the account settings are.

James: Well plus you’re using the new interface, right?

Amy: Yes. Yes, this is designed with the new interface.

James: So if nothing else, for the many people, like myself, that haven’t taken the plunge and really gotten used to the new interface, this might be a good chance for them to catch up with that.

Amy: Yeah, that’s a really good point. If nothing … This is a walkthrough on using the new interface as well, just because everything’s contained in there. I’m not a huge fan of the interface, but I will say that at least for this section, using the new interface, this really is a better setup. It just helps you see at a glance what all your settings are, where you would have had to dig into a few deeper panes or panels in the old interface.

James: Okay. That sounds good. And just something I would throw in there. I know that a lot of times, with things like this, there’s the temptation to skip the foundational steps, the initial … The not … The steps where you’re not gonna see immediate changes. Right?

Amy: Yeah, this isn’t the money section.

James: Right. But I would say, especially in this case, take the time to do it. I think you can get through it relatively quickly, and it’s the type of thing that is establishing the framework for everything that you’re gonna do later on. I also think it really fills you with a certain confidence to just really know what’s going on with your account, which is easy to overlook in most cases.

Amy: Yeah, definitely.

James: All right, well thanks so much for putting all this together, Amy. I know that you put a ton of work into this, and I really think that this is gonna be an effective process.

Amy: Yeah, my pleasure. I hope it’s useful.

James: So, if you’re ready to dive into the worksheet, and start working through this process, you can go to paidsearchmagic.com/24 and download it there. And if you want to contact us, you can email us at james or amy@paidsearchmagic.com-

Amy: Well, james@paidsearchmagic.com, or amy. Not jamesoramy. We don’t have that email address.

James: I figured they’d be able to put that together.

Amy: Well, just clarifying.

James: james@paidsearchmagic.com, or amy@paidsearchmagic.com.

Amy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

James: That work?

Amy: Yeah. Not jamesoramy.

James: Or you can go to the website, and you can chat with us there. Also, if you enjoy the show, please consider leaving us a review on iTunes, or wherever you get the podcast. It helps others find the podcast, and allows us to continue growing.

You can join us next week, when we’ll be talking about goals and conversion tracking.

Amy: Yay, conversion tracking.

James: Thanks so much for listening.

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