Audit Report · Paid Search
The dashboard said ₹200 a lead.
It was ₹1,537. This is the full audit, run on our own Google Ads account, published with the findings intact. We went looking in someone else's account first. Then we thought better of it.
Most of it went somewhere else
Summary of findings
| # | Finding | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Conversion counting A WhatsApp tap was recorded as a lead | ▲ Critical | ✓ Fixed 29 Sep |
| 02 | Wasted search spend Half the budget on terms that never converted | ▲ Critical | ✓ Fixed 29 Sep |
| 03 | Campaign structure Every keyword in one ad group, one page | ◆ Serious | ✓ Rebuilt 29 Sep |
| 04 | Geographic allocation 82% of spend outside the home city | ◆ Serious | ✓ Fixed 29 Sep |
What the account looked like on paper
842 clicks. 153 conversions. An 18% conversion rate on cold search traffic, at ₹200 a lead.
Those are numbers you would screenshot. Normal for an agency buying search is somewhere between 2% and 8%, so an account at 18% is either exceptional or measuring something other than what it thinks. Ours was the second one.
Nearly half the leads were a thumb
▲ Critical68 of the 153 conversions were somebody tapping a WhatsApp button. The tap counted. Whether a message followed was never checked.
99% of all conversions came from mobile — 151 of 153, from 814 of 842 clicks. Desktop produced two conversions from 27 clicks, which is roughly the rate you would expect. The mobile number was the anomaly and the thumb explains it.
The real damage is not the reporting. Smart Bidding spends against whatever you define as success, so for six weeks the algorithm had been told that a thumb landing on a green button was the goal, and it had been going out and finding more thumbs. It was doing its job perfectly.
Conversions counted against enquiries received
30 Aug – 28 Sep 2026
"Real" is enquiries actually received in the month, counted by hand. The gap is WhatsApp taps and junk form submissions.
Half the budget bought nothing at all
▲ Critical357 search terms took ₹14,707 across 437 clicks and produced zero conversions between them. Not a poor rate. Zero.
Among them: people looking up what an advertisement is (₹211), the single word "pr" (₹193), the single word "later" (₹169), competitor names, job hunters, and a long tail of people hunting free logo tools.
A further ₹8,125 sat in the row Google labels "other search terms" and refuses to itemise. One rupee in four was buying searches that cannot be seen, let alone judged.
Where ₹30,732 went
Search terms report, 30 Aug – 28 Sep 2026
- Terms that never converted₹14,707 · 48%
- Unitemised by Google₹8,125 · 26%
- Terms that produced enquiries₹7,900 · 26%
Each segment is named and valued, so the chart reads without relying on colour.
One ad group, one message, one page
◆ SeriousEvery keyword in the account sat in a single ad group called "Ad group 1". Somebody searching for a brand identity designer and somebody searching for a digital marketing agency got the same ad and arrived at the same place.
That place was /branding, which took 96% of the spend and served the homepage byte for byte. The URL promised a branding page. There wasn't one.
This is the cheapest kind of problem to fix and the most expensive to leave, because Google charges more per click for an ad that doesn't match the search. You pay a relevance tax without ever seeing a line item for it.
Four fifths of the money left town
◆ SeriousThe campaign targeted five cities. We have an office in one of them.
Pune took 18% of the spend. Jaipur and Ahmedabad took 31% each, and we have no base in either, no local reputation to trade on, and no way to meet a prospect for a coffee on Tuesday.
Spend by city
30 Aug – 28 Sep 2026 · Pune is the home market
Pune is marked in orange because it is the home market, not because it ranks last.
Remediation log
| Date | Change | Intended effect |
|---|---|---|
| 29 Sep | WhatsApp tap demoted from a primary conversion | Bidding optimises towards enquiries instead of taps |
| 29 Sep | 145 negative keywords added at campaign level | Blocks roughly ₹5,100 a month of matched waste |
| 29 Sep | One ad group split into three, each on its own landing page | Relevance up, cost per click down without touching bids |
| 29 Sep | Automated broad matching switched off | Buying limited to chosen terms while the signal is corrected |
| 29 Sep | Targeting narrowed to Pune | Around ₹25,000 a month returned to the home market |
Tracking goes in before budget does
Why conversion accuracy is checked first
Cost per lead, return on spend, which keyword is earning its place — every one of those is a ratio with conversions on the bottom. Get the definition wrong and the whole report is arithmetic performed on fiction.
Which is why no engagement here starts spending until a lead can be traced end to end. Clients push back on it roughly every time. It is still the rule.
What we are not claiming
These changes went live on 29 September 2026. It is now 30 September.
We are not going to show you an improvement, because there isn't one yet and anything we put here today would be invented. Four to six weeks is how long a restructured campaign takes to settle. The results section of this page gets written then.
If an agency shows you a case study where every number improved and nothing is still pending, ask them when it was written.
The same audit, on your account
What your conversions are actually counting. Where the spend goes that shouldn't. Whether the structure matches how your customers search, and whether your ads land somewhere that answers them.
You get it written down, in the shape of this page, specific to your account. Whoever runs it can act on the findings — including your current agency, or your own team.
You do not have to move your business to us to read it.
Ask for an auditFrequently asked questions
Why publish the problems in your own account?
An audit nobody has run on themselves is a sales document, not a discipline. We would rather show you what it finds.
How long does it take?
A few days for the review once access is in place. Acting on it takes longer, and reading the results takes another four to six weeks while the platform relearns.
What access do you need?
Standard access to Google Ads, plus read access to Analytics, Tag Manager and Search Console where they exist. Not an exported report — the things worth finding are usually what a report leaves out.
Do I have to switch agencies?
No. The document is yours either way.
The audit sits inside Growth, one of three pillars, alongside Brand strategy and Content and film. See the full services page.