Google adwords audit - Large Campaign (Software?)

[jaffstar]

If you were taking over a large Adwords campaign with 30-50k keywords and a large budget, how would you conduct an audit to improve the campaign going forward?


Things on our minds are :

- Quality Score
- Negative Keywords ( this is a big one)
- Different locations
- Ad Groups
- Conversions
- Did I miss anything?


Is there software that can analyze and give recommendations. We currently do the process through an in-house spreadsheet running macros and formulas. In terms of ongoing , I would prefer not to use a tool that takes 5% of adspend.

Looking forward to your responses.

[RhinoFish]

match types, use of dki, bidding strategies, sitelinks, tracking tactics, affiliate and other cross-channel analysis, and on and on.

don't know of any tools that can do all of this effectively.

[alexsel]

You should be able to find most of this information available in their analytics program. If they are a big advertiser, chances are they already have a robust system in place. If you're being considered, they should give you access to that.

[LucidSW]

The size doesn't really matter. But when I get a new client, of any size, I:

1. Try to understand the business, what they do, what they sell.
2. See how they set up their campaign, its organization. What keywords are they using, the ads.
3. Number 2 is almost always done wrong. Keywords too broad, wrong grouping, poor ads. Quality Scores normally low as a result.
4. Check was seems to be working: good scores, good conversions (relatively speaking). Analyze every bit of data in all possible angles. Learn.
5. Plan out the campaign, as if starting from scratch.
6. Implementation.

Not sure what software could tell you. If someone uses only broad match and short-tail, you'll be able to see that yourself. The trend will not change from campaign to campaign and group to group. Software, and I'm talking database software, not spreadsheet, can only tell you things about the data at a more granular level. But it will just report the data. It won't fix problems. You have to do that.