The Ultimate Google Ads Checklist: What to Do Weekly, Monthly & Quarterly

*Disclaimer there is no video for this weeks episode.

Overwhelmed by Google Ads tasks? Here’s your weekly, monthly & quarterly optimisation system that actually works. 

In this episode weeks episode of Google Ads Unleashed, host Jeremy breaks down a proven Google Ads SOP checklist—covering performance analysis, budget pacing, search term optimisation, feed health, conversion tracking, and scaling strategies. Learn exactly what to do (and when) to stay consistent, avoid wasted spend, and drive long-term growth without guesswork. 

Get your free 30 minute strategy session with Jeremy here: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/

Scale your store with 1:1 coaching: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/1-2-1-coaching

Transcript

Welcome to Google Ads Unleashed, the podcast that helps you harness the power of Google Ads. And now, your host, Jeremy Young.

There's so much to do in Google Ads. And the reality is you have very limited time to look at various things every single week, every two weeks, on a monthly basis, and even on a quarterly basis. So, we've put together a small episode to show you what to look at on a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and quarterly basis which will help you identify high lever tasks and as a result give you guidance what you can do on those days. Welcome back to Google Ads and Leash guys. Hope everyone is doing fine this Monday morning. So today I am going to run through what our agency weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and quarterly uh standard operating procedures are. You can also actually email me and I may send you a copy of those SOPs as well that help you guide your management. And it just sort of shows how much actually goes into it. And I want to go through all of the those tasks. Now, in total, um we have about I think 40 or 50 tasks. And I'm going to fly through each of them to sort of give you an idea. idea what we actually look at uh and when because this overwhelms a lot of people and the reality is this is just one system but systems work because they give you repeatability and Google ads is all about consistent like everything in life it's all about consistency and repeatability right um if you show up to the gym and just do random exercises in every uh direction that's not a plan not going to advance anywhere. Um but uh if you actually follow a strict workout plan, that is how you actually uh generate results. And Google is no different, right? Um there's many ways to skin a cat here, but this is just one of many plans. So let's dive right in. So on a weekly basis, we look strictly at performance of the last two weeks to understand is their trend. Last two weeks versus previous period versus the same period last month versus the same period last year and we also look at it in a wider context gives you a bit of an idea in which uh direction your core metrics are trending and this is important uh to look at. Then for small accounts only on a weekly basis I'm going to go through all the weekly ones and then move on to bi-weekly. We actually do negative keywords. Um we go through the search term reports if there aren't too many uh search terms. Otherwise with larger accounts we do this actually only on a quarterly basis. I'll talk about that in a a little bit. We also note down all of the significant changes we've made so that we have a track record of when was uh a something done. Uh we also then check all uh the spend, the bids, and the budgets of all our campaigns. We can see if we can scale any campaigns if they're limited by budget. We check uh if we're on target for the budget for the month if we have um an ad account that has a specific budget. We then also check the SER um usually via tool some something like I search for.com to see how our ads are looking like if there's anything that uh stands out for instance are there no ads is there new competitor um is something as has the review feed failed gone as what right to make sure that um we are actually showing then we go through the Google ads recommendations 99% of them are trash but sometimes we spot cool things such as for instance conflict and negative keywords and stuff like that which we then go through we also review third party tracking when we have it. Triple Well, for instance, clmetrics, whatever it is, in order to see the business in the wider context and how it's doing in order to put the performance of the ad account in relation to the entire business and we also spot check the website to see has anything changed. For instance, has something gone out of stock? Is there a sale that we've missed? Gone as what? Right? Um sometimes when you look at the ad account and then actually check the out the website, you see that there's a mismatch. So, Those are sort of the tasks that we carry out on a weekly basis, right? So very standard and routine tasks. And to be honest, you don't need to really do more on a weekly basis. I feel I think it's overkill. Google Ads is more um nowadays about controlling the algorithm and steering it into the right direction rather than doing the all the manual labor that happens within the week. When we actually build campaigns, when we analyze uh performance deeper, when we do deep dives, when we do all the other stuff that make Google ads management what it is on a bi-weekly basis we check for new products and actually optimize them if they haven't been done so by AI automatically for instance through our automations we check the merchant center that the feed um is up to date that every all the um various things are filled out that we make sure that there's no disapprovals and remove them um we also sometimes then go depending on whether we have it right uh we for instance use our tools in order to refresh any kind of uh titles or descriptions or something that haven't been done. We on a bi-weekly basis check all ad disapprovals and ads and make sure that we eliminate them when they've then when they've potentially occurred, right? There's always something that happens within 2 weeks. Sometimes ads get disapproved or assets and we eliminate those and we check all of our messaging whether that's ads, whether that's assets because very often we have certain things that shouldn't be live anymore. Whether it's call outs that are out of date um or whether it is uh for instance promotion assets which shouldn't be there and this is something that you can do on a bi-weekly basis. Then on a monthly basis we under uh we pause all of our underperforming uh keywords products etc etc that doesn't perform over all time. Usually the best the sort of indicator that we have is we look at our target CPA as the product for instance spent more than twice its target CPA and hasn't had a sale it gets killed. The same with keywords um and uh some we also look at over all time if it's made a certain amount of ad spend let's say um at least 3x of the target CPA and if it had two or more sales but unprofitably then we kill it as well. Um this just ensures that we keep trimming the fat whether it's search terms, keywords and products which are gen create an unprofitable ad spend on a monthly basis. We go through the ad account to make sure that all campaign settings and all account settings are correct. We then also make sure that at least one experiment is running at any given point so that we always generate learnings. We do a spot check on the conversion tracking. We make sure that everything is linked that should be linked. Google Analytics 4, YouTube, um Merchant Center, all that sort of stuff. We make sure that uh customer match lists are working correctly. We make sure uh that we the brand non-brand split is working correctly and that our branded search is showing properly on shopping and on search. We make a check on new versus returning customers whether we need to do something there. For instance, sometimes we want to bid higher for new customers or bid only for new customers or um deploy any other strategy to split new versus returning customers better. We make sure that all tracking scripts are live. We uh check the budget distribution between all channels for our client using post-purchase survey data in order to better and fine-tune our monthly budgets going forward. Um, we review all full asset groups and all Pmaxes to see if there's any underperforming assets that we need to replace. We update search themes where appropriate. Uh, we check if a portfolio bit strategy can be used. Um, we then also see what hasn't been tested. For instance, is Pmax not been tested or demand not been tested, etc., etc. Um, we then also review um, all our DSA campaigns and exclude landing pages that haven't been performing, which is pretty much the same as the first task which I've just mentioned. We then again go through the policy manager and uh, remove our policy issues and we go through all of our scripts to see whether we can find um, uh, for instance certain negative keywords and negative keyword scripts and uh, just see if the insights in there do something. for the business and we also go through all search terms to find negative keywords. So that's what we do on a monthly basis. By the way, this is all just standard management that we just a tick box tick box exercise on a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly basis because um you know uh this is just making sure that we just keep the account trim. And then on a quarterly basis, we actually analyze search terms and search volume on a larger scale to see if we can for instance, find new keywords. Should from the search terms generate new keywords or see if there's any insights, for instance, product searches that we haven't covered in the client should be um um making, you know, developing new products. We then also update ad copy and see if any ad copy tests have generated any results for us on a quarterly basis. We also review the quality scores and uh and undertake action to improve that. We review at schedules and locations. We review all of our ad assets. Uh we review if search partners should be turned off or on because sometimes search partners generates poor results. We also check if all campaigns contain the right products, if um our listing groups are all still correct. We also check the search terms and brand search campaigns to see if we could build out brand if brand is an important asset in this ad account. We also make sure whether um search volume has changed because this is something that we report on. Uh we do this on a monthly basis. already but on a quarterly basis we see better results because sometimes with keyword planner um it's not as up to date so it takes a few months until search volume has come in from the previous months so we can see hey year and year search volume gone up or down for our core keywords so we see in which direction it goes I've already mentioned keyword research and product research we do that we refresh customer match lists if done manually I know we this is not really ideal we should automate it always but sometimes the automations don't work for instance like Clavio. Um so we then uh refresh the customer match lists manually. We do new product research based on the search terms and based on um uh some tools that we have in order to generate the product research. We do competition research every quarter. And we also decide if we can run an incrementality test every quarter. Uh for instance, can brand search be paused is something that we often ask ourselves. And we also perform one gram and two gram uh engram analyses to ensure that search terms are properly excluded if they generate unprofitable ad spend. So this is what we just do on a on a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and quarterly basis for you. What I think the most important is is on a weekly basis check out your twoe performances um versus previous period versus last month versus last year. Tweak the budgets only on a weekly basis if at all. Every two weeks make sure Make sure your merchant centers squeaky clean and on a monthly basis pause what doesn't work. And I think with that you're already miles ahead of many people if you're managing your ad account yourself and if you have very little time to dedicate. Of course if you want it done professionally. You know this is just what we do on usually at the beginning of the week in all of our ad accounts. But within the week we've got lots of other tasks like building new campaigns, writing out tutorials, making sure that we We do CRO analysis, everything you can think of in order to uh make our clients grow. And this is what we do. And if you require that help, you can always reach out Jeremy at Young and Digital Marketing or Jeremy on Google Ads on LinkedIn. Simply send me a message and I'll happily reply. If you need any help, you can also book a uh consultancy session with me via the website. Just head there and uh book yourself in via Kalendi. Hope this has been helpful. If you need the list, simply reach out. I'm happy to send it to you and potentially it could help you uh put some structure into your Google Ads. As always, thank you very much for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you for listening to Google Ads Unleashed. To connect with Jeremy, check him out online at www.youanddigital.marketing. We'll see you next time.