d2b2 brings data science thinking to paid marketing and revenue operations. We audit your stack, build the systems, teach your team how they work, and hand you the keys when the engagement ends. Services include paid marketing setup, revenue analytics, marketing infrastructure, and answer engine optimization.

What is the d2b2 engagement process?

Every d2b2 engagement follows three phases. The Audit: a structured review of your stack, spend, and data to understand what exists and what needs fixing. The Stack Build: implementing tracking, attribution, AI tools, and automation that work correctly from day one. The Handoff: full documentation so your team can run everything independently after the engagement ends.

Who does d2b2 work with?

d2b2 works with small businesses and growth-stage companies where marketing has historically been reactive and underpowered. All engagements are project-based, not retainer-based. Based in San Diego, CA, serving clients across the US.

How is d2b2 different from a traditional marketing agency?

d2b2 applies data science thinking to marketing rather than relying on intuition or waiting on monthly reports. The goal is to build systems you own and understand, not dependency on an ongoing agency relationship. Every engagement ends with a complete handoff so the client can run the work independently.

How to Audit a Google Ads Account: What to Look for First

Most Google Ads accounts accumulate problems over time. Campaigns get added, budgets get shuffled, old ad groups stick around, and nobody goes back to check whether the conversion tracking still works. Before you scale spend or change bidding strategies, you need to know what you’re actually working with.

This is the framework used at the start of every paid marketing engagement.

Start with conversion tracking

Everything else in the account depends on this. If conversion tracking is broken or misconfigured, the algorithm is optimizing toward the wrong thing and every metric in the account is suspect.

Check:

Are conversions firing? Go to Tools > Conversions and look for recent activity. A conversion action with zero recent conversions on a live campaign is a red flag.
Are you counting the right events? “Session started” and “page view” are not conversions. If those are set as primary conversions, the account is bidding toward traffic, not outcomes.
Are conversions duplicated? Multiple tags firing on the same thank-you page inflate conversion counts and make ROAS look better than it is.
Is the attribution window appropriate? The default is 30 days for clicks. For long sales cycles, extend it. For impulse purchases, shorten it.

Get this right before touching anything else.

Check campaign and ad group structure

Poor structure leads to wasted spend and poor Quality Scores. Look for:

Too many keywords per ad group. If an ad group has more than 15 to 20 keywords, the ad copy probably isn’t closely matched to all of them. Tight thematic grouping is better.

Broad match without audience layering. Broad match can work well, but not without audience signals. Check whether Smart Bidding has enough conversion data to use it effectively (minimum 30 to 50 conversions per month per campaign is a reasonable threshold).

Conflicting campaigns. Multiple campaigns bidding on the same or overlapping keywords create internal auction competition and inflate your own CPCs.

Ad groups with no traffic. If an ad group hasn’t triggered impressions in 90 days, pause it. Dormant ad groups don’t hurt performance directly, but they signal an account that hasn’t been maintained.

Pull the search terms report

The search terms report is the most useful view in Google Ads. It shows what actual queries triggered your ads.

Look for:

Irrelevant queries eating budget. Add these as negative keywords immediately.
High-spend, zero-conversion terms. These are often brand-adjacent queries that attract the wrong audience.
Converting queries that aren’t in your keyword list. Add them as exact match to capture them intentionally.

Spend at least 30 minutes in this report before touching bids or budgets.

Review bidding strategies and targets

The right bidding strategy depends on conversion volume. Broadly:

Under 30 conversions/month per campaign: Maximize Conversions or manual CPC. Smart Bidding doesn’t have enough data to work.
30 to 100 conversions/month: Target CPA or Target ROAS can work, but set targets conservatively.
100+ conversions/month: Smart Bidding works well. Set a Target ROAS based on actual business economics, not wishful thinking.

Check whether the current tROAS or tCPA targets are achievable. If Google is consistently missing targets by more than 20%, the targets are set too aggressively and the algorithm is throttling reach to hit them.

Look at Quality Score components

Quality Score isn’t a number you optimize directly, but its components tell you where the account has problems:

Expected CTR below average: Ad copy isn’t matching user intent. Rewrite the headlines.

Ad relevance below average: Keywords and ad copy aren’t thematically tight. Restructure the ad group.

Landing page experience below average: The page is slow, not mobile-friendly, or doesn’t match what the ad promised. This one often requires work outside the ad account.

The account audit output

After this review, you should know:

Whether conversion tracking is reliable
Which campaigns are wasting the most budget
Where the biggest structural problems are
What the priority order of fixes should be

An audit isn’t the end of the work. It’s the foundation. Nothing built on top of broken tracking or poor structure will perform the way you expect it to.

If you’re working through a Google Ads audit and want a second opinion on what you’re seeing, get in touch. This is one of the first things d2b2 does in every paid marketing engagement.