If you searched for a "Google Ads grader" or "adsgrader," you're probably looking for a quick way to score your account. Here it is — a free checklist that covers the same ground as paid grading tools. Run it in about an hour, and you'll know exactly where your account is leaking money.
A grader scores your account on a few fundamentals: tracking, keywords, ads, landing pages, structure, bidding, and budget. None of it requires a special tool. You can do all of it inside your Google Ads account and on your website.
You'll need:
Open Google Ads and go to Goals > Conversions. Every conversion action you rely on should show a status of "Recording conversions." Then open Google Analytics and verify those same events are coming through. If tracking is broken, your bidding strategies are flying blind.
Expected outcome: Accurate conversion data. Without it, no grader score is trustworthy.
Go to Keywords > Search Terms. Look for queries that triggered your ads but have nothing to do with what you sell. Add those as negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level. This is one of the fastest ways to cut wasted spend.
Expected outcome: Lower wasted spend and more clicks from people who actually want what you offer.
Go through each ad group and compare the ad copy to the keywords in that ad group. If your ad says "emergency plumbing" and the keyword is "water heater repair," the ad is too generic. Rewrite the ad to match the search intent.
Expected outcome: Higher click-through rate and Quality Score, which usually lowers cost per click.
This is the part people search for with "Google Ads landing page grader." For every ad group, load the landing page and ask:
If the answer to any of these is no, the page needs work. You don't need a tool to tell you that.
Expected outcome: Better landing page experience, which is a direct Quality Score factor.
Open the campaign view and check whether campaigns are grouped by theme and ad groups by intent. For example, if you sell software, one campaign for "PPC software" and another for "SEO software" makes sense. If you see overlapping keywords across campaigns, consolidate them. This keeps your account clean and gives Smart Bidding enough data to work with.
Expected outcome: A structure that scales and an account that's easy to manage.
Make sure the bidding strategy matches your business goal. If you want leads, Target CPA or Max Conversions with a target CPA is usually right. If you're measuring revenue, Target ROAS works better. Manual CPC can be useful for tiny accounts, but most accounts today should be using a Smart Bidding strategy.
Expected outcome: Bids aligned with what you actually care about.
Look at your campaign budgets and compare performance. If one campaign has a great return but a tight budget, and another is bleeding money, move budget over. The goal is to give your best performers room to run.
Expected outcome: Better overall return on ad spend.
Go to Campaigns > Ads & extensions, filter by "Disapproved" or "Paused," and fix what you can. A single disapproved ad can cost you impressions for days without you noticing.
Expected outcome: No silent issues that block your ads from serving.
Check Campaigns > Auction Insights to see how often you're winning against competitors, and what your average position is. If your impression share is very low, your bids or budgets might be too low. If it's high, you might be overpaying.
Expected outcome: A clear picture of competitive pressure.
Set a reminder to run this checklist on a regular cadence — monthly for most accounts, weekly if you're spending heavily. The accounts that perform best are the ones that get checked consistently.
Expected outcome: Problems get caught early, not after the budget is gone.
Give yourself one point for each step you've completed and verified. A score of 9-10 means your account is in solid shape. 7-8 means there are obvious fixes to make. Anything below 7 and you're leaving money on the table.
This entire audit can be automated. groas is a fully autonomous Google Ads management engine that audits, builds, and optimizes accounts 24/7, with a human account manager on top. The same checks on this page run continuously, and fixes happen automatically instead of waiting for your monthly reminder. If you'd rather offload the whole thing, that's what groas is built for.
