Free checklist · 9 pages
Paid media waste audit: 25 checks to find B2B ad spend that creates no pipeline
Get the free checklist ↓This audit gives paid media and growth leaders 25 checks to find spend that will never become pipeline, across Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads and Microsoft Ads. It covers audiences and search terms, budgets and pacing, tracking and UTMs, and reporting, with where to look for each check and the order to fix what you find.
- 25 checks in five areas, each with where to look
- How to size the waste in dollars before you fix it
- Budget pacing checks that stop month-end overspend
- Tracking and UTM checks that keep paid traffic in paid reports
Written by the PlanConversion Strategy Team, from programs run for ABB, KNIME and Nakisa. For paid media, growth and demand generation leaders.
What’s inside
Everything in the checklist
Practical and specific: questions, checks and decisions you can use in your next meeting, not theory.
How to size the waste in dollars before you fix it
Budget pacing checks that stop month-end overspend
Tracking and UTM checks that keep paid traffic in paid reports
A fix order for the first 30 days
Free preview
Five checks that usually find the most waste
- Search terms with spend and no qualified leads in the last 90 days. Sort by cost, not by clicks.
- LinkedIn audiences with no exclusions for customers, competitors, job seekers and your own employees.
- Campaigns paced above 110% of expected spend in the second half of the month, buying the most expensive traffic of the month.
- Paid clicks arriving in analytics as direct or organic because a redirect strips the UTMs or the medium matches no paid channel rule.
- Budget sitting in campaigns that have not produced a qualified opportunity in two quarters, kept alive by lead volume.
The full checklist
Paid media waste audit: 25 checks across Google, LinkedIn and Microsoft Ads
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Paid media
LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft, programmatic and intent platforms managed against pipeline.
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About this checklist
How long does the audit take?
About half a day for one person with access to the ad accounts, analytics and the CRM. The checks are ordered so you can stop after any section and still have a fix list.
Can we automate the pacing and UTM checks?
Yes. Pacing Console checks pace hourly against expected spend, and Link Console checks live ad URLs and UTM values against your convention. The audit works without them.
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