A person thinking with question marks around their head, symbolizing analysis and problem-solving.
A thorough PPC audit is crucial for optimizing your ad spend in Nepal. (Photo: Unsplash)

In the competitive world of digital marketing in Nepal, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a powerful tool for driving immediate, targeted traffic. However, simply running campaigns isn’t enough. To ensure your ad spend is delivering optimal results and a strong ROI, regular and thorough audits of your PPC campaigns are essential. Many businesses in Nepal launch campaigns and then leave them on autopilot, missing crucial opportunities for optimization.

As a digital marketing professional, I’ve seen how a systematic PPC audit checklist can uncover hidden inefficiencies, identify high-performing elements, and ultimately transform campaign performance across platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads. This comprehensive checklist will guide you through the key areas to review, helping you master your ad spend in the Nepali market.

Why Conduct a PPC Audit in Nepal?

  • Identify Wasted Spend: Pinpoint ads, audiences, or placements that are consuming budget without delivering results.
  • Improve ROI: Optimize campaigns to generate more conversions for the same or less cost.
  • Uncover Growth Opportunities: Discover new audiences, creative angles, or strategies that can scale your campaigns.
  • Stay Competitive: Ensure your ads are performing optimally against competitors in the dynamic Nepali market.
  • Adapt to Changes: Advertising platforms and algorithms are constantly evolving. Regular audits help you adapt.

Your Comprehensive PPC Audit Checklist

1. Account Structure & Naming Conventions

  • Are your campaigns, ad groups/ad sets, and ads logically organized? (e.g., by objective, audience, product, or stage in the funnel).
  • Are naming conventions consistent and clear? This makes analysis much easier.

2. Campaign Objectives & Alignment

  • Does your campaign objective align with your business goal? (e.g., if you want sales, are you using a Conversions objective, not just Traffic or Engagement?).
  • Are you using the correct conversion event? (e.g., Purchase, Lead, Add to Cart).

3. Audience Targeting

  • Are you reaching the right people in Nepal?
    • Demographics: Age, gender, location (specific cities, districts, or even neighborhoods).
    • Interests: Are your interest targets relevant and specific enough?
    • Behaviors: Are you leveraging behavioral targeting options?
    • Custom Audiences: Are you using your customer lists (email, phone numbers) for retargeting or lookalike audiences?
    • Lookalike Audiences: Are you testing different source audiences (website visitors, purchasers, engaged users) for lookalikes?
  • Audience Overlap: Check for significant overlap between your ad sets, which can lead to increased costs.
  • Exclusions: Are you excluding irrelevant audiences (e.g., existing customers for lead generation campaigns)?

4. Keyword Strategy (for Google Ads Audit)

  • Keyword Relevance: Are your keywords highly relevant to your ads and landing pages?
  • Match Types: Are you using appropriate keyword match types (broad, phrase, exact) to control traffic?
  • Negative Keywords: Are you regularly adding negative keywords to filter out irrelevant searches and reduce wasted spend?
  • Search Terms Report: Regularly review the search terms report to find new keywords and negative keywords.

5. Ad Creative & Copy

  • Are your visuals compelling and culturally relevant? (Images, videos, carousels).
    • Do they feature Nepali people or local contexts if appropriate?
    • Are they high-quality and optimized for platform specifications?
  • Is your ad copy clear, concise, and persuasive?
    • Does it speak to your Nepali audience’s pain points and desires?
    • Is your Call-to-Action (CTA) clear and prominent?
    • Are you testing different headlines, primary text, and descriptions?
  • Ad Extensions/Assets: Are you utilizing all relevant ad extensions (sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, call extensions, location extensions) to enhance ad visibility and provide more information?

6. Placements

  • Are your ads appearing in the most effective places? (Search Network, Display Network, YouTube, Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed, Audience Network, Messenger).
  • Are you using Automatic Placements or manual placements? Test both to see what works best for your campaigns.
  • Performance by Placement: Analyze which placements are driving the best results and consider excluding underperforming ones.

7. Budget & Bidding Strategy

  • Is your budget allocated effectively across campaigns and ad sets?
  • Are you using the right bidding strategy for your objective? (e.g., Maximize Conversions, Target CPA, Cost Cap, Lowest Cost).
  • Are your daily/lifetime budgets appropriate for your goals and audience size?
  • Frequency: Monitor ad frequency to avoid ad fatigue, especially for smaller audiences.

8. Conversion Tracking & Attribution

  • Is your conversion tracking correctly installed and firing across all platforms? (Google Ads Conversion Tracking, Facebook Pixel, Conversions API).
  • Are all relevant standard and custom events being tracked?
  • Is your attribution model appropriate for your business?

9. Landing Pages

  • Are your landing pages relevant to your ads and keywords?
  • Are they mobile-friendly and fast-loading?
  • Do they have a clear call-to-action and provide a good user experience?

10. Performance Analysis & Optimization

  • Review Key Metrics: Monitor CTR, CPC, CPM, CPA, ROAS, and Conversion Rate.
  • Breakdown Data: Analyze performance by age, gender, region, placement, and time of day.
  • Identify Trends: Look for patterns in performance over time.
  • Test and Iterate: Continuously run A/B tests on audiences, creatives, and bidding strategies.

Final Thoughts

A regular PPC audit in Nepal is not just a task; it’s a strategic imperative for maximizing your ad spend and achieving sustainable growth. By systematically reviewing your Google Ads audit and Facebook Ads audit elements, you can uncover valuable insights, optimize your ad performance analysis, and ensure your digital marketing in Nepal efforts are delivering the best possible ROI.