PPC case file: Why every good campaign starts with a background check

PPC – pay-per-click – is a digital advertising model where a company pays each time a user clicks on their ad. As the name suggests, your budget is a key factor – but your strategy is what really makes your spend count.

Note: While it’s often associated with search engines, PPC also encompasses paid advertising on social media platforms – however, in this blog we’ll mostly be focusing on the former!

At Denfield, we always tell new clients: you need a solid foundation before you can start optimising. That’s why, before we do anything else, we run a full PPC audit.

Now, social media experts might have a reputation for being the MI5-level spies of the marketing world – but us PPC folks are the ones quietly cross-examining, uncovering patterns and, yes, sometimes digging up the dirt!

Here are seven key things we always look for in a PPC audit:

 

1. Check what you’re tracking

First things first – what exactly are your campaigns aiming to achieve?

We start by looking at your goal tracking set-up via Google Tag Manager (GTM), to see how and where tags are firing.

What are you tracking? Form submission, phone calls, web chats? Is this tracked via a button click or a ‘thank you’ URL? (The latter is more accurate because a form has been submitted; button click can sometimes be inaccurate from people ‘rage’ clicking – we’ve all been there!).

Knowing this will help us understand what success looks like and give us a benchmark for future audits.

 

2. Identify your KPIs

Next up: how are you measuring success? Are you trying to:

• Boost sales or revenue?
• Raise brand awareness?
• Drive more traffic to your site?
• Generate high-quality leads?

Your KPIs should tie directly back to your goals. These often include conversion rate, click-through rate (CTR) and return on investment (ROI). Are your campaigns set up to deliver a high volume of traffic when you measure success on leads?

We often see campaigns underperforming simply because they weren’t set up to track the right thing.

 

3. Double-check campaign settings

This is where we get into the nitty-gritty. We go through all the top-level settings to make sure everything is structured to support your goals.

This includes:

• Campaign types – for example, search ads, display ads and Performance Max.
• Ad groups and targeting – because a million clicks don’t mean much if they’re not the right ones. This can include audience, keywords and geographic targeting. And, more importantly, who you’re not targeting – have you added exclusions?
• Bidding strategies.
• Third-party integrations – are they connected properly?
• Scheduling – a common culprit of poorly performing campaigns… Do they really need to run overnight?

 

4. Assess your ad content

You’ve only got seconds to grab someone’s attention – so your ad needs to work hard. The types of ad content are as follows:

• Search – ad copy
• Display – creative
• YouTube – video
• Performance Max – all of the above

We can help you create brand-compliant ad copy and creative to catch people’s attention. Tone of voice is also important, especially if competitors are trying to hijack your best search terms.

We also look for missed opportunities, like not using the full set of headlines and descriptions for search ads – Google allows up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, and it automatically tests to find the top performers.

 

5. Optimise the customer journey

It can be so easy to get caught up in getting clicks that you forget about what happens once you get in front of the right people.

We explore how your ads guide people through the funnel. For example, are you using:

• Sitelink extensions?
• Price extensions?
• Call extensions?
• Message extensions?

In short: are you making it easy for them to convert?

For example, for automotive clients, this might mean linking directly to specific calls to action, like “Book a test drive” or “Book a service” – reducing friction and nudging people further along the journey.

And we don’t stop at the ad itself. We also work with design teams to ensure landing pages are geared to convert. Copy, layout, CTAs – it all matters.

 

6. Review your budget allocation

Next, we dig into how your budget is being spent.

What’s your total spend across your campaigns? Are you investing in the areas that deliver the best results? This is important. To check whether you’re allocating enough money to compete with others, you can look at your SIS (Search Impression Share) and your SIS lost by budget and rank.

Your auction insight report will also be helpful – this shows your impression share alongside other sites who are targeting/bidding on similar terms in the same area. This can help assess your visibility and if the ‘limited by budget’ symbol from Google needs to be acted on.

Knowing how your budget is allocated from the get-go gives you the clarity to shift spend towards the tactics and audiences that work. However, it’s important to be flexible with these budgets, meaning you can move them around from campaign to campaign if/when needed.

 

7. Evaluate campaign performance

Finally, we assess what’s performing and what isn’t.

Are some campaigns consistently under-delivering? Are others punching above their weight?

This is where you start to make strategic decisions – pausing what’s not working, doubling down on what is and shifting your budget to find that sweet spot for ROI.

 

Why work with PPC experts?

A successful PPC campaign isn’t a ‘set it and forget it’ thing – it takes ongoing analysis and smart refinement. But remember, you do have to let campaigns run and learn for them to be optimised before you start fine tuning. Also, if you continuously make changes you won’t know what works and what doesn’t.

When you work with an agency, you’re not just avoiding wasted ad spend and troubleshooting – you’re skipping the learning curve entirely. At Denfield, we take a forensic, data-led approach, helping you use your resources smartly to grow your business.

As a full-service agency, we can support all elements of your paid activity, using our expertise in PPC, copywriting, creative, web content and UX design.

That means:

• Campaign management and smart audience targeting
• Keyword and tone-of-voice optimisation
• Brand-compliant, scalable ad creative
• High-converting landing pages
• Regular insight reports with clear, actionable steps

And not to forget our dedicated support. We speak your language – no jargon, just clear strategy and measurable results.

 

Let’s talk

If you have any questions about your PPC set-up or wondering if your campaigns could work harder, why not give us a call and see how we can help?