Twelve months of performance first, then a review of how the account is built. Leads are deduplicated across the Google Ads and GA4 actions that tracked the same form.
The action plan ranks every recommendation by priority and impact. New to Google Ads? Terms used in this audit are explained at the end.
Bars read on the left scale, the line on the right. September runs through the 26th; impression share runs through August. Share across several campaigns is weighted by each campaign's eligible impressions, and ≈ marks months where Google reported under 10%.
April and May were the account's best stretch: the lowest cost per lead at real volume. Looking at twelve months instead of the last few weeks shows the account already knows how to hit its goal. Here's what was different.
| Search campaigns | April | May | June – August |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per lead | $31.90 | $37.25 | $48.82 – $50.94 |
| Conversion rate | 8.6% | 7.4% | 5.0 – 5.1% |
| Avg. cost per click | $2.75 | $2.74 | $2.43 – $2.55 |
| Spend | $15.5K | $22.8K | $29.0K · $24.0K · $9.0K |
| Leads | 487 | 612 | 570 · 491 · 184 |
| Target CPA | $40 | $40, then 12 changes between $20 and $55 | $48 Broad, $50–60 Agencies |
| Daily budget, each campaign | $300 – $400 | $400 – $500 | $500, then $400 from Jul 23 |
| Impressions lost to budget | 48 – 51% | 8 – 12% | 0 – 14% |
| Search impression share | 17 – 24% | 21 – 31% | 31 – 55% |
| Leads counted by | GA4 import | GA4, then Google Ads tag from May 17 | Google Ads tag |
| Also running | Birth-mother campaign | Birth-mother campaign to May 7; AI Max May 19–27 | Performance Max from Jun 29 |
At $300–400 a day with a $40 target, Smart Bidding could only buy about half the available impressions, so it bought the ones most likely to convert. Even then it paid more per click than it needed to: $2.75 in April against $2.55 once the budget stopped limiting it in June. A slightly lower target would have bought more of the missed half for the same money.
When budgets went to $500 and targets to $48–60 in June, impression share rose and conversion rate fell from 7.4% to 5.0%, while cost per click stayed flat. June spent $6,200 more than May and brought 42 fewer leads. From April to June, the extra $13,500 a month added 83 leads, about $163 each.
Budgets came down from late July, but targets stayed at $45–50 and the campaigns were rarely budget-capped (7–9% lost to budget in August). Bidding kept buying the same marginal traffic. The target, not the budget, is the lever now.
April and May counted leads with the GA4 import, which reads about 5% higher than the Google Ads tag on the same form (1,850 vs. 1,768 in the last 90 days). Adjusted, April is still about $33.50. Seasonality can't be ruled out yet because this pull starts in September 2025. The Search campaigns in the winter months, capped at $100–200 a day, also ran $32–40 per lead, which fits the same pattern.
Lower the Search targets in two steps: Adoption – Broad from $48 to $44 and then $40 two weeks later, and Adoption Agencies from $45 to $40. Hold budgets and make no other bidding changes for four weeks. Expect fewer leads a day while it settles. It's working if Search cost per lead holds at or under $42 for three straight weeks. If lead volume drops more than the business can absorb, stop at $44.
What changed over the year, why it happened, and whether it helped or hurt.
Enter the goal you actually care about for each campaign. The target set in Google Ads is shown next to it, since the two often differ. Charts and the day-and-hour grid update from these numbers.
| Campaign | Your goal CPA | Google Ads target (90-day avg.) | Actual CPA | Total leads | AP leads | BM leads | Spend | vs. goal |
|---|
Cost per lead uses total leads against each campaign's goal. AP is the adoptive-parent lead and BM the birth-mother lead; spend can't be split between them, so there's no separate cost per lead for each. Birth-mother leads are worth about $500 each and adoptive-parent leads under $40, but both count the same in bidding. That's deliberate: value-based bidding was tested and did worse for both lead types, so the birth-mother campaign runs separately when budget allows. Goals save in this browser only.
Follows the campaign picked above. The last one arrived Sep 10.
Settings and structure issues not covered in the topic sections below, ranked by priority and then by estimated monthly impact. Ads, search terms, Performance Max, Quality Score, timing and bidding each have their own section. Open any finding for the evidence and the fix.
Cost per lead by state, all three live campaigns pooled, last 90 days. The 25 states below carry 86% of spend. Most differences between states are normal variation; the labels mark the few that are unlikely to be chance.
Dashed line: your $40 goal. "Better" or "worse" means the state's conversion rate is far enough from the account's 4.0% that chance is an unlikely explanation.
Together they spent $5,433 for 72 leads, about $75 each. Maryland and Colorado are the two clearly below average. Smart Bidding ignores location bid adjustments, so the lever is structural: if they stay this far behind for another 60 days, move them into their own campaign with a lower target.
Nevada brought 53 leads at $30 each, converting at 6.9%, the clearest outlier in the account. Alabama ran $41. Worth knowing why (a local office, a partner, state law), because it may be repeatable elsewhere.
New Jersey took $1,358 for 27 leads. The other six excluded states took $208, all of it from Performance Max, which fits its "presence or interest" location setting (see the Build review).
California and Texas carry 23% of spend at $49 per lead each, right on the account average. There's no state-level fix hiding in the largest markets.
How often the account was worked on over the last 12 months, and on what. Google Ads rewards steady attention: search terms change every week, and small regular fixes compound.
Bars count change events per month from Google Ads change history (one event can cover many items, like 79 negatives added at once). Sep 2025 starts on the 4th.
Out of 385. Work happened in 28 of 51 weeks, with gaps of 72 days (Oct 22 – Jan 2) and 33 days (Jul 24 – Aug 26).
The newest live Search ads are the copies made for Adoption Agencies on Sep 30, 2025. No Search ad has been created or edited since, and no keywords have been added since January.
In 12 months, on about $72K of spend. Since Adoption Agencies was built last September, the only negatives added to live Search campaigns were three on Aug 26.
54 of 129 change events were budgets and targets, often several in a week, which resets Smart Bidding each time. The work that compounds (search terms, keywords, ad tests) was rare. I'd reverse that balance:
| How often | What |
|---|---|
| Weekly | Search terms pooled across campaigns: negatives to the shared list, new keyword candidates. Budget pacing and lost impression share. Leads by type, to catch gaps like the birth-mother drop early. |
| Every two weeks | Target review: at most one change per campaign, 10–20% at a time. |
| Monthly | Ad test review: pause the weakest headlines, add new ones. Check Google-created assets. Add volume-checked keywords. Review the day-and-hour grid. |
| Quarterly | Structure, landing pages, audiences, and the 12-month view in this audit. |
Every search that triggered an ad in the last 90 days, audited two ways: by full search and by individual word. Each search is pooled across Adoption – Broad, Adoption Agencies and Performance Max before it's judged, so it's assessed on all its data rather than one campaign's slice. Both workbooks build a Google Ads Editor upload from your choices.
All three live campaigns pooled, 90 days, grouped by what the searcher typed. The dashed line is your $40 goal.
Near-me, agency and how-to searches run $40–43 per lead. The generic head terms ("adoption", "adopt a baby") take over a quarter of search-term spend at $56 and 3.2% conversion. Birth-mother searches barely show up at all: 26 clicks in 90 days across all three campaigns. At targets of $45–48, bidding can't compete for them because those clicks cost $32–46. Only a separate birth-mother campaign with its own goal can buy them.
Proven searches with 5+ leads each, reaching you only through phrase match, close variants or Performance Max today. Together: 141 leads at $37 each. Exact match gives each its own ad and landing page, and Search wins the identical search over Performance Max.
Searches with 2–4 leads each, under $45 per lead. That's a small sample, so each goes through Keyword Planner first. Only the ones with enough monthly searches become keywords; the workbook applies the cutoff for you.
"adoption in ga" brought 4 leads in Adoption – Broad, 1 in Adoption Agencies and 3 in Performance Max. No single slice looks like enough to act on. Pooled, it's 8 leads at $35 each, enough to lean in.
Keyword opportunities (Google Sheets): make your own copy View only
For one new shared list on every campaign. Themes that never produce a lead: foster and state systems, step-parent and relative adoption, adoptee searches, international, surrogacy, pets, jobs. 878 searches and $583 in 90 days, none with a lead.
Location exclusions check where the searcher is, not what they typed, so "adoption agencies in new jersey" still shows from Texas. $612 in 90 days. 14 leads came from these searches, so confirm first.
Words the account keeps blocking one search at a time: 873 exact negatives contain them, 402 for "canada" alone. Adding each once as a phrase negative stops new variants from showing up. Existing negatives stay as they are.
Also inside: a look-at list of 54 searches that spent at least one lead's worth ($40) without a lead or ran over $80 per lead, with the chance each zero is just bad luck. Competitor names, where I recommend blocking them or moving them into their own low-bid campaign, since those leads tend to be weaker. And a full word-by-word audit of 2,200+ words and phrases.
Negative keyword review (Google Sheets): make your own copy View only
Only spend that fails a strict rule counts here. Each search is pooled across campaigns first, so it's judged on all its data. Small search terms that can't be judged on their own are left out, so this is the least the account lost, not an estimate of everything.
| Component | Rule | 90 days |
|---|---|---|
| Search terms with no lead | Spent $45 or more with no lead, pooled across all three campaigns (24 searches) | $1,784 |
| Over-target search terms | Converted at more than 2× target, pooled; only the spend above target counts (16 searches) | $1,721 |
| Unserved state (New Jersey) | All spend in a state they don't serve | $1,363 |
| Total | $4,868 | |
About $2,000 a month at the active run rate (72 of the 90 days had spend). New Jersey search terms may overlap slightly with the search-term rows. Most of the no-lead search terms are relevant searches that haven’t converted yet. They’re counted here because they missed the target, but the fix is bids and exact-match structure, not negatives. The negatives workbook marks which is which.
Performance Max launched June 29 and now takes about 45% of spend, so it gets its own review: how it compares with the two Search campaigns, why the numbers differ, and what to fix. Last 90 days unless noted.
Search is Adoption – Broad and Adoption Agencies combined. Highlighted cells are the better number.
| Search | Performance Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Spend | $47,288 (69%) | $20,902 (31%) |
| Leads | 904 | 441 |
| Cost per lead | $52.31 | $47.40 |
| Avg. cost per click | $2.43 | $1.45 |
| Conversion rate | 4.6% | 3.1% |
| Click-through rate | 11.4% | 9.9% |
| Birth-mother leads | 23 (2.5%) | 11 (2.5%) |
| Target cost per lead (90-day avg.) | $47 Broad · $49 Agencies | $45 |
| Impressions lost to budget | 16% Broad · 4% Agencies | 26% |
| Hours running | 9am – midnight Pacific | All day |
| July | August | Sep 1–25 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search cost per lead | $48.89 | $48.80 | $62.84 |
| Performance Max cost per lead | $32.42 | $49.82 | $62.07 |
| Performance Max CPC · conv. rate | $1.04 · 3.2% | $1.69 · 3.4% | $1.64 · 2.6% |
| Performance Max share of spend | 16% | 45% | 44% |
September is high for both because of the form outage and leads that haven't been counted yet (see the trend).
Google picks one of your campaigns for each search, so on any single search only one shows. Over 90 days, both campaigns showed on 5,782 of the same searches. These are the biggest, from the search terms reports.
went to searches Search also showed on. Only $1,250 went to searches Search never got: 32 leads at $40, useful but small.
Performance Max pays 40% less for a click on the same search.
and converts a third less often, so cost per lead comes out close: $48 vs $52.
| Search | Search: spend · leads · CPC | Performance Max: spend · leads · CPC |
|---|---|---|
| adoption | $1,521 · 23 · $1.64 | $292 · 7 · $1.25 |
| adopt a baby | $1,020 · 18 · $2.80 | $139 · 5 · $1.95 |
| how to adopt a baby | $587 · 16 · $2.50 | $148 · 0 · $1.95 |
| adoption agencies | $551 · 10 · $2.16 | $147 · 4 · $1.77 |
| adoption in ohio | $365 · 11.5 · $2.31 | $61 · 1 · $1.09 |
| how to adopt | $308 · 9 · $1.77 | $51 · 4 · $1.16 |
| i want to adopt a baby | $300 · 3.5 · $5.08 | $108 · 1 · $0.80 |
| adoption agency near me | $232 · 6 · $2.83 | $76 · 3 · $1.86 |
Google itemizes about two-thirds of Performance Max's search spend ($12.7K of $19.6K) in its search terms report; the rest is grouped under privacy thresholds.
The first dollars in any campaign buy the cheapest leads. At $4.7K in July, Performance Max paid $1.04 a click and $32 a lead. As its spend rose by half in August, clicks went to $1.69 and cost per lead met Search's.
Google hands a search straight to a Search campaign only when an exact-match keyword is identical to it. Both Search campaigns are all phrase (88% of spend) and broad (12%), no exact. So on every search, the two campaigns compete on relevance and Ad Rank, and Performance Max, with the lower target, takes a share of the same traffic.
Its $45 target is the lowest in the account. It also runs alone from midnight to 9am Pacific while Search is off, and those hours brought leads at $38–46 (see day & hour).
Display, search partners, YouTube and Discover brought 2,947 of its 14,802 clicks and 5 leads. On Google Search alone Performance Max converts at 3.8% for $44 a lead.
URL expansion sent traffic to 419 pages. 348 of them took $2,543 and never produced a lead. The homepage, its main page, runs $53 a lead; your sitelink pages run $35.
Even on identical searches it converts 2.9% vs 4.4%. The landing pages are the likeliest cause, with lower ad positions from lower bids second. If the gap closes once URL exclusions are in, it was the pages.
| Priority | Change | Why |
|---|---|---|
| High | Add URL exclusions, keep Free Adoption Services | Stops spend on 348 pages with no leads, and tests whether pages explain the conversion gap. |
| High | Lower the target from $45 to $40 | It loses 26% of impressions to budget, so it's paying more per click than it needs to. |
| Low | Exact match for the 16 proven searches | Gives Search first call on the searches that already convert best in both campaigns. |
| Low | Attach the shared negative list to Performance Max too | Performance Max now accepts negative keyword lists, so one list covers all three campaigns. |
| Low | Target people in your locations, not "presence or interest" | All $208 spent in the six unserved states came from Performance Max. |
| Low | Restart at half budget after any pause | $865 went to Display in the two days after the September restart. |
| Monitor | Compare monthly on Google Search only | Performance Max's Search-only cost per lead against the Search campaigns. Move budget only after two months where one is clearly ahead. |
The ads are where the account talks to people, and they haven't changed in a year. Here's what's running, how each ad performs, what the copy is missing, and rewritten ads ready to test.
Last 90 days. Version A opens "Adoption Center · Looking To Adopt?", version B "Considering Adoption? · Looking To Grow Your Family?", version C is the birth-mother ad "Adoption For Your Baby · You Select The Family".
| Ad group | Ad | Spend | CTR | Conv. rate | Cost per lead | Ad Strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broad · Adopt A Baby | A | $20,092 | 13.1% | 4.7% | $52.12 | Average |
| Broad · Adopt A Baby | B | $7,130 | 10.1% | 4.9% | $50.78 | Average |
| Agencies · Adopt A Baby | A | $11,465 | 11.8% | 4.1% | $57.75 | Average |
| Agencies · Adopt A Baby | B | $2,769 | 9.8% | 4.5% | $54.92 | Average |
| Broad · BM Ad | C | $3,443 | 8.7% | 5.0% | $49.07 | Average |
| Broad · BM Ad | B | $2,389 | 9.9% | 5.6% | $40.48 | Good |
Version A gets 67% of Search ad spend because Google favors the ad with the higher click-through rate. In each ad group the less-clicked ad converts slightly better and costs a little less per lead. The gaps are small, so the case for new ads rests on the headline data below rather than this table.
Version A in Broad · Adopt A Baby ($20,092, 385 leads), last 90 days. "Share" is the share of headline impressions each one got. Each headline is credited with every lead from an ad it appeared in, so compare them to each other, not to the ad total ($52.12).
| Headline | Share | CTR | Conv. rate | Cost per lead | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Learn How To Adopt A Child | 29.4% | 14.9% | 4.8% | $48.85 | Keep |
| Looking To Adopt? | 21.4% | 14.3% | 5.0% | $49.93 | Keep |
| Adoption Center | 16.0% | 13.5% | 4.2% | $59.90 | Replace |
| Considering Adoption? | 14.1% | 16.1% | 4.0% | $48.50 | Keep |
| Free Adoption Info & Support | 5.4% | 11.8% | 5.8% | $64.30 | Cut: duplicate |
| Free Adoption Info Packet | 5.0% | 12.0% | 8.0% | $41.05 | Pin |
| Adoption Centers Near You | 3.4% | 12.7% | 4.8% | $56.29 | Keep |
| [Acronym] Adoption | 2.1% | 11.5% | 3.7% | $60.03 | Cut |
| Safe & Confidential | 2.0% | 12.9% | 2.4% | $91.49 | Cut |
| 24/7 Confidential Support | 0.7% | 7.8% | 3.8% | $62.72 | Cut |
| [Brand] | 0.3% | 14.3% | 0.0% | – | Cut |
| Assistance For Birth Mothers | 0.2% | 5.2% | 0.0% | – | Move to BM ad |
| Description | Share | CTR | Conv. rate | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Providing caring adoption services for birth mothers and adoptive parents nationwide. | 52.1% | 13.2% | 4.7% | $51.59 |
| Resources & Answers for Pregnancy, Post-Placement, & Every Step in Between. Learn More. | 24.9% | 14.1% | 4.9% | $49.60 |
| From Pregnancy Health All the Way Through Post-Placement Support, We're Here to Help. | 11.8% | 12.7% | 5.6% | $44.90 |
| No Obligation Support from Caring, Experienced Adoption Experts at the [Brand]. | 11.2% | 12.6% | 4.0% | $59.25 |
"Free Adoption Info Packet" converts at 8.0%, the best of any headline, at $41 per lead, yet Google shows it in only 5% of impressions because its click-through rate is lower. "Considering Adoption?" gets the most clicks per view (16.1%) and converts at 4.0%. Pinning the packet headline in position 2 forces the offer into every ad.
Four headlines take 81% of impressions. The bottom five share 5% and none beats $60 per lead: "Safe & Confidential" runs $91, and "[Brand]" and "Assistance For Birth Mothers" have no leads. Replacing them gives Google better options to test.
Google has already sidelined the birth-mother headline in version A (0.2% of impressions). The descriptions still mix audiences: the two most-shown ones, 77% of description impressions, speak to birth mothers or pregnancy in an ad group built for hopeful parents. Nothing is pinned, so any mix can show.
How-to and cost searches are among the best converters in the account, and in Performance Max the "Adoption Costs" headline brings more leads than any other. No Search headline mentions cost, fees, timelines or steps.
"Free Adoption Info Packet" ($41 per lead) and "Free Adoption Info & Support" ($64) say nearly the same thing, and so do three "confidential" headlines. Google needs distinct messages to test, which is part of why Ad Strength sits at Average.
"[Acronym] Adoption" is an internal acronym searchers won't recognize ($60 per lead). "[Brand]" alone has no Search leads and is the weakest headline in Performance Max, at $118 per lead. There's no call to action headline, and descriptions end with "Learn More."
"Helping Families for Decades" appears only in the paused birth-mother campaign. The live Search ads carry no years, experience or reassurance for hopeful parents.
No display paths on any ad, one landing page for everything, and nothing that reflects the state in state searches, the largest group of searches in the account. Paths like /Adopt-a-Baby/Free-Packet cost nothing and lift relevance.
Performance Max reports results for each headline and description. Google counts every combination an asset appeared in, so read these as direction, not exact cost.
| Headline | Leads | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|
| Adoption Costs | 132 | $44.42 |
| Learn How to Adopt a Child | 110 | $40.43 |
| Free Adoption Packet | 88 | $41.58 |
| Looking To Adopt? Google-written | 64 | $43.27 |
| Adoption: Building Families | 23 | $33.51 |
| Adoption: Find Your Match | 21 | $40.71 |
| Adoption Made Easy | 9 | $36.59 |
| View Adoption Planning Guide | 5 | $75.93 |
| [Brand] | 9 | $118.15 |
| Description | Leads | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|
| Find your forever family. Adoption resources & support. | 165 | $46.06 |
| Providing caring adoption services for birth mothers and adoptive parents nationwide. Google-written | 84 | $42.37 |
| Caring for birth mothers, adoptive parents, and children. | 60 | $45.13 |
| [Brand] is a leading independent adoption center. | 51 | $50.32 |
| Our Adoption Center Provides Caring and Professional Adoption Services. | 34 | $43.08 |
| Building families with love & support. [Brand]. | 23 | $81.45 |
Concrete, useful headlines (cost, how to adopt, a free packet) lead. Brand-only and soft sentiment lines trail. Six text assets are marked Limited, which caps where they can show; the policy reason is in the next pull.
Drafts for your review. The core ad keeps the proven headlines from the table above and pins the packet offer. Each uses all 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, stays within Google's limits (30 and 90 characters), and speaks to one audience. Run them alongside the current ads rather than replacing them, so the test has a baseline. Claims marked "confirm" need your OK.
| Headline | Chars | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Looking To Adopt? | 17 | Pin 1 option · kept: $49.93, 21% of views |
| Ready to Grow Your Family? | 26 | Pin 1 option |
| Free Adoption Info Packet | 25 | Pin 2 · kept: best converter, 8.0% |
| Request Your Free Packet | 24 | CTA |
| See What Adoption Costs | 23 | Cost, the top PMax theme |
| No Hidden Fees | 14 | From your PMax copy |
| Learn How To Adopt A Child | 26 | Kept: top headline, $48.85 |
| Adoption, Step by Step | 22 | |
| Domestic Infant Adoption | 24 | |
| Talk to an Adoption Expert | 26 | CTA |
| Helping Families for Decades | 28 | Proof, from your BM ads |
| Adopt a Baby Nationwide | 23 | Exact keyword wording, for ad relevance |
| [Brand] | 16 | Brand |
| Answers to Your Questions | 25 | |
| Start Your Journey Today | 24 | CTA |
| Description | Chars | |
|---|---|---|
| Learn how domestic infant adoption works, what it costs and how long it takes. | 78 | |
| Request a free adoption info packet and talk with our team. No obligation. | 74 | |
| Experienced adoption professionals guide hopeful parents through every step. | 76 | |
| Helping hopeful parents build families for decades. Adoption services nationwide. | 81 |
Display path: /Adopt-a-Baby/Free-Packet
| Headline | Chars | Note |
|---|---|---|
| How to Adopt a Baby | 19 | Pin 1 |
| Adoption Process, Step by Step | 30 | |
| What Does Adoption Cost? | 24 | |
| How Long Does Adoption Take? | 28 | |
| Adoption Requirements | 21 | |
| Free Adoption Info Packet | 25 | |
| Get Your Questions Answered | 27 | |
| Talk to an Adoption Expert | 26 | CTA |
| Domestic Infant Adoption | 24 | |
| Helping Families for Decades | 28 | Proof |
| No Hidden Fees | 14 | |
| Start Your Adoption Today | 25 | CTA |
| [Brand] | 16 | Brand |
| Your Guide to Adopting | 22 | |
| No-Obligation Guidance | 22 |
| Description | Chars | |
|---|---|---|
| See every step of adopting a baby, from first call to placement, in our free packet. | 84 | |
| Costs, timelines and requirements explained by experienced adoption professionals. | 82 | |
| Get straight answers about domestic infant adoption. Request your free info packet. | 83 | |
| No obligation. Talk with our team about your family's adoption plans today. | 75 |
Display path: /How-to-Adopt/Free-Guide
| Headline | Chars | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Considering Adoption? | 21 | Pin 1 option |
| Pregnant and Unsure? | 20 | Pin 1 option |
| You Choose the Family | 21 | |
| Free Birth Mother Support | 25 | |
| 24/7 Confidential Support | 25 | |
| You Are Not Alone | 17 | From your BM campaign |
| Talk to Someone Today | 21 | CTA |
| Your Plan, Your Choice | 22 | |
| Explore Your Options | 20 | |
| Free Info Packet for Moms | 25 | CTA |
| No Cost to Birth Mothers | 24 | Confirm before using |
| Safe & Confidential | 19 | |
| [Brand] | 16 | Brand |
| Unplanned Pregnancy Options | 27 | From your BM campaign |
| Helping Families for Decades | 28 | Proof |
| Description | Chars | |
|---|---|---|
| Talk with a caring adoption specialist 24/7. Confidential, no obligation, no pressure. | 86 | |
| You choose the family and the kind of relationship you want. We support you throughout. | 87 | |
| Free support from pregnancy through placement and after. Request your free info packet. | 87 | |
| Considering adoption for your baby? Get answers to your questions, on your schedule. | 84 |
Display path: /Birth-Mothers/Free-Support
For the state ad group, pin a location headline in position 1: Adoption in {LOCATION(State):Your State}. It fills in the searcher's state, and falls back to "Your State" if Google can't tell. The longest state name, Massachusetts, fits within 30 characters. Pair it with the core adoptive-parent ad above.
Use the core ad, but swap two headlines for agency wording so the ads match the keywords (see Quality Score below): Need an Adoption Agency? (24) and Adoption Agency Questions? (26). Check that "agency" fits how you describe your services.
Google's 1–10 rating of how your ads, keywords and landing pages compare with other advertisers on the same searches. It isn't used in the auction itself, but its three parts (expected click-through rate, ad relevance, landing page experience) mirror what the auction does judge, so it points to where you're paying more than you need to.
| Component | Above | Average | Below | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expected CTR | 3.5 | 1.75 | 0 | 39% |
| Landing page experience | 3.5 | 1.75 | 0 | 39% |
| Ad relevance | 2 | 1 | 0 | 22% |
Score = 1 + the points for each part. Google doesn't publish its formula; this weighting is Adalysis's, reverse-engineered from keyword data, and it matches every scored keyword in this account to within half a point. Expected CTR has long been treated as the heaviest factor, and it's the one ad copy moves most directly. Ad relevance carries the least weight, but it also feeds click-through rate.
Search campaigns, Jun 29 – Sep 26. Green is above average, amber average, red below average.
| Keyword | Campaign · ad group | Spend | QS | Exp. CTR | Ad relevance | Landing page | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "adoption" | Broad · Adopt A Baby | $16,640 | 8 | Average | Above | Above | $52.53 |
| "adoption agency" | Agencies · Adopt A Baby | $13,183 | 9 | Above | Average | Above | $55.18 |
| "adopt a baby" | Broad · Adopt A Baby | $6,951 | 6 | Above | Below | Average | $47.29 |
| adoption (broad) | Broad · BM Ad | $4,956 | 10 | Above | Above | Above | $42.85 |
| "infant adoption" | Broad · Adopt A Baby | $1,242 | 7 | Average | Average | Above | $61.61 |
| "adoption agencies" | Agencies · Adopt A Baby | $534 | 8 | Above | Below | Above | $66.77 |
These six are 97% of Search keyword spend. Cost per click in this account runs $2.56–2.90 on keywords scoring 5–6, against $2.29–2.41 on those scoring 8–10.
It's the third-largest keyword ($6,951) and the only big one scoring 6, with below-average ad relevance and an average landing page. The ads in its ad group never say "adopt a baby"; the closest is "Learn How To Adopt A Child". Give it an exact-match ad group with "Adopt a Baby" in a pinned headline, and test the adoptive-parents page against the homepage. By the weighting above, ad relevance moving from below to above average is worth 2 points, and the landing page moving up another 1.75.
"adoption agency" scores 9 but ad relevance is only average on $13,183 of spend, and "adoption agencies" is below average. None of the ads in that campaign contains the word "agency". Two agency headlines (in the Ad copy section) should lift both.
The largest keyword ($16,640) is held back by average expected click-through rate. The same search in the broad-match ad group scores 10. The headline test above (pinning the free-packet offer, cutting the weakest headlines) is the lever here, not the landing page.
Only 26% of Adoption Agencies' search-term spend was on searches containing "agency" or "agencies" ($2,573 of $10,026). The rest came through close variants like "adoption in ohio". Meanwhile Adoption – Broad spent $2,289 on agency searches, and 25 of the 29 keywords under its birth-mother ads have below-average ad relevance. Move every agency keyword into Adoption Agencies, add "agency" and "agencies" as negatives in Broad, and write agency-specific ads for Agencies. Each campaign then gets copy that matches its searches.
No keyword has a below-average landing page, and 82% of spend is above average. Landing pages still matter for conversion rate, which is a separate question (see What this audit didn't cover).
A 3 on a keyword with $2 of spend isn't a finding. Check the components on the keywords that carry spend each month, and judge each fix by the part it targets and by cost per lead, not the score itself. Keywords showing "--" don't have enough exact-match searches to be scored.
Performance in 4-hour blocks, so each cell maps to a schedule adjustment you can actually make. Color follows the first metric; the second prints underneath. Hatched cells are hours when only Performance Max runs, because the Search campaigns are scheduled off.
Search starts at 9am Pacific, which is noon on the East Coast. In the hours it's off, Performance Max runs alone and gets leads at $38 (midnight–4am PT) and $46 (4–8am PT), below the $50 account average. Starting Search at 5am Pacific (8am Eastern) covers East Coast mornings.
8pm–midnight Pacific is the weakest block Search runs in: 3.75% conversion rate and $53.58 per lead, on 15% of spend. Ending at 9pm Pacific (midnight Eastern) moves those hours to the morning, so total hours stay about the same. Run it as a four-week test.
The campaigns use Smart Bidding, which ignores ad schedule bid adjustments and already sets a bid for each auction based on time of day. On and off windows are the only schedule lever that changes anything.
Monday runs $59 per lead against $45 on Wednesday, but the 90 days include two billing pauses that fall unevenly across weekdays. Recheck after eight clean weeks before treating it as a pattern.
Optimization score is 73% with 20 pending recommendations. It doesn't affect Quality Score or ad rank, and dismissing a recommendation raises it as much as applying one. Here's what I'd do with each.
| Campaign | Score | Last week's spend |
|---|---|---|
| Performance Max | 85% | $2,584 |
| Adoption – Broad | 62% | $1,467 |
| Adoption Agencies | 39% | $443 |
| Suggestion | Extra leads / wk | Cost per extra lead |
|---|---|---|
| Broad: $300 now → $900/day | 19.6 | $115 |
| Agencies: $150 now → $310/day | 5.5 | $118 |
| Performance Max: $400 now → $690/day | 11.8 | $113 |
Google's own estimates, about 2.5× the current cost per lead.
| Recommendation | Score | Verdict | Why |
|---|
Every recommendation in this audit, grouped by priority and ranked by estimated monthly impact. Monthly figures use the account's active run rate (72 of the last 90 days had spend, about $28K a month when running); "est." marks a projection rather than a measured amount. Tick items off as they're done; ticks save in this browser only.
For $99, I'll review your account the same way and implement the fixes. It's credited toward your first month if we keep working together.
Plain-language definitions for anyone newer to Google Ads.
Keep these.
The high-priority fixes are a few hours of work and add no spend. If you'd like them made, reviewed weekly, and every automated change vetted before it goes live, that's what management covers.