Google Ads audit · essential-studio

Headline

The Essential Studio Google Ads account (syncfusion.com, 9780479270, USD) spent $41,042.24 between 2026-10-15 and 2026-11-11, down 26.99% on the prior 28 days. It recorded 7 conversions (6 ES Product Signup, 1 Request demo), down from 27, which is about $5,863.18 per conversion. Campaigns with zero conversions spent about $26,536.13. Targeting hygiene is good: Presence geo, Search Partners and Display off, no broad match, auto-apply off, brand excluded and large shared negative lists. The gaps are measurement and bidding. No CRM stage is imported, so no campaign can bid on qualified pipeline, and 11 of 12 enabled ES Search campaigns don't bid on conversions at all (9 Manual CPC, 2 Maximize Clicks). Competitor ads also carry unsourced superlatives.

Score

50 / 100 (7 of 14 scored items passed; a warn counts as not passed; 1 n/a and 1 not-checked item are excluded)

• Pass: 7 | Warn: 4 | Fail: 3 | n/a: 1 | Not checked: 1

Top 3 actions

1. Start importing qualified CRM stages (B3, B4). Capture GCLID, GBRAID and WBRAID on every form, create an offline conversion action, and import qualified lead, opportunity and closed-won daily as primary goals. Owner: sales ops and the paid search lead.
2. Cut spend on campaigns with zero conversions and tie bidding to the pricing model (B5). UI Components US & Canada ($7,237.92) and Doc SDK US & Canada ($7,093.86) recorded 0 conversions on Manual CPC. Review their budgets now, then move them to conversion-based bidding once step 1 is live.
3. Clean up competitor ad claims (C4, C1). Source or remove "Industry-Leading .NET PDF APIs" and "the best alternative to …". Match "G2 Top-Rated" to the current homepage badge wording, and confirm that using competitor names in ad text is permitted.

Findings

Ads account audit: essential-studio, syncfusion.com (9780479270), 2026-11-12

Period: 2026-10-15 to 2026-11-11 (28 days), compared with 2026-09-17 to 2026-10-14 | Run by: Claude

Score

• Pass: 7 | Fail: 3 | n/a: 1 (also Warn: 4, Not checked: 1)

Proposed changes (need human approval before applying)

See "Proposed changes (need approval)" below.

Remember to add these results to the team's shared results log (location TBD).

Not checked

• A6 Audience Network (Microsoft Ads): no Microsoft Ads data source was connected. The Microsoft Ads half of B1 was not checked for the same reason.
• B4, form click-ID capture: whether forms store GCLID, GBRAID and WBRAID can't be seen from the Google Ads API. It needs a CRM or form check.
• B3, goal biddability: the customer_conversion_goal.biddable field was requested but not returned, so which goal categories are biddable was not confirmed. Primary status was read from conversion_action.primary_for_goal.
• C1 and C4 cover only the 4 competitor RSAs. Ad copy in the other campaigns was not pulled.
• C2, website buyer-fit audit of the landing pages was not run. It is a separate skill.
• A1: a match-type breakdown of all keywords was too large to read. The check relies on the query for broad keywords with impressions in enabled campaigns, which returned none.
• Date range: the checklist default is 90 days vs. the prior 90. This run used the 28-day range pbmaintain supplied.
• Waste estimate: ads.wasted_spend_est is null. Account data alone can't separate wasted spend from zero-conversion developer-research spend. The two clearly irrelevant top-50 terms total $80.33.
• Account choice: the run picked account 9780479270 ("syncfusion.com") as Essential Studio's. It also holds 2 enabled BoldCreate AI Search campaigns ($0 spend) and paused BoldDocServer campaigns. Those were excluded from scoring.

Proposed changes (need approval)

None of these has been applied. Each one needs approval from the paid search lead in chat.

1. Conversion tracking: no offline import → capture GCLID, GBRAID and WBRAID on forms, create an offline (UPLOAD_CLICKS) conversion action and import qualified CRM stages daily. Reason: B4.
2. Account conversion goals: web sign-up, demo, contact and purchase tags are primary → make the imported qualified stages primary, and keep ES Product Signup and Licensee key claimed secondary or value-weighted. Reason: B3.
3. ES | UI Components | US & Canada ($7,237.92, 0 conv) and ES | Doc SDK | US & Canada ($7,093.86, 0 conv): Manual CPC at the current budgets → paid search lead to review the budgets now, then move to conversion-based bidding with targets from the Essential Studio pricing section once change 2 is live. Reason: B5.
4. Competitor RSAs (ads 778806545500, 778898038286, 778806545512, 778898036591): "Industry-Leading", "the best alternative" and "G2 Top-Rated" → remove them or replace with sourced wording that matches the homepage G2 badge. Reason: C4.
5. Competitor RSAs: competitor names in ad text → product marketing to confirm this is permitted. Reason: C1.
6. "Non-Buyer Intent" shared list: no student negatives → add "student" and "students" (phrase). Reason: A3.
7. "free" phrase negative (Non-Buyer Intent, Online/Tool Seeker): blocks "free trial" queries → paid search lead decides whether to keep it. Reason: A3.
8. UI Components US & Canada and Doc SDK US & Canada: "mkdocs flowchart" and "vsto excel addin" matched → add "mkdocs" and "vsto" as negatives. Decide on open-source library terms (chart js, react table, excel js, xlsx js). Reason: A5.
9. .NET MAUI Demand Gen campaigns (Emerging EU, US, UK & DE): $1,008.52, 24,005 clicks, 0 conversions → review targeting and whether to continue. Reason: A2 (observation).
10. Paused campaigns: 8 paused Search campaigns have Search Partners on, and more than 40 paused campaigns use Presence or interest → fix both before re-enabling any of them. Add brand exclusions to any PMax before it is re-enabled. Reason: A2, A4, B2.
11. Brand coverage: no brand campaign, and "syncfusion" is an account-level negative → paid search lead to confirm this is intentional. Reason: B6.

Data sources

• Google Ads API through the google-ads MCP server (list_accounts, run_gaql, read-only), customer 9780479270 "syncfusion.com", currency USD, time zone America/New_York. Queried 2026-11-12.
• Resources queried: customer, campaign (including ai_max_setting), keyword_view, search_term_view, shared_set, shared_criterion, campaign_shared_set, customer_negative_criterion, conversion_action, customer_conversion_goal, offline_conversion_upload_client_summary, recommendation_subscription, change_event, ad_group_ad.
• Raw exports in raw/: campaigns.csv, search_terms_top50.csv, negatives.csv, account_and_conversions.json, ads_landing_pages.csv, ad_copy_competitor.json. Costs are in micros, as the API returns them. Dollar figures in this summary are micros ÷ 1,000,000, rounded to cents. Cost per conversion is spend ÷ conversions.
• Checklist: demand-gen/paid/ads-account-audit.md. Strategy reference: demand-gen/paid/google-ads-strategy.md. Claims reference: _reference/positioning/essential-studio.md, _reference/pricing-and-licensing.md.