Taking over a Google Ads account with unreliable tracking creates an awkward choice. Leaving everything untouched may continue wasting money. Rebuilding campaigns immediately can destroy the reference point needed to understand the account.
A useful first week establishes what is being measured, verifies the real customer journey and addresses confirmed faults. It should leave the business with a credible operating baseline and a short list of next tests.
The schedule below is a planning framework. Access delays, low enquiry volume and a complex website can extend it. It is not a promise that performance will improve within seven days.
Day one: agree on what the business calls a lead
Start with the sales process rather than the dashboard.
Ask the business to distinguish a submitted enquiry, a valid contact, a qualified opportunity and a won customer. Record the services it sells, the locations it can serve and the enquiries it regularly rejects.
Then identify the systems that hold each stage:
| Stage | Source to inspect | Question to resolve |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiry submitted | Website, booking system or call system | Did the customer complete the intended action? |
| Contact received | CRM, inbox or intake log | Did the team receive and retain it? |
| Lead qualified | CRM or a reviewed lead register | Does it meet agreed service and customer criteria? |
| Customer won | Sales or order record | What outcome and value were recorded? |
Secure the access required to inspect these systems. Use appropriate account permissions rather than shared passwords. Include the advertising account, relevant analytics and tag systems, website forms and the reporting or CRM owner.
Also record existing budgets, conversion goals and recent major changes. An inherited account needs an ownership record as well as a performance review.
Day two: test a real enquiry from start to finish
Submit a clearly labelled test through the same public route a prospective customer would use. Coordinate it with the team so the test does not create a fake sales opportunity.
Check the complete sequence:
- The form accepts valid input and rejects obvious errors.
- The confirmation appears only after a successful submission.
- The enquiry reaches the right destination.
- A usable record is created with the expected service and language fields.
- The intended conversion event appears once.
- Reopening or refreshing the confirmation does not create another valid lead.
Repeat the relevant journey on mobile. Test other important contact routes separately, such as a booking tool or a call enquiry.
A button-click event proves that a button was clicked. It does not prove that a form arrived or a call became a qualified lead. Make those distinctions visible in the reporting definitions.
Day three: inspect the conversion configuration
List every conversion action and write what it represents in ordinary business language. Flag legacy actions, duplicates, abandoned forms and events that have been given a business-sounding name without a corresponding business outcome.
For the campaigns you are taking over, check the goals actually used for bidding. Google supports campaign-specific goals, so an account-level setting alone does not describe every campaign.1
Do not delete historical actions just to make the list tidy. You may need them to understand older reports. First document the problem and plan any change that affects optimisation or comparisons over time.
If there is a confirmed fault, repair it and repeat the end-to-end test. Annotate the effective date. Keep pre-repair and post-repair performance distinct when the underlying measurement changed.
Day four: reconcile a small, recent sample
Choose a dated period and compare the advertising report with the intake records. Start with a manageable sample that the sales team can review.
Record the time zone, whether the report uses interaction date or conversion date, and the actions included in each total. Allow for normal delays in qualification and recording.
Match individual records only where a valid identifier and an appropriate data process are available. Some advertising reporting is aggregated or modelled and cannot be turned into a one-to-one list of identifiable leads.
The result may reveal several separate issues: missing submissions, repeated events, genuine leads recorded late, or enquiries rejected as outside scope. Put each issue in its own queue rather than labelling the entire account “bad traffic.”
For a deeper process, use the CRM and ad-report reconciliation guide.
Day five: review intent before restructuring
Inspect search terms, location performance, landing pages and the actual enquiries associated with them.
The search terms report shows reported queries that triggered ads, but some queries are omitted under reporting thresholds. Treat it as an important evidence source with coverage limits.2
Prioritise confirmed mismatches. An advertisement for a service the business no longer offers deserves prompt attention. A keyword with a high cost and a long sales cycle deserves investigation before it is paused.
Check whether customers are landing on the right service page and whether that page sets accurate expectations for price, availability and follow-up. Record proposed structural changes without implementing all of them immediately.
Finish the week with four concrete deliverables
The handover should produce:
- A measurement map: each important action, its business meaning, source system and owner.
- A fault and repair log: what failed, what changed and which verification passed.
- A baseline report: a defined period, included actions, lead stages and known limitations.
- A next-action queue: urgent business mismatches, controlled performance tests and unresolved questions.
Include current spending and the reason for any interim budget decision. If measurement is materially unreliable, agree on a temporary spending level using the business's tolerance and available independent evidence. There is no universally correct percentage reduction.
Judge the takeover by decision quality
The first week is successful when the business can explain what its numbers mean and which actions are justified next. A lower dashboard cost per conversion is not sufficient evidence if the conversion definition has changed.
A conversion-tracking review can establish that foundation before broader Google Ads management changes are evaluated. Bring access owners, the current lead definitions and a recent intake sample. Those are more useful starting materials than a headline performance screenshot.