What a useful Google Ad Grant assessment actually examines

Beyond the checklist audit

The market calls this an "audit," and most free ones work the same way: run the account through a 40-point checklist, flag everything, and hand you a score. Every issue looks equally urgent, so nothing is actionable.

A diagnosis works differently. It asks which single constraint most limits mission outcomes right now, proves it with evidence from your account, and defers everything else. The output is a decision you can act on, not a to-do list you can't prioritize.

The five diagnostic gates

The assessment scores your account through five gates, in order — safety always comes before growth advice:

1. 01

   Safety & access

   Eligibility, website policy, account access, and suspension state. An account at compliance risk gets remediation guidance before any growth recommendation.

2. 02

   Measurement truth

   Are conversions tracking mission outcomes, micro-conversions, or vanity signals? If the tracking isn't trustworthy, nothing downstream can be.

3. 03

   Paid opportunity

   Auction and keyword-planner evidence of real search demand for your mission — not a generic keyword-tool export.

4. 04

   Content & conversion

   Whether your pages and calls to action can safely absorb paid traffic and convert it into meaningful outcomes.

5. 05

   Learning plan

   A 90-day test portfolio with explicit stop rules, so spend produces learning even when a hypothesis fails.

Every claim is labeled by how we know it

The assessment never blurs facts with guesses. Each finding carries one of six evidence labels:

What the result contains

• One primary constraint

  A single named finding on what most blocks mission outcomes, stated with confidence language and explicit guardrails on what we refuse to claim.

• An evidence strip

  The key account numbers behind the finding — for example, eligible spend, the $10,000 monthly ceiling, observed utilization, and meaningful conversions recorded. Utilization is context, not the goal by itself.

• A three-step 90-day sequence

  Make program outcomes measurable (weeks 1–2), prove paid-search fit (weeks 2–4), then run a repeatable search learning loop (weeks 5–12).

• An informational query portfolio

  Three to five mission-specific query themes, each with an intent label and the existing page it maps to — explicitly not a ranking-feasibility claim.

How the process works

1. 01

   Submit the intake

   A short intake covering your organization and website, Grant account state, primary program, a one-sentence program goal, what a meaningful conversion means for your mission, and service geography. About five minutes.

2. 02

   Book your result-review call

   Your confirmation email includes a booking link for a 30-minute call where we walk through the result together.

3. 03

   Share read-only access

   A Google Ads Manager Account link and GA4 Viewer access — revocable anytime, never billing or administrative ownership. Spend is observed from your account, not self-reported.

4. 04

   Review the result

   We bring the finished assessment to your call: the primary constraint, the labeled evidence, and the 90-day priorities.