🔍 Overview
When running a Google Ads campaign audit in OTTO PPC, selecting only the Google Ads account without also selecting a specific campaign from the dropdown can cause the audit to surface keyword recommendations from other campaigns or clients. This article explains how to filter correctly so every audit result applies to the right campaign.
⚠️ What Causes Cross-Client Keyword Recommendations
OTTO PPC's campaign audit feature works at two levels: the account level and the campaign level. If you select a Google Ads account but leave the campaign dropdown unfiltered, the audit pulls data across all campaigns linked to that account connection. In multi-client environments, this can surface keyword recommendations from a completely different client's campaign.
For example, if your workspace manages accounts for both Christian Counseling of Arkansas and Kids World Academy, and both are connected under the same Google Ads integration, an unfiltered audit may blend recommendations from both — producing inaccurate suggestions and creating a risk that changes could be applied to the wrong campaign.
No data is pushed automatically, but acting on mixed audit results without filtering first can lead to incorrect optimisations being applied manually to the wrong campaign.
✅ How to Run a Correctly Filtered Campaign Audit
- Open your project in Search Atlas and navigate to the OTTO PPC section from the left sidebar.
- Navigate to Ads → Google Ads → Campaign Audit (Audit).
- Use the Campaign Type dropdown at the top of the audit panel to choose the relevant campaign type for the client you are auditing (for example, Christian Counseling of Arkansas).
- After selecting the campaign type, look for the Campaign dropdown — this is a second, separate filter. This step is mandatory.
- From the campaign dropdown, select the specific campaign you want to audit (for example, the branded search campaign for Christian Counseling of Arkansas).
- With both the Campaign Type and the Campaign selected, run or refresh the audit. All keyword recommendations, quality score alerts, and optimisation suggestions will now be scoped exclusively to that campaign.
🚫 How to Confirm You Are Viewing the Correct Data
Before acting on any audit recommendation, verify the following:
- The account name shown in the account selector matches the intended client.
- The campaign name shown in the Campaign dropdown matches the specific campaign you are optimising.
- None of the keyword suggestions reference products, services, or terms unrelated to that client's business. If you see irrelevant keywords — such as children's education terms appearing in a counselling services audit — this is a strong signal the campaign filter was not applied.
🔄 What to Do If You Already Ran an Unfiltered Audit
If you ran an audit without selecting the campaign from the dropdown and are unsure whether any recommendations were acted upon, follow these steps:
- Do not apply any pending recommendations until you re-run the audit with the correct campaign filter in place.
- Re-run the audit following the steps in the section above to generate a clean, campaign-specific set of recommendations.
- Compare the new results with any changes already made in Google Ads to confirm nothing incorrect was applied.
- If changes were applied based on mixed results, revert them directly inside Google Ads Ads Manager for the affected campaign before proceeding.
💡 Best Practices for Multi-Client OTTO PPC Workspaces
- Always select from the Campaign dropdown as a mandatory second step — never rely on the Campaign Type filter alone.
- If you manage multiple clients in the same workspace, create separate Search Atlas projects per client to reduce the risk of account-level data mixing.
- Before sharing an audit report with a client, confirm the campaign name shown in the filter matches the client's campaign.
- Treat any keyword recommendation that seems off-topic as a signal to check whether the campaign filter is active.
🙋 Need More Help?
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