account-health-diagnosticslisted

# Account Health Diagnostics Two modes for one job: figuring out what's wrong with a Google Ads account. ## Mode selection | Mode | Question | Data needed | Use when | |---|---|---|---| | **Spike Diagnosis** | Why did my CPA jump? | Two comparison periods of campaign data | The user knows something broke and roughly when | | **Drift Scan** | Is anything quietly going wrong? | 60+ days of DAILY campaign data | No known problem; health check, monitoring, "what looks weird" | Selection heuristics: - User names a specific symptom with a timeframe ("CPA went from $40 to $65 this month") → **Spike Diagnosis** - User wants a general scan, alert-style review, or asks "what changed" with no specific symptom → **Drift Scan** - Drift Scan finds a serious anomaly → offer to run **Spike Diagnosis** on it as the follow-up. This chain is the ideal workflow: Scan finds it, Diagnosis explains it. State which mode you're running at the top of the response. ## Shared cause library (both modes reference this) CPA problems have six well-understood causes. Spike Diagnosis checks all six formally; Drift Scan uses them as hypotheses when cross-referencing anomalies. 1. **Bid strategy changes**: automated bidding shifted targets or learning reset. Signature: CPC rose sharply with stable conversion rate. Learning period spikes are normal for 7-14 days after a strategy switch. 2. **Search term drift**: new irrelevant queries entered the auction. Signature: new high-spend zero-c