Google Ads reporting — what a report has to contain
Reporting rarely fails on the technology. It fails because the report shows numbers that look good instead of numbers that support a decision.
Google can send the reports for you
You need neither an agency nor a tool for this: "You can have Google Ads email a statistics table as a report to you and other people who have the direct access level to view your reports." (Google Ads Help)
You choose frequency and format: "Choose the frequency (examples: daily, weekly) that the reports are sent and in what format (for example, CSV and PDF)." (Google Ads Help)
And a view you have built once can be kept: "To save a copy of the table that you can edit in the Report Editor, click Save this report and enter a name." (Google Ads Help)
Granting the right access level for reports is covered in the access levels guide.
Which numbers actually matter
| Metric | What it answers | Why it is not enough alone |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | Did it serve? | Says nothing about interest |
| Clicks / CTR | Is the ad appealing? | A click is not a customer |
| Conversions | Are enquiries arriving? | Only meaningful with clean tracking |
| Cost per conversion | What does an enquiry cost? | The number that decides whether to continue |
| Search terms | What did you pay for? | See the search terms report |
The only number that carries a business decision is cost per enquiry against what a customer is worth to you. Everything above it is context.
How to spot an empty agency report
Four warning signs, named honestly — even though we are an agency ourselves:
- Only clicks and impressions. Both almost always rise when you raise the budget. That is not a result.
- No cost per enquiry. Without it you cannot judge whether the channel pays.
- No search terms. Then you cannot see what your money actually bought.
- Charts but no decision. A report should say in one sentence what happens next and why.
If a report arrives monthly but never contains a recommendation, it is documentation, not management.
How often to report
Monthly for decisions, weekly only for monitoring. The reason is not convenience: acting weekly on small numbers keeps restarting the learning period, and then you are measuring your own restlessness rather than the campaign.
On small budgets there is a second reason — a week simply does not contain enough conversions to tell anything apart. The maths is in the small-budget guide.