How to read a Google Ads report without being an expert.

The five columns to read first

These five columns are only worth something if the conversions are reliable. If your account counts clicks on a button or ignores calls, the cost per conversion is wrong, however it is presented. Check the tracking first: our guide on call and form tracking explains how. And if Google Ads is still new to you, our Google Ads guide for small businesses explains how it works first.

The numbers that only look good

Impressions count every time your ad is shown, and click-through rate the share of people who click after seeing it. These metrics help fine-tune the ads, but a report that opens with tens of thousands of impressions says nothing about your sales. An impression costs nothing on the Search Network: you pay for the click. But when the impressions come from off-topic searches, the clicks that follow cost money without bringing anything in.

Two scores are often misleading. Quality Score, rated from 1 to 10, is a diagnostic tool: Google states that it isn’t used in the ad auction. Optimization score estimates how closely your account follows Google’s recommendations; it is calculated in real time and goes up when you apply a recommendation, but also when you dismiss it. A score of 100% therefore guarantees no leads at all.

Example: a monthly report, read step by step

Here is one month’s report for a fictional roofer with three campaigns. The conversions are real leads, calls and forms included, and the bid strategy isn’t Maximize conversions.

• Emergencies: a good cost per lead, and 35% of possible impressions missed because of budget. This is where an extra dollar would bring in the most.
• Replacements: only 3% of visits turn into leads. Before touching the budget, look at the landing page and the search terms: the problem is further upstream.
• Brand: $12 per lead, but these people were already searching for your name. This flattering number shouldn’t dress up the account average: judge the other campaigns without it.

Conversions or All conversions?

Google Ads shows two columns that look alike. Conversions counts only primary actions, the ones used for bidding. All conversions also includes secondary actions, which Google tracks for observation purposes, and other types of conversions. View-through conversions, when someone saw the ad without clicking and converted later, are excluded from the Conversions column.

For a business owner, the column to read is Conversions, provided it contains only real leads. A large gap between the two columns isn’t a problem in itself; it means secondary actions are being tracked. If someone presents All conversions to you as a result, ask what it contains.

Why the most recent days often look worse

Google Ads credits a conversion to the date of the ad click, not the date of the lead. Someone who clicks on Monday and fills in the form on Thursday counts as a Monday conversion. As a result, the most recent days often seem to have fewer conversions than they will actually end up with.

Google even advises excluding the most recent conversion delay period when evaluating a strategy’s results. In practice, judge a campaign on a full month that ended a few days ago, and compare whole months with each other rather than weeks.

Impression share: is your budget holding you back?

Search impression share is the percentage of impressions your ads received out of the total they could have received. It is an estimate: Google states that small fluctuations don’t necessarily call for changes, that the data can take 24 to 48 hours to update, and that Search partners aren’t included.

Two columns explain the missed impressions. Impression share lost to budget means you missed searches because the budget ran out; if the cost per conversion is good, that is a signal to raise the budget. Impression share lost to rank means other advertisers are getting ahead of you: ad quality, the landing page or the bid is the issue, and adding budget fixes nothing.

Google points out one limit: with the Maximize conversions strategy, the lost-to-budget column isn’t compatible and shouldn’t be used to adjust the budget.

The report to read alongside: search terms

The search terms report lists the actual searches that triggered your ads. It is the most concrete report in Google Ads: you read, in plain words, what people were looking for when you paid for their click. A search that could never turn into a customer should become a negative keyword.

You don’t need to be an expert to read it: you know your customers better than anyone. Sort by cost, read the first twenty rows and flag whatever surprises you. That is often the most useful conversation to have with whoever manages your account. The other causes of wasted spend are in our guide on why Google Ads campaigns aren’t working.

The questions to ask about your report

• How many leads did we get this month, calls included, and how many were qualified?
• How much did each lead cost us, by campaign?
• Which searches did we exclude this month, and why?
• Did the budget make us miss profitable leads?
• What was changed in the account, and with what effect?

If a term escapes you, our Google Ads glossary in plain English defines it simply. And if you can’t get clear answers to these questions, it may be time to talk to another Google Ads agency.