How to build a Google Ads client report

A business owner reads a Google Ads report for four answers. Did we get the results? At what cost? Is it getting better? What happens next? A marketing manager may want the campaigns and the searches as well.

So build two layers. The first page answers the owner's four questions on its own. Everything after it is for whoever wants to dig, in the same order every month, so they know where to look.

Before you build anything, write down three things with the client: the one result the account is run for, its goal, and the monthly budget. A report without a goal can only say whether numbers went up, and up is not always good.

1. 1

   Key figures

   Four to six figures, each beside the previous period, the same period last year and the goal.

2. 2

   The trend

   The result by day for a month, or by week for a quarter, so a good month that faded shows as one.

3. 3

   Budget

   Spent against budget, and where the month will end if the report is sent mid-month.

4. 4

   Campaigns

   One row per campaign, sorted by spend, with results and cost per result.

5. 5

   Searches

   The searches that converted, and those that cost money for nothing.

6. 6

   What changed

   What you did in the period, and what each change did to the numbers.

7. 7

   Next

   What you will do next month, and what you need from the client.

Seven parts sound like a lot. The first four fit on one page, and the client who stops there still has every answer that matters.

The headline figures depend on how the business makes money. Pick four to six and keep them the same month after month, so a change in the figure means a change in the account.

Leave out what needs a paragraph to mean anything. Impressions on their own, average Quality Score, the optimization score and click-through rate without conversions all invite questions that lead nowhere. If a figure belongs in the report, it should be one the client would miss.

Here is the first page for Ostara Bikes, a made-up online shop with a 30% margin, for October.

Every figure means something only beside another. Which one you pick decides the story.

Month against previous month is what clients expect, and it mixes your work with the season. Ostara's purchases rose 8% on September. Last year, with no change to the account, October brought 12% more than September. So the season gave more than the work did, and October was a little behind it. The year-on-year column shows that: purchases up 14% on a budget up 11%.

Show both columns for the headline figures, and the goal beside them. Year on year needs an account that was comparable a year ago. If budgets doubled since, say so under the table.

Compare like with like. A 31-day month against a 30-day one adds 3% on its own, and five weekends against four can move a lead account by more. For a part month, compare the same days of the previous month, not the whole of it.

A report the client checks against Google Ads a week later must still agree with it. Four habits make that happen.

Report complete days. Google Ads credits each conversion to the day of the click, and recent days keep gaining conversions. A monthly report built on the 1st understates the last week of the month. Send it a few days in, once most conversions are in, and print the day the figures were read. Accounts with imported offline sales need longer.

Work ratios out from totals. Cost per result is total cost divided by total results, never an average of daily or campaign figures. Campaign A spends €1,000 for 50 sales at €20 each. Campaign B spends €200 for 2, at €100 each. Their average is €60. The real cost per sale is €1,200 ÷ 52 = €23.08.

Read shares as Google totals them. Impression share for a month is Google's figure for that month. Daily shares do not average into it, because Google reports any share under 10% as 9.99%, and any lost share over 90% as 90.01%.

Say what counts. The Conversions column holds only primary actions. Name them in a line under the key figures: online purchases, calls over 60 seconds, booked appointments. If GA4 shows different numbers, it is usually attribution and timing, explained in the Google Ads and GA4 guide.

A chart shows that a figure moved. It cannot say why, or whether that matters. Three sentences under the key figures do more than three more charts.

October's purchases rose 8% on September, slightly behind last year's seasonal rise of 12%. Cost per purchase fell to €39.72 after we stopped paying for searches about bike repairs. In November we move budget from Display to the Shopping campaign, which sells at €31 a purchase.

Keep the causes honest. A change you made and a figure that improved the same week are two facts, not proof. Say what you changed and what happened after, and leave the leap to the client unless you measured it against a comparison.

Do not hide a bad month. A report that only ever shows wins stops being read. The client learns more from a miss explained than from a good month left unexplained.

Monthly suits most accounts. Weekly suits large budgets, launches and accounts in trouble. Quarterly is the moment for a review with year-on-year figures and next quarter's plan.

Send on the same day each month, once conversions have settled: around the 3rd for a shop, later for leads that close offline. Send a PDF for the record, and a link for anyone who wants to open the figures.

• Google Ads' report editor can schedule a saved report by email, to people who have access to the account.
• Data Studio, formerly Looker Studio, can schedule a PDF to any address, once the dashboard is built and its data sources hold.
• A spreadsheet works for a few clients and stops working at about the tenth.

Agencies usually send under their own name, as a white-label report with their logo. Keep one Google Ads account per report. A client with two accounts in two currencies is better served by two reports than by a total in a currency neither account spends.

Optizads builds reports from cards on the account's own figures. Start from one of 24 templates, sorted in 6 sections, or from a blank report.

• Cards for each part above. There are 36 card types. Key figures takes 1 to 8 metrics, each with its own comparison and goal line, from Google Ads, GA4, Search Console or your own sheet and calculated metrics. Budget pacing, Main goal, Searches that convert, Searches that waste and What Oppy did cover the rest of the list.
• The arithmetic above. Periods follow the account's time zone and count finished days. Compare with the period before or the same days last year. Ratios come from summed totals, and impression shares are read as Google totals them.
• Your words, not a machine's. No AI writes a report. A Note card holds your own text, up to 4,000 characters, and What Oppy did lists each change with its estimated and measured effect.

Download a PDF, or Send it to up to 20 addresses with the PDF attached. An admin can add a public link, whose figures are read again each time it opens. Agencies put their logo, name and colour on reports, while solo workspaces carry the Optizads mark. Each report covers one Google Ads account.

Weekly, monthly and quarterly reports are built automatically. Their email is a notice that the report is ready, with no PDF, sent to the people listed under Settings, Operator. Templates and custom reports go out when you send them.

The report builder page shows the cards, and the template gallery has each template, from the monthly report to the campaign performance report.