Ads reporting18 October 20262 min read
The short answer
Report on what you spend, what you get back and how that changes from month to month. Spend, conversions, cost per conversion and return on ad spend tell most of the story.
The KPIs and how they are worked out
| KPI | What it tells you | How it is worked out |
|---|---|---|
| Spend | What you paid | Total cost |
| Impressions | How often your ads were shown | Count of times shown |
| Clicks | How many people clicked | Count of clicks |
| CTR | How appealing your ad is | Clicks ÷ impressions |
| CPC | What a click costs | Spend ÷ clicks |
| Conversions | Results you care about | Count of tracked actions |
| Conversion rate | How well clicks turn into results | Conversions ÷ clicks |
| CPA (cost per conversion) | What each result costs | Spend ÷ conversions |
| ROAS | Revenue for every unit of spend | Conversion value ÷ spend |
A monthly view that keeps campaigns honest
- Headline numbers. Spend, conversions, CPA and ROAS, each compared with last month and, if you have the history, the same month last year.
- By campaign. A table showing the same metrics for each campaign, sorted by spend, so you can see where the money went.
- Winners and losers. The campaigns with the best and worst CPA or ROAS.
- Budget pacing. How much of the monthly budget is spent, against how much of the month has passed.
- Wasted spend. Search terms or placements that spend money and never convert.
Mistakes to avoid
- Judging a campaign on one day. Look at trends over weeks.
- Ignoring conversion lag. Some results arrive days after the click, so the latest days can look worse than they are.
- Ignoring margin. A ROAS of 3 is good or bad depending on your profit margin. The break-even ROAS is 1 divided by your margin, so a 25% margin breaks even at a ROAS of 4.
- Trusting broken tracking. If conversion tracking is wrong, every other number is wrong too.
Our Google Ads dashboard template has these KPIs built in. For several platforms in one report, read how to compare Facebook, Google and TikTok Ads.