Little Known Google Ads Reports
SEM marketers make many strategic and tactical decisions, spend time optimizing accounts for performance, read up on industry news and go through rigorous self-training. As we juggle SEM duties and find that time management is of utmost importance Google Ads reports come handy to save time.
So I thought I’d talk about a few useful or little known Google Ads reports (some of which are former AdWords dimensions today).
To start with, I’d like to highlight a handy “Billed Cost” report.
As an SEM marketer I am sure you get monthly, quarterly, and annual requests from your internal team as much as from various client team members to report on spend. There are instances where you want to report on spend, but those requests usually want to know what Google billed, not so much what Goggle served.
Recently I have discovered a predefined report that answers both the “served” and “billed” questions on the account level if the report is accessed from an MCC, or on a campaign level if the report is generated from an individual or a “child” (under an MCC) advertising account. *Note that this billed data does not match the invoice amounts we see in Google Ads, and we’ve followed up with Google to comment. So if you want what is actually billed, use the invoice or CC charge reports from Billing instead of this report for now.
See below a screengrab of how to find the report:
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The many predefined account- or MCC-level reports can be modified, segmented, filtered out, and saved. Then scheduled to email or simply run on demand.
The degree of detail that a report can be altered, filtered, and segmented is pretty advanced as long as metrics added to the report are compatible with all the level of detail.
See below an example of how a predefined report can be filtered on a few levels at the same time and saved:
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The screenshot above shows the “Paid and Organic” report – one of the least understood and least popular Paid Search reports. The “Paid and Organic” report is quite useful when clients want to see how well they rank for search keywords on both the paid search and organic levels.
In addition to tailoring the predefined reports to your needs, one can build a “custom” report in Google Ads. That’s a feature I often utilize. Click on reports and you will be presented with a few choices, including the “custom” option.
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Custom report feature could also come in handy when one cannot find a way to access a metric in Google Ads UI at all! See example below:
For instance if/when you have Search campaigns opted into Display network and you want to know where you text ads have shown on the Google Display Network placements. Currently (as of May 10, 2019), the only way to find that information is the Google Ads account is through the following custom report I’ve created in the account that runs Display. See the screenshot below:
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Notice above that you can search the left nav bar as you build your reports for the metrics that are available to put it, which show in full color. The metrics that cannot be used in a report show up faded.
Have you ever built a great report for clients or internal use? Do you have challenges using this feature? Share with the team of SEM experts at www.Four15Digital.com to tap into our collective knowledge by commenting below!
And remember to consider building a quick and handy Google Ads report, as you toggle between accounts, juggle SEM tasks and think about how you can save time by being more efficient at your job.
