Gumpo white logo
  • +44(0)1625 453 009

Article:

How Should I Report On My Google Ads Campaigns?

Google Ads are a great way to make money for your business. They can bring in leads, customers and interest in your business like no other form of advertising. However, they can also be a great way to spend money. Google Advertising can rack up bills quickly. If you aren’t making money in return, it becomes difficult to tell whether it is all worth it. Tracking and reporting are essential to being able to make good decisions and sound judgements on whether your ad spend is being used effectively, or whether it is being wasted.

So, how should you set up your reports on your Google Ads campaigns, and how can you tell if you are tracking and reporting correctly?

What metrics can I judge success by?

Judging whether a Google Ads campaign is successful or not depends on what you wanted to get out of it. Not all Google Ads are aimed directly at sales, so to judge them all by the number of leads that they produce would be meaningless.

It is worth spelling out which metrics you are able to gather for your Google Ads performance reports, along with a short explanation of what it is they represent.

CPC – Cost per Click

Google Ads often work on a basis of charging you for each time someone clicks on one of your ads. If your aim is to drive people to your website, this is an important metric to measure.

CPM – Cost per Thousand Impressions

Google Ads can help with brand awareness. CPM shows you how often your ad has been shown to 1,000 people. If your aim is to get your brand out there, and have your ad seen by people, this can be one of the most effective metrics to measure.

CPA – Cost Per Acquisition

This metric refers to the average amount that you’ve been charged for a conversion from your ad. If your aim is for your ad to lead to specific actions (sign ups, sales, app downloads etc), then you might consider targeting CPA.

CTR – Click Through Rate

Click Through Rate determines how impactful your ads are. If people see your ads, but don’t bother to click on them, it may well be because they are not well designed or eye catching enough. Click Through Rate indicate the number of clicks on an ad, divided by the number of impressions.

KPI – Key Performance Indicator

A Key Performance Indicator is not a metric that Google produces. Rather, it’s a metric that a company decides is the most relevant to its success. This can be any type of metric, and depends entirely on what the aims of your ads campaign are.

Which metrics really matter?

The most important metrics to consider vary from campaign to campaign. However, some metrics are more generally useful to keep an eye on than others.

One of the most universally useful metrics is Cost per Acquisition. This is a clear marker of the amount of money you have spent in order to acquire a customer. Cost per Acquisition shows how profitable your ads are – if it costs £10 a lead, but customers only spend £8 for your products, then you are spending too much.

Lifetime Value is another metric that is key to understanding your success or otherwise on Google Ads. This is the total amount that a customer spends with your business after they have interacted with one of your ads.

ROAS – Return on Ad Spend

For many businesses, all that really counts is how much you get back from your ad campaigns.  This is measured with ‘ROAS’, or Return on Ad Spend. ROAS is expressed as a ratio – it shows how much you are spending in exchange for how much money you are making. This might be 10:1 – £10 made back for every £1 you have spent. To calculate ROAS, you divide your revenue by the amount of money you have spent on the ad or marketing campaign.

ROI – Return on Investment

Return on investment is a slightly different understanding of how you are spending and making money. It is calculated as a percentage rather than a ratio. It calculates the profits generated by ads in relation to their cost. This metric is calculated via dividing net profit by net spend, and calculating the result as a percentage (x100).

Which metrics aren’t as important?

Am I tracking correctly?

Even if you have decided on the perfect metrics to make the most of your ad spend, they are useless if you are not tracking correctly. If your data is incorrect, you cannot make decisions on how to spend your money that you can trust.

One of the most common errors in conversion tracking is to track the wrong thing. While purchases might seem the most obvious thing to track, they are not always the point of a Google Ads campaign. Instead, you need to look at the customer journey, and determine where you actually need visitors to get to. It might be likely that just visiting your site is enough to count as a conversion – especially if the visitor then returns later on to make a purchase.

You might also have trouble with the data you are receiving. If you have anecdotally received lots of interest, but your tracking data doesn’t seem to show this, you need to check what you are including as a conversion in your Google Ads campaign data. It is possible that your conversions are not setup to be specific enough, or they are set far too specifically, and cannot accurately judge the amount of conversions that you need.

Reporting on Google Ads campaigns can be complicated. If you aren’t experienced in choosing the right metrics and KPIs to follow, it can seem an overwhelming barrage of data. That’s where Gumpo can help. We are experts in setting up, monitoring, managing and reporting on Google Ads campaigns. Learn more about using Gumpo for Google Ads here.

PrevPreviousHow Do Emails Help With Customer Retention?
NextHow Much Does Speed Matter In Building A Website?Next
Want to find out more?

Find out how we run Google Ads campaigns

Learn More
Contact Us

More articles from the blog...

selective focus of human and robot hands typing on laptop at workplace

What’s Going on With Search? An (AI) Overview

  • June 11, 2025
  • Erin
Read Article
Eurovision

What Eurovision Teaches us About Branding in a Crowded Market

  • May 14, 2025
  • Holly
Read Article
serp blog

What are SERP Features?

  • February 17, 2025
  • Stevie
Read Article
google care content

Google Doesn’t Care About Your Content

  • February 17, 2025
  • Erin
Read Article
Programmer analyzing complex AI brain models on laptop, running simulations

DeepSeek Takes Over AI Landscape

  • January 28, 2025
  • Gumpo
Read Article
Marketing Ecosystem

Goodbye funnel, hello ecosystem

  • November 21, 2024
  • Stevie
Read Article
Analyzing marketing tools

How to Avoid Boring Content for B2B Businesses

  • September 9, 2024
  • Gumpo
Read Article
Wooden block with money banknote and piggy bank, Interest rate increases, Profit from deposit money, Successful business investment, Money savings for future, Interest rate and mortgage rates

What is the most effective way to spend your marketing budget?

  • August 15, 2024
  • Gumpo
Read Article
ppc changes blog post

Top 4 changes in the world of PPC to adopt in 2024

  • June 19, 2024
  • Gumpo
Read Article
All blog articles

The best way to start marketing your business is to talk to us first.

You can reach us in the following ways

1

live chat

Talk to us directly in a chat window Available Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm

Chat with an advisor
2

call us

01625 453 009
Available Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm
Click to call
3

message us

Get in touch and let us know what you would like to achieve

Send message
Gumpo white logo
  • +44 (0)1625 453 009
  • [email protected]
Facebook-square Instagram Linkedin Twitter

GUMPO HOUSE
28 King Edward ST.
Macclesfield
SK10 1GH

  • Our Work
  • Articles
  • Privacy Policy
  • About
  • Contact
  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Statement
  • Our Work
  • Articles
  • Privacy Policy
  • About
  • Contact
  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Statement
  • Amazon
  • Content
  • Email
  • PPC
  • SEO
  • Social
  • Amazon
  • Content
  • Email
  • PPC
  • SEO
  • Social
  • Web Design
  • Web Development
  • Branding
  • Web Design
  • Web Development
  • Branding
Gumpo
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}
  • Work.
  • Services.
  • Work.
  • Services.
  • – Digital Marketing
  • – Digital Marketing
  • Amazon
  • Content
  • Email
  • PPC
  • SEO
  • Social
  • Amazon
  • Content
  • Email
  • PPC
  • SEO
  • Social
  • – Creative
  • – Creative
  • Web Design
  • Web Development
  • Branding
  • Web Design
  • Web Development
  • Branding
  • About.
  • Articles.
  • Contact.
  • About.
  • Articles.
  • Contact.
Facebook-square Instagram Linkedin Twitter

+44 (0)1625 453 009

[email protected]