How to Create Google Ads Custom Reports (+ Examples and Pro Tips)

Google Ads custom reports can filter your data based on certain criteria, so you can zoom in on the insights that matters most. Learn how to create them to guide your next campaign.

To make the most out of Google Ads and really boost your digital marketing efforts, focus on custom reports.

Google Ads’ customer reporting tool helps you understand your ad’s performance and what you can do to improve them. It creates predefined reports you can customize to track insights that matter most to your campaigns.

Standard reports in Google Ads provide a basic overview, but typically miss the important details. Using customized reports to track your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) will give you a deeper analysis of your ad campaigns’ effectiveness.

Ready to learn how? Continue reading.

What are Google Ads custom reports?

Google Ads custom reports offer an analytical view of campaign performance data. They go beyond the basic report templates in Google Ads, providing a deeper, more analytical look at how your campaigns are doing.

With these reports, you get to see exactly what’s working and what’s not, using data that’s tailored to your business goals.

These reports are like a custom-made map for your ad campaigns. They show you key details like which keywords are getting the most clicks, how your ads are doing in different regions or at different times, and much more.

But it’s not just about collecting data. With tools like HawkSEM’s ConversionIQ, you can take these insights and use them to make your good campaigns even better.

Before you spend another dollar on Google Ads, take the time to really dig into this data. It can make a huge difference in your return on ad spend (ROAS) and help cut down costs.

Google Ads custom report types

Google Ads custom reports are incredibly versatile and provide detailed insights that are tailored to your specific campaign goals.

Here are some of the types of reports you can create create using a manager account:

• Campaign Effectiveness Reports: These reports evaluate the health of your campaigns over your chosen time frame. They focus on key performance metrics to see if your ads are meeting your objectives, highlighting how well your ad groups and individual ads are doing.
• Conversion Tracking Reports: These reports are all about understanding your return on investment. They use Google Analytics to follow your customers’ journey and show you exactly how your ads are impacting sales. This information is crucial for making financial decisions and refining your bidding strategies.
• Location Performance Reports: Want to target your ads more effectively? These reports break down how your ads are doing in different regions, helping you adjust your approach for better market penetration and impact.
• Audience Insights Reports: Find out how different audience groups are interacting with your ads. These reports dive into audience data to uncover trends and behaviors, giving you the info you need to tailor your marketing strategies more effectively.
• Keyword Efficiency Reports: Identify which keywords are bringing in the best results and how cost-effective they are. This information is key for guiding your SEO and PPC strategies to ensure maximum reach and engagement.

Google Ads also categorizes reports to meet your specific analysis needs:

• Extension Reports: Evaluate how effective your call-based or feed-based Google ad extensions are, and learn how to optimize them for better performance.
• Analytics Reports: Get a comprehensive look at your ad performance, including metrics like bounce rate, session duration, and new visitor rates. These insights are crucial for conducting thorough campaign reports and audits.
• Shopping Reports: For ecommerce campaigns, these reports shed light on how your Google Shopping ads are doing. They offer detailed evaluations of product partitions and shopping performance.

Benefits of using Google Ads custom reports

Google Ads custom reports offer a range of benefits that can significantly improve your advertising strategies and boost your return on investment. Here’s why they’re so valuable:

• Real-time data adaptability: These reports let you adjust your campaign tactics swiftly, ensuring you’re always on top of current trends and data.
• Strategic budget allocation: You can use these insights to allocate your budget more precisely, ensuring every dollar is spent effectively.
• Actionable insights: Custom reports help you understand data. This means you can make informed decisions that are driven by solid, comprehensive data.
• Enhanced with ConversionIQ: When paired with Google Ads optimization software like ConversionIQ, HawkSEM’s advanced optimization software, these reports transform. They go from simply reflecting data to providing AI-driven insights that fine-tune every aspect of your campaigns, from ad creatives to landing pages, all focused on maximizing conversions.
• Long-term and varied timeframe analysis: These reports help you understand trends over various timeframes, giving you a clearer picture of how your strategies perform in different conditions.
• Integration with daily tools: You can pull this valuable data into the tools you use every day, like Excel, Google Sheets, or directly into your analytics platforms.

In practice, using custom Google Ads reports and integrating tools like ConversionIQ has led to impressive results. For example, HawkSEM used this approach to help Timbuk2 increase their average order value by 21% while reducing the cost per order by 18%.

Steps to create custom Google Ads custom reports

Creating Google Ads custom reports doesn’t require you to be a data scientist, but it requires a thoughtful approach. Here’s how to create reports in your Google Ads account:

1. Define your goals: First, decide what you want your reports to achieve. Are you looking to improve your click-through rate (CTR), lower your cost-per-click (CPC), or find the best times to run your ads? Setting clear goals will guide the rest of the process.

2. Select your metrics: Use the Google Ads API to choose metrics that align with your goals. This might include conversion rates, cost per acquisition, click-through rates, or impressions on different devices. These metrics will form the core of your report. You can find this in your Google Ad settings.

(Source: datadrivenu.com)

3. Choose your dimensions: Add dimensions to give more context to your metrics. For example, if you’re interested in geographical performance, include the ‘city’ dimension, or you can select a specific date range. If device performance matters, add ‘device type’.

(Source: MonsterInsights)

4. Customize your table: In the ‘Reports’ section of Google Ads, use the dropdown menu to create a new report. Use the report editor to drag and arrange your chosen metrics and dimensions into a table that reflects your objectives.

(Source: LinkedIn screenshot)

5. Apply filters: Use filters to focus on specific aspects of your data. If you’re concentrating on certain keywords or campaigns, filters can help you zero in on these areas for more targeted insights.

6. Choose your visualization: Pick a visual format that makes your data sources clear and engaging. This could be a bar graph for your Google Ads campaign performance or a line chart to show trends in click-through rates.

7. Schedule and share: Once your report is set up, you can schedule reports to update automatically at regular intervals or specific time periods. Share these reports with your team and stakeholders to keep everyone updated on the campaign’s progress and achievements.

How to manage your custom reports

Here are some practical steps to help you manage your custom reports effectively:

• Set up a regular review schedule: Establish a routine for reviewing your reports. This could be daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on your needs. Consistently analyzing your data ensures you stay on top of your campaign’s performance.
• Make reports accessible: Share your reports with key members of your team. Keeping everyone in the loop helps in making collaborative and informed decisions.
• Automate report updates: Use Google Ads features to automate your reporting processes. You can set reports to automatically update with the latest data and have them sent directly to your team’s inbox. This saves time and ensures everyone has the most current information. Be sure to follow Google Ads automated rules when using these features.
• Adjust reports as goals change: Your business goals and strategies will evolve over time. Make sure your custom reports reflect these changes. Regularly updating your reports to align with your current objectives is crucial for maintaining their relevance and usefulness.
• Use the data for strategy refinement: Use the insights you gain from your reports to refine your strategies, optimize your campaigns, and improve overall performance.

Metrics and visuals you should use

Use appropriate metrics and visuals in Google Ads reports to mirror your campaign goals. Key metrics, like Conversion Rate (CTR) and Cost Per Conversion (CPC), show campaign interaction and conversion efficiency.

To make your data more understandable and useful, it’s helpful to use visual tools like pie charts, line graphs, and bar charts. Here’s when and how to use each type effectively:

• Pie charts: Use pie charts when you want to show how different parts make up a whole. They are great for understanding the distribution of elements within a single category, like the share of different keywords in your ad spend. Limit the number of slices to make it easy to read. Too many slices can make the chart confusing.
• Line graphs: Line graphs are perfect for tracking changes over time. They help in visualizing trends, such as the performance of your ads across different months or weeks. Use line graphs for continuous data, and make sure to label your axes clearly for easy interpretation.
• Bar charts: Bar charts are useful for comparing quantities across different categories. For instance, you can compare the performance of various ad campaigns or the click rates of different ads. Organize the bars in a way that makes sense for your data, like arranging them from highest to lowest.

“In reporting, we value brevity and the clear connection of metrics to our overarching goals,” explains Seth Besse, CEO of Undivided.io.

“It’s crucial that the data highlights our growth trajectory, customer acquisition and retention, and resource optimization. The right metrics not only track performance but also tell a story that aligns with our strategic direction, thereby guiding our decision-making toward our company’s success.”

How to read a Google Ads custom report

Understanding Google Ads custom report data is like piecing together a story. Start by doing a broad scan to spot the big trends and developments.

This initial overview helps you see patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. For example, you might notice that your ads perform better on weekends, indicating a potential trend.

Next, dig into these trends to figure out why they’re happening and what they might mean for your business. This is where you connect the dots between what the data shows and the bigger picture of your campaign’s performance.

Using benchmarks is crucial. Compare your data against industry standards or your past performance to put your findings into perspective.

Keep an eye out for anything unusual, like a sudden spike in clicks or a drop in conversions. These anomalies could point to new opportunities or potential problems.

Using modern AI tools can turn your custom reports from simple data summaries into sources of insightful, actionable advice. They help you not just see what’s happening, but also understand why it’s happening and what you should do next.

For example, if AI highlights a decline in ad engagement, it might suggest testing new ad creatives or targeting different demographics.

“Interpreting our Google Ads data is pivotal for global campaign optimization,” says Jas Banwait Gill, Growth Manager at SwagMagic.

“We analyze traffic origins and peak times, like understanding customer flows in a global marketplace. This helps us time our marketing perfectly, maximizing exposure and driving conversions. It’s about aligning our strategy with customer behavior for optimal impact.”

Google Ads reporting best practices

To get the most out of your Google Ads custom reports, it’s important to follow some key best practices. Here are some examples for each:

• Align with objectives: Your reports should always match your main business and marketing goals. For example, if increasing website traffic is your goal, your report should focus on metrics like click-through rates and website visits.
• Segment data: Break your data into smaller segments to get more detailed insights. For example, you could segment by age groups to see which demographic interacts most with your ads, or by device type to understand if your ads perform better on mobile or desktop.
• Use filters: Apply filters to pinpoint parts of your campaigns that are doing well or need improvement. For example, filter by geographical location to see which areas are bringing in the most conversions.
• Automate when possible: Set up automation for tracking and reporting key metrics. This could be daily email reports on Google discovery ad performance metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions.
• Stay flexible: Be ready to update your reporting as your campaigns or goals change. If you launch a new product, for example, add metrics related to that product into your reports.
• Educate your team: Make sure everyone involved understands the reports. For instance, hold a training session to explain how to read and interpret the data presented.
• Actionable insights: End each report with clear, actionable steps. If a report shows a high bounce rate on a landing page, recommend A/B testing different page layouts.
• Consistent review: Set a regular schedule for reviewing your reports and making necessary changes. This could be a weekly meeting to go over report findings and discuss strategy adjustments.

Examples of Google Ads custom reports

Custom reports in Google Ads can take many shapes, each serving a unique purpose and driving specific insights for campaign optimization. Here are some common examples of custom reports:

• Performance trend report: Tracks key performance indicators over time. For example, it can show how changes in ad copy or bid adjustments affect campaign performance, allowing marketers to understand long-term trends and make data-driven decisions.
• Audience insights report: Provides a detailed view of how various audience segments interact with ads. Useful information for crafting targeted messaging and determining bid strategies that resonate with each segment.
• Geographic heat map: Shows a visual representation of ad performance across different locations. Informs strategic decisions about where to increase ad spend or focus on market penetration efforts.
• Keyword efficiency report: Identifies which keywords deliver the highest number of conversions for the lowest cost. Insights from this report guides budget allocation and keyword strategy to enhance campaign ROI.

These are just a few illustrations of custom reports that support data-driven decision-making. Customize each report to the campaign’s goals to ensure relevant and actionable insights.

The takeaway

Mastering custom reports in Google Ads is key to making the most of your ad spend. These reports are already quite useful, but when you combine them with ConversionIQ’s advanced analytics, you’ll see even better results.

This integration helps uncover patterns and opportunities that you might miss otherwise.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the data Google Ads offers, don’t worry. Reach out to HawkSEM for a consultation.

Our Google Ads consultants will show you how to get the best out of Google Ads custom reporting and our ConversionIQ integration.

The goal here isn’t just to collect data — it’s to work with the right partner who can help you use that data to grow your business effectively.