Lessons Catalogue

Lesson 4c: Reports

The AdWords Report Centre can generate fully customisable reports on specific topics such as campaigns, keywords and ad text. These reports allow users to identify important trends over weeks, months or years. Most reports can also be viewed as graphs, which offer a clear view of spikes and dips in traffic, CTR or other key elements of an account. Because each report can be customised with configurable columns and performance filters, they provide the information required to help you identify your strengths and build on them and to sniff out areas of low performance and optimise them accordingly.

You can view your reports online or you can download them to your computer and view them with a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel. You can also have reports generated and emailed to you regularly.

• Keyword Performance: Displays details on selected keywords and organises statistics by keyword.
• Ad Performance: Presents relevant statistics for ad variations, such as text ads, image ads, video ads and local business ads.
• URL Performance: Displays statistics and measures the performance of Destination URLs.
• Ad Group Performance: Organises statistics for each of your ad groups.
• Campaign Performance: Organises statistics for each of your campaigns.
• Account Performance: Generates statistics for your entire account or for a portion of your account.
• Search Query Performance: Shows performance data for the search queries that triggered your ads which appeared after receiving clicks.
• Placement Performance: Shows statistics for ads that appeared on specific domains or URLs in the Google content network.
• Reach and Frequency Performance: Find out how many people saw your ads and how many times they saw them over a certain period of time.

Creating your report is as simple as following our four step form and then clicking 'Create Report' when you have finished. Here is how to do this:

1. Report Type: To begin creating your report, select your Report Type from radio buttons beside each report name. Your options on the remainder of the page will adjust according to the type of report that you have chosen.
2. Settings: In this section, you establish your report View and Date Range and which ad groups and campaigns are to be included.
• View: Choose 'Summary' for a high-level overview of all your selected stats or choose from among 'Hourly (by date or regardless of date)', 'Daily', 'Weekly', 'Day of week', 'Monthly', 'Quarterly' or 'Yearly' metrics for your account.
• Date Range: Use the pull-down menu and select a time period (i.e. 'Last seven days', 'Last 30 days', 'This month', etc.) for your report. For specific dates for summary, Daily or Weekly views, click the date fields underneath the pull-down menu. Calendars on which you can click will be displayed to allow you to select beginning and end dates for the reports. (Note: Hourly report data is available from 1 February 2006 onwards).
• Campaigns and Ad Groups: To include all campaigns, choose the first radio button. For individual campaigns or ad groups, choose the manual selection option and click the campaigns and/or ad groups that you want to include in your report. Choose as many or as few as you want to include.
3. Advanced Settings: In this optional section, you can customise columns and filters so that your report includes only the data that you want to see.
• Columns: Click the 'Add or Remove Columns' link to reveal checkboxes for each of the available column categories for your report type. You will find a wide range of choices, including Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Avg CPC, Cost, Avg Position, Campaign, Daily Budget, Campaign Status, Ad Group, Ad Group Status, Headline, Display URL and many others. As you add or remove columns, the visual column display is updated based on your selections.
• Filters: Click the link to 'Filter Your Results' for filter options based on your report type. Filters allow you to refine up to four data types. Use the pull-down to select and customise the relevant data types for your report. Depending on your report type, your filter options may include Ad Distribution, Status, Match Type, Site/ Keyword, Avg Position, Clicks, Cost, Avg CPC, CTR and Impressions, among others.
4. Templates, Scheduling and Email: In this section, you will name your report, save it as a template if you want to use your settings again and provide an email and format for receiving your report.
• Name Your Report: Enter a title for your report. Choose a name that will be easy to recognise when you see it on a list of other reports that you have created.
• Templates: Tick the box to 'Save this as a report template' if you want to run similar reports later.
• Scheduling: If you want to run this report on a regular basis, tick the box to schedule automatic reports and choose from the pull-down schedule menu (for delivery daily, every Monday or on the first of every month).
• Email: To receive an email when your report is ready, tick the box and then list the email address or addresses you want notified (for multiple addresses, separate each email with a comma). If you want your report to be attached to the email, tick the next box and select your preferred report format from the pull-down menu (.csv, .csv for Excel, .tsv, .xml, .html).

You have almost finished! Now, just click the 'Create Report' button and you will see a screen confirming that your report has been submitted.

At the top of the page, you will see Google's estimate of how long your report will take to generate. (Most reports take a few minutes or less.) A text box is displayed next, directing you to the Download Centre, where you can review your report when it is completed. To the right, you will see details of the report that you have just run.

An important note: You do not have to wait at this page for your report to finish running. You can continue to browse through your account, sign off for a while or even shut down your computer and return later. The report will continue to run and should be ready when you return. And if you requested an email notification and/or attached report, the report notice and attachment will be sent as soon as the report is completed.

You can view your report online in three formats: as data only, as graphs created from your data or as both data and graphs in one report.

If you prefer to download the report to your computer, you can do so in the same five formats available for emailing your report: .csv (for Excel), .csv, .tsv, .xml. and .html. .csv (comma-separated values) and .tsv (tab-separated values) files are encoded in UTF-8. These formats are recommended for users who prefer to process or review report data in text-only format. .csv (for Excel) files are encoded in UTF-16LE and are compatible with most U.S. and international versions of Microsoft Excel. Select .xml (for 'Extensible Mark-up Language') to place your statistics in a database or on a website. Select .html (for 'Hypertext Markup Language') if you want to be able to view your report as a web page. You may also open your report as a Google Spreadsheet for easy viewing and collaboration purposes.

If you click the View graphs only link, you will see two graphs aligned vertically. Each graph can show you one of six relevant metrics: Average CPC, Impressions, Average Position, CTR, Clicks and Cost. Click on any tab to view the graph for that metric. This feature is useful for comparing two different metrics over a certain period of time.

The View data and graphs link will combine the data and the graphs in one report.