Most Google Ads reports are designed to be looked at, not read. Twenty-page PDFs full of pie charts. Industry benchmarks that mean nothing to your account. Tactical jargon that takes a course to interpret. Strip the noise and only five numbers matter. Read those five in 15 minutes and you'll know more than 90% of clients.
The five numbers worth looking at first
- Cost per conversion : what you pay for one lead, sale or booking. The number every other number serves.
- Conversion rate : conversions divided by clicks. Below 2% means either your traffic is wrong or your landing page is.
- Search impression share (top of page) : how often your ad shows in the top three results when someone searches. Tells you whether you're competitive at all.
- Search-term match — the bad terms : last 30 days, sorted by spend, filtered to zero conversions. Where the leak is.
- Trend over 12 weeks : not week-to-week, not year-on-year. Twelve weeks is long enough to see direction without weather.
The four numbers that are mostly vanity
Most reports lead with these. They make graphs look good and nothing else.
- Impressions : how many times Google showed your ad. Doesn't pay the rent.
- Click-through rate : useful for QA, not for decisions. A 12% CTR with no conversions is failure dressed as success.
- Quality Score : a guide, not a measure of business outcome. A 10/10 QS on a keyword nobody buys from is wasted attention.
- Average position : doesn't exist anymore. If your report still has this, it's been auto-generated from a 2018 template.
The uncomfortable question
For every number in the report, ask: "What would I do differently if this number doubled?" If the answer is "nothing", the number doesn't belong on the page. We won't include a metric in a report if it can't change a decision. That's the rule.
"Good" by industry — typical ranges
From accounts we've run in the last 18 months:
- Trades : cost per lead $35–$90 depending on metro. Conversion rate 4–9%.
- Hospitality : cost per booking $8–$25. Conversion rate 6–15%.
- Professional services : cost per lead $80–$250. Conversion rate 2–6%.
- E-commerce : ROAS 3.0–6.0. Conversion rate 1.5–4%.
If your number falls outside these ranges, that's where the next conversation starts.
The single question that drives next month's changes
"What's the one thing we'd change if we could only change one?" Force that answer onto the page. The change is then locked, measured, reported next month. One change a month, compounding, beats five untested ones every time. This is why we run paid media the way we do — small, deliberate moves the client can see.
The takeaway
Five numbers, one question, one change. Fifteen minutes a month. If your current report takes longer than that and tells you less, ask for a different shape. Most agencies will reformat on request. The ones that won't are telling you something about their work — and the answer is usually that the report is opaque on purpose.