Lessons Catalog

Lesson 5c: Reports

The AdWords Report Center can generate fully customizable reports on specific topics such as campaigns, keywords, and ad text. These reports let users identify important trends over weeks, months, or years. Most reports can also be viewed as graphs, which offer a clean look at spikes and dips in traffic, CTR, or other key elements of an account. And because each report can be customized with configurable columns and performance filters, they provide just the information you need to help you identify your strengths and build on them, and to sniff out areas of low performance and optimize these areas 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 also can have reports generated and emailed to you regularly.

• Keyword Performance: Displays details on selected keywords and organizes 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: Organizes statistics for each of your ad groups.
• Campaign Performance: Organizes 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're done. Here's how:

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 ajdust according to the type of report you have chosen.
2. Settings: In this section, you establish your report View and Date Range, and which ad groups and campaigns to include.
• 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 on the date fields underneath the pull-down menu. Clickable calendars will appear, from which you can select report beginning- and end-dates. (Note: Hourly report data is available from February 1, 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 on the campaigns and/or ad groups you want included in your report. Choose as many or as few as you want included.
3. Advanced Settings: In this optional section, you can customize columns and filters so your report includes only the data you want to see.
• Columns: Click the 'Add or Remove Columns' link to reveal check boxes for each of the available column categories for your report type. You'll 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 customize 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'll name your report, save it as a template if you want to reuse your settings, and provide an email and format for receiving your report.
• Name Your Report: Enter a title for your report. Pick a name that will be easy to recognize when you see it on a list of other reports you've created.
• Templates: Check 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, check 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, check 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 attached to the email, check the next box and select your preferred report format from the pull-down menu (.csv, .csv for Excel, .tsv, .xml, .html).

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

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

An important note: You don't have to wait at this page for your report to finish running. You can continue to browse through your account, sign off for a time, or even shut down your computer and return later. The report will continue to run and should be ready for you 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 together in one report.

If you prefer to download the report to your computer, you can do so in the same formats you can choose from 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 Markup 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 webpage. You may also open your report as a Google Spreadsheet for easy viewing and collaboration purposes.

To save your graph, click 'Export Report' and select 'Download graph.'