A good monthly Google Ads report ties spend to real business results. It should show cost, qualified leads or sales, cost per lead or ROAS, month-over-month and year-over-year changes, impression share lost to budget and rank, search terms you paid for, what changed in the account, and a short plan for next month.
- Judge the report on cost per qualified lead or ROAS, not clicks, impressions or CTR.
- Ask which conversion actions are counted. A page view or button click is not a lead.
- Every report should list the changes made and the plan for next month. Google Ads change history keeps two years of edits, so you can check.
- You should own the account with Admin access. The agency should be a user, not the owner.
What should a monthly Google Ads report include?
A monthly report has one job. It should tell you, in plain words, what your ad money bought and what happens next. If you finish reading it and still cannot say how many real leads you got and what each one cost, the report failed.
Most weak reports are exports. They copy numbers out of Google Ads into a nicer template and stop there. A useful report adds three things an export cannot: context, honesty about what went wrong, and decisions.
Here are the sections to ask for. Keep it to a few pages. Length is not effort.
| Section | What it answers | Must include |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Executive summary | Did we hit the goal this month? | 3 to 5 sentences, the main number vs target, one win, one problem |
| 2. Business results | What did the spend buy? | Spend, qualified leads or sales, cost per lead or ROAS, vs last month and last year |
| 3. Campaign breakdown | Where is money working or wasted? | Each campaign with spend, conversions, cost per conversion |
| 4. Visibility | Are we missing searches we want? | Search impression share, lost IS (budget), lost IS (rank) |
| 5. Search terms | What did people actually type? | Top converting terms, wasted terms, negatives added |
| 6. Changes made | What did the agency do? | Dated list of tests, bid or budget changes, new ads, pauses |
| 7. Next month | What happens now? | 2 to 5 specific actions with the reason for each |
Which Google Ads metrics actually matter?
Google Ads shows dozens of columns. Only a few connect to money. Put those first and treat the rest as diagnostics that explain the main numbers.
| Metric | Type | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per qualified lead (or CPA) | Business result | How many of these leads did we actually quote or book? |
| ROAS or revenue | Business result | Is this revenue from Google Ads or from all channels? |
| Conversions | Business result | Which conversion actions are counted here? |
| Conversion rate | Diagnostic | Did it move because of the ads or the landing page? |
| Cost per click | Diagnostic | Are we paying more for the same searches, or buying different ones? |
| CTR | Diagnostic | Is a higher CTR bringing better leads or just more clicks? |
| Impressions, clicks | Volume | Useful for context only. Never a goal on their own. |
Costs have been climbing, which is why the business-result rows matter more each year. A rising cost per click is not automatically bad if lead quality and close rate rise with it.
Benchmarks like this are a sanity check, not a target. A roofing lead and a pizza order do not cost the same. Compare your numbers with your own history first, then with your industry.
Are the conversions in my report real leads?
This is the question most business owners never ask, and it is the one that matters most. In Google Ads, a conversion is whatever the account is told to count. That can be a form submission, a phone call over 60 seconds, a purchase, or something weak like a visit to the contact page.
Google separates primary and secondary conversion actions. Primary actions appear in the Conversions column and are used for bidding. Secondary actions only show in All conversions. If an agency reports All conversions as leads, the number can look far better than reality.
- Ask for a list of every conversion action, and whether each one is primary or secondary.
- Ask how phone calls are counted, and the minimum call length.
- Ask whether form spam is filtered out.
- Ask whether leads are matched back to your CRM so the report can show qualified leads, not just form fills.
What does a sample Google Ads monthly report look like?
Below is the core results table for a hypothetical local home services business. The numbers are made up to show the format. Notice that every row has a comparison and the last column says what the number means.
| Metric | This month | Last month | Same month last year | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spend | $4,800 | $4,500 | $4,200 | Budget raised on the best campaign |
| Leads (form + calls 60s+) | 72 | 70 | 58 | Calls up, forms flat |
| Qualified leads (from CRM) | 51 | 46 | 39 | Fewer spam forms after filter |
| Cost per qualified lead | $94 | $98 | $108 | Best result in 12 months |
| Search impression share | 48% | 45% | n/a | Still losing 30% to budget |
| Booked jobs (from CRM) | 19 | 17 | 14 | Close rate tracked by sales team |
A report like this lets you make a decision in two minutes. You can see that the cost per qualified lead fell, that budget is still the main limit, and whether raising spend makes sense.
How do I read impression share in a Google Ads report?
Search impression share is the percentage of eligible impressions your ads actually received. The two numbers next to it explain the gap, and they point to very different fixes.
- Search lost IS (budget): the share of time your ads did not show because the budget ran out. The fix is more budget, or narrowing to the campaigns and hours that convert.
- Search lost IS (rank): the share of time your ads did not show because of low Ad Rank. The fix is better ads, landing pages and keywords, or higher bids.
Google reports budget-lost impression share at the campaign level only, so ask for it per campaign. If a campaign with a strong cost per lead is losing a lot to budget, that is usually the easiest growth decision you will make all month.
What should the search terms section show?
Keywords are what the agency bids on. Search terms are what people actually typed. With broad match and automation, the two can be far apart, and this is where small budgets leak.
Ask for three short lists every month: the search terms that produced leads, the terms that spent money with no result, and the negative keywords added. A plumber in Dallas does not want to pay for "plumber salary" or "plumbing school near me". If the report never shows wasted terms, ask why.
What are the red flags in a Google Ads agency report?
- The headline numbers are impressions, clicks and CTR, with leads buried or missing.
- Conversions are reported with no definition of what counts.
- There is no comparison to last month or last year.
- The same template arrives every month with only the numbers changed.
- No changes are listed, or the changes are vague, like "optimized bids".
- Bad months are explained only by "seasonality" or "the algorithm".
- You get a PDF but no access to the Google Ads account itself.
- Spend in the report does not match what Google charged you.
One of these is a conversation. Three or more is a pattern. You can check the changes yourself, because Google Ads keeps a log of every edit.
Do I own my Google Ads account if an agency manages it?
You should. The account should be created under your business, billed to your card, with your own login as Admin. The agency then gets access through its manager account. If you part ways, you remove them and keep years of data, conversion history and learnings.
| Access level | What it can do | Who should have it |
|---|---|---|
| Admin | Everything, including adding and removing users | You, the business owner |
| Standard | Edit campaigns, but not manage user access | Your agency, usually |
| Read only | View campaigns and planning tools | Partners, bookkeeper, a second opinion |
| Billing | View and edit billing, make payments | Your finance person |
| Email only | Receive notification emails and reports | Anyone who just needs updates |
Google’s own policy for third-party partners says agencies should be honest and transparent about their services, associated costs and expected results, and provide relevant information when customers ask. Asking for direct access is reasonable.
How do I review my agency’s report in 15 minutes?
- 1Read the summary. Can you say in one sentence whether the month was good?
- 2Check spend against your Google invoice.
- 3Find cost per qualified lead or ROAS and compare it with last month and last year.
- 4Compare reported leads with the leads in your inbox or CRM.
- 5Look at impression share lost to budget on your best campaign.
- 6Scan the wasted search terms and negatives added.
- 7Read the changes made, then spot-check one in change history.
- 8Read next month’s plan. Each action should have a reason you understand.
How often should a Google Ads agency report?
Monthly is the standard for a full report, followed by a short call. Weekly reports usually create noise, because a few days of data swing too much for good decisions. A quick weekly note on spend pacing and any problems is fine, and a live dashboard you can open anytime is better still.
For seasonal businesses, ask for a deeper quarterly review that looks at trends, tests and budget for the next season. That is where strategy happens. The monthly report is where you check the work.
When clicks cost more every year, a report that only celebrates traffic is worse than useless. Demand the numbers that connect to your bank account, and an agency that explains them in plain English.
Frequently asked questions
Lead with spend, qualified leads or sales, cost per lead or ROAS, and conversion rate, each compared with last month and last year. Add impression share lost to budget and rank, then clicks, CPC and CTR as diagnostics.
Only if it brings more qualified leads. A high CTR with a falling conversion rate often means the ads attract the wrong clicks. Judge CTR alongside cost per qualified lead.
Conversions includes only primary conversion actions, which are used for bidding. All conversions adds secondary actions and other sources. Ask your agency which column the report uses.
Yes. The account should belong to your business with you as Admin. The agency works through its own login or manager account, and you can remove it at any time.
Usually a few pages or one dashboard view. It needs a summary, business results, a campaign breakdown, search terms, changes made and next steps. Long reports full of charts are often hiding the lack of decisions.
