Requesting a monthly report from our Google Ads agency — what items should a proper report include?

Four core tables you need in your template: 1) Actual qualified leads and cost per lead, broken down by conversion action. 2) Search lost impression share (split by budget vs. rank). 3) Top 10 highest-spending keywords that generated zero enrollments. 4) Ad copy A/B test results and Quality Score changes.

Stop asking for static PDFs at the end of the month. Demand a live Looker Studio dashboard connected directly to the data. Have it pull in actual qualified leads synced with your sales CRM. As long as you can't monitor the data live on your own screen, a PDF can easily be dressed up.

At a similar training company, we had them pull up the search terms report and found that 32,000 TL of a 100,000 TL budget was wasted on queries like "free certificate" and "past exam questions." Because negative keywords were neglected, one third of the budget went straight into the trash.

The reporting won't fix anything until you bridge the disconnect between your sales team and the agency. You need to pass offline conversion data back to the agency through your CRM, flagging which monthly leads actually converted to paying customers. That's the only way the algorithm learns to go after real buyers instead of spam form submissions.

make sure they aren't counting anyone who visits the contact page as a conversion.. then a lot of agencies track form button clicks or even page scrolls instead of thank-you page loads just to inflate the conversion count.

If you're spending 140k a month and accepting "we got clicks" as an answer you're funding a charity not hiring an agency. The metric isn't clicks; it's enrollment fees landing in the academy's bank account.

Do you own the Google Ads account directly, or is it nested under their MCC? Are ad spend invoices billed directly to your credit card, or are you wiring money to the agency in lump sums?

During the meeting, make them pull up the last 30 days of search terms in an Excel sheet right then and there. Most agencies dread opening that sheet because that's where budget waste is instantly exposed.

The most overlooked point about google ads monthly report is this: Any comment made without a control group is just a guess.

That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

Following.

The discussion got scattered, let me summarize. Ranking is the result, search intent is the input. Look at intent first.

People defend habits, not processes. Resistance comes from there.

Correct in theory but it doesn't work that way in practice. Everything goes well for the first three months; problems arise in the fourth.

I'm also curious if anyone does it differently.

this thread is archived.

There's a part I don't understand. The answer varies greatly by industry; there is no one-size-fits-all rule.

Proven by experience.

This approach has a cost, which isn't discussed. When making a decision, first look at what data you have on hand.

That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

I'm in the same situation, that's why I'm asking. If it's your first time, start small; scaling comes later.

If it's your first time, start small; scaling comes later. Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

there's one point I'm curious about.. then a page that answers one question works better than one touching on five topics.

Let me write how it's done in practice. Speed is a threshold issue; if you're already fast, making it faster changes nothing.

Good luck with that.