[PPC REPORTS 2017] What to include in an average Google Adwords Monthly Report for your clients?

Hi Tobin,

While your list of what to include in AdWords monthly reports does indeed include the basic metrics, and for some clients that is good enough, however it seems that some key information is missing, in my opinion.

Clients Are Not All The Same

I have been generating reports for clients for a long time. I have found that clients are different. Some clients want to dig into detailed data reports, and go through every minutia of detail, while others just want something clear that tells them how they are doing overall. Some clients may even prefer to pay you extra to not inundate them with too many details.

Clients Like Clear Concise Summaries

I have found that clients at both ends of those extremes all really appreciate clear concise report summaries that show them instantly how they are doing. But, here's the catch... clients do not all have the same objectives and goals.

Clients Want Relevant Data

The KPIs for gauging performance towards specific goals and objectives vary from one client to the next. Those basic "metrics" often provide no clear answer to the basic question, "are we on track to meet our specific goals and objectives?" Unless your client's only goal is to reach a specific metric, the basic metrics data just serves to obscure the truth to the question "How are we doing?"

For example, if a client's goal is to grow his business by 30% over the next 9 months, the use of CPA as a primary KPI may not make sense, and may actual hinder the opportunity for growth. I'm not suggesting that you ignore CPA completely just understand the primary goal for the campaign dictates which metrics are KPI's, not a set of commonly reported metrics.

Performance Is Relative

For a client to understand whether a campaign is performing well or not, he has to know how the campaign performance relates to a given standard, or expectation. Having a specific time-bound goal, that is relevant to your client's business objective, is a minimum requirements for a clear and concise report that answers the basic question "how are my campaigns performing?"

Start With A Goal

Start building your reports with a specific goal as the standard to measure performance by and build your report around answering the question "How is our performance relative to that goal". When a client sees a report that clearly shows performance relative to his goal, he instantly knows if his marketing campaigns are on track, or not. All the other metrics are relatively unimportant details, that just serve to support the process of optimization.