Evaluating ad performance on the Search Network

After you've created your ad, and it's up and running, your next step is to find out how it's performing. Tracking statistics like clicks and impressions is a great way to start. It's also important to think about what you're trying to accomplish with your campaign, so you can focus on the statistics that can help you achieve your goals.

If you're new to tracking your performance, start by clicking Campaigns Campaigns Icon in the navigation menu of your Google Ads account. Open either Assets or Search keywords, under Audiences, keywords, and content, to review statistics tables that show you a complete, customizable view of all of your data. You can keep the reporting simple or dig deeper for more detailed insights into the success of your campaigns.

Explanations give you insights into large changes in your account’s performance with just one click. To see Explanations, hover over any metrics that are underlined and click View explanations. Availability of the feature may differ based on various criteria such as campaign type or bid strategy type. Learn more About explanations

The Report editor

The Report editor is an analytical tool that allows you to engage with your data through multi-dimensional tables and charts.

  • A simple drag-and-drop interface lets you quickly build and manipulate multi-dimensional tables and charts, reducing the need to download your data for deeper analysis.
  • Multi-segment analysis lets you slice and dice your data with finer granularity in your tables and charts.
  • Custom charts let you quickly visualize the patterns and trends in your data.
  • Advanced filtering and sorting allow you to filter on segmented metrics (like mobile clicks) and sort by multiple columns.

Find out how to explore your data with the Report editor.

Clicks, impressions, and clickthrough rate

To help you get comfortable tracking data for your ads running on the Search Network, we suggest monitoring the clicks and impressions of your ads and keywords. Find these statistics listed in columns in your account's statistics table. If you can't review them, click the Columns icon A picture of the Google Ads columns icon, choose Modify columns, and then select the columns you'd like to turn on.

You may also want to keep an eye on the following information about your ads and keywords:

Ad performance
  • State: The very left hand column of the statistics table on the Assets page displays symbols that show whether your ads, ad groups, or campaigns are running or paused.
  • Ad relevance: From the Search keywords page, add the “Ad relevance” column. You’ll find a keyword status that measures how closely your keyword relates to your ads. If it’s below average, it may mean that you could update your ad text to more closely relate to your keywords, or that you could split your ad group into multiple ad groups in which ads might more closely relate to your keywords.

For overall good ad performance, don’t spend too much time on analyzing your ads at a granular level. Instead, follow these best practices:

  • Set your ad rotation setting to Optimize
  • Have at least 3 ads in your ad groups
  • Enable at least 3 ad assets
Keyword performance
  • State: The very left hand column of the statistics table on the Assets page displays symbols that show whether your ads, ad groups, or campaigns are running or paused.
  • Keyword status: The "Status" column of the statistics table on the Search keywords page tells you whether each of your keywords is eligible to run. Hover over a keyword's status to see a summary of that keyword's status. Or, click the Keyword details drop-down button, then select Diagnose keywords to view multiple keyword statuses at once.
  • Quality Score: This column helps you monitor the Quality Scores of your keywords. The column is not visible by default in new accounts' statistics tables, but you can make it appear by clicking Search keywords in the page menu on the left, clicking the Columns icon A picture of the Google Ads columns icon, and then choosing Modify columns from the drop-down. Next, click Quality score, and then check the box next to "Quality score.".
  • Search terms: You can review the actual search terms that drove traffic to your ads on the Search terms page. Click Search terms at the top of the page, and then click Search terms in the drop-down that appears. You can use this information to identify which keywords are the most successful and to find new keywords to add to your account. If you find that irrelevant terms are triggering your ad, you can add these as negative keywords to prevent your ad from showing on these terms.
Track statistics based on your campaign goals

It's always important to keep your own campaign goals in mind when you look at your account statistics. Depending on what you want to achieve, certain statistics will be relevant and helpful to you, while others may not be as useful. Choose a goal from the list below to review more suggestions of what to track:

Track statistics for mobile ads on high-end devices

Click the Segment icon Segment and select Device to view the data in your campaign segmented by device. This allows you to compare statistics such as clicks, impressions, or conversions for desktop computers and high-end mobile devices. Segmenting your data can help you identify which campaigns, ad groups, ads, or keywords are driving the best performance for a particular type of device, especially for campaigns combining desktop computer and mobile devices.

Tip

You can learn more about how your landing pages are performing for your entire account, or specific campaigns and ad groups. To do this, open the Report editor, find Predefined reports (formerly Dimensions), and click the Basic Landing page card.

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