8 Google Ads Columns You Must Watch: Ultimate Google Ads Metrics, Stats & Custom Columns Setup Guide

Summary

The video outlines the key metrics Google Ads users should track in their accounts to monitor campaign performance, identify growth opportunities, and optimize budgets. It focuses on conversions, cost per conversion, conversion rate, return on ad spend, and impression share for both lead generation and ecommerce campaigns. Custom columns are recommended to account for conversion delays. Checking these metrics regularly allows properly configuring and scaling campaigns while maintaining profitability.

Takeaways

• 😀 The key metrics to track in Google Ads are conversions, cost per conversion, and cost to understand campaign performance and profitability.
• 👍 For lead gen campaigns, also track clicks, CTR, impression share to optimize volume.
• 📈 Use conversions by conversion time and CPA by conversion time to account for conversion delays.
• 🚨 For ecommerce, also track revenue, ROAS, and revenue over time to optimize profit.
• 🔎 Compare metrics over time to identify performance changes from optimizations.
• 🌟 Save column setups to easily review key metrics whenever you login.
• ⚙️ Increase budget slowly if limited by budget to maintain CPA and scale conversions.
• 😎 Lower CPA goal to reduce CPCs if needed for profitability with impression share room.
• 📉 Reduce bids to lower CPCs for manual CPC and max. conv. value campaigns.
• 👆 Increase CTR to enable lower CPCs and higher volumes at profitable CPAs.

Q & A

What are the key metrics to track in a lead generation Google Ads account?

The key metrics for a lead generation account are: number of conversions, cost per conversion, cost (spend), conversion rate, conversions by conversion time, and impression share metrics.

How can you improve conversion rate in Google Ads?

You can improve conversion rate by making changes to your landing pages, optimizing your ads, tightening targeting, or bidding more aggressively to increase volume while maintaining profitability.

What does it mean if a campaign is 'limited by budget'?

If a campaign is 'limited by budget', it means Google thinks it could drive more conversions at the same or slightly higher cost per conversion if you increase the daily budget.

Why track conversions by conversion time?

Tracking conversions by conversion time accounts for latency - the delay between when someone clicks on an ad and when they eventually convert. This gives a more accurate view of recent conversion activity.

What metrics are most important for ecommerce campaigns?

The most important metrics for ecommerce are: conversions, conversion value, return on ad spend, conversions by conversion time, and return on ad spend by time.

How can you calculate return on ad spend in Google Ads?

Return on ad spend is calculated by creating a custom column with the formula: Conversion value by conversion time divided by cost.

What does search impression share indicate?

Search impression share indicates the percentage of impressions your ads have received out of the total available impressions for your targeted keywords.

How do you increase volume while maintaining profitability?

Gradually increase budget by small increments, or slightly raise the target CPA goal to allow the bidding algorithm to bid more aggressively while aiming to maintain cost per conversion.

Why save column sets in Google Ads?

Saving your optimized column setups as column sets allows you to easily apply them each time you log in to consistently view the metrics you need.

What metrics indicate opportunities to improve performance?

Metrics like low impression share, being limited by budget, or beating your target cost per conversion indicate opportunities to potentially improve performance.

Outlines

00:00

😊 Key Metrics to Track in Google Ads for Lead Gen

The first paragraph explains the most important metrics to track in Google Ads for lead generation campaigns: number of conversions, cost per conversion, and total cost. It mentions conversion tracking setup and calculating cost per lead goals. Key columns to view are conversions, cost per conversion, and cost.

05:00

😉 Managing Budgets and Scaling Campaigns

The second paragraph discusses managing daily budgets in Google Ads and how to scale campaigns gradually when limited by budget. It explains when you may want to increase budget to drive more conversions at a similar cost per conversion. Guidance is provided on increasing budgets up to 20% at a time.

10:02

📈 Using Conversion Time Metrics to See Full Data

The third paragraph talks about tracking conversions over time when there is latency between clicks and conversions. It explains conversions by conversion time and cost per conversion by time custom columns to view more timely and complete conversion data.

15:02

⚙️ Configuring Key Columns in Google Ads

The fourth paragraph lists all the important columns to set up in Google Ads for tracking lead gen campaign performance: conversions, cost metrics, competitive metrics, bid strategy, etc. It provides details on saving column setups and custom columns.

20:04

🛒 Metrics for Ecommerce Campaigns

The fifth paragraph covers the metrics specific to ecommerce campaigns, like conversion value, return on ad spend, and return on ad spend over time to account for reporting latency. It explains how to set up the custom time-based ROAS column.

Keywords

💡Google Ads

Google Ads is Google's advertising platform that allows businesses to show ads on Google search results pages and other Google properties. The video focuses on how to configure Google Ads campaigns to track performance metrics like conversions, cost per conversion, etc. It provides recommendations on which columns/metrics to focus on in lead generation vs ecommerce accounts.

💡Columns

Columns refer to the metrics and data fields displayed in the Google Ads interface for monitoring campaign performance. The video advises on the key columns to have visible including conversions, cost per conversion, impression share etc. It shows how to customize columns to track useful metrics.

💡Conversions

Conversions mean the actions tracked when users click on an ad and then complete a goal like a lead form or purchase. Tracking conversions is crucial to measure campaign results. The video focuses on conversion metrics like number of conversions and cost per conversion.

💡Cost per conversion

Cost per conversion is what advertisers pay on average to acquire a conversion across a campaign. The video emphasizes tracking cost per conversion to ensure campaigns remain profitable.

💡Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of clicks on an ad that result in a conversion. Improving conversion rate can enhance campaign performance so it's an important metric.

💡Conversion value

For ecommerce advertisers, conversion value means the total revenue or sales generated from conversions. It is a key metric for assessing profitability.

💡Return on ad spend

Return on advertising spend (ROAS) measures the revenue earned per dollar of ad expenditure. The video shows how to calculate custom ROAS metrics to accurately assess ecommerce campaign profitability.

💡Impression share

Impression share metrics show what percentage of possible impressions an advertiser is capturing for their targeting options. Low impression share signals opportunity to get more volume.

💡Latency

Latency refers to the delay between when a user clicks on an ad and when the related conversion is tracked. Accounting for latency allows properly assessing conversion metrics.

💡Bid strategy

Bid strategies automate bidding to optimize campaigns towards goals like target return on ad spend or target cost per conversion. The video advises checking bid strategy for context on performance.

Highlights

The key metrics to track in Google Ads are conversions, cost per conversion, and cost

Limiting factors like search volume and budget should be monitored to identify opportunities to scale campaigns

Increasing budgets gradually (20% at a time) allows the algorithm to adjust and maintain cost per conversion

Improving conversion rate by 50% allows more spend at a profitable cost per conversion

Conversions by conversion time captures leads with longer delays between click and conversion

Low impression share suggests room to drive more conversions by adjusting bids and budgets

Ecommerce focuses on conversion value, return on ad spend (ROAS) and their latency-adjusted versions

Conversion value by conversion time captures ecommerce conversion value accurately

ROAS by time calculates return on ad spend based on real-time conversion data

These metrics determine whether campaigns succeed, fail, or have capacity to scale

Regularly checking these metrics allows proper optimization

Proper conversion tracking setup is crucial for accurate metrics

Calculating a target cost per conversion is key for profitable campaigns

Increasing bids or budget requires caution to maintain profitability

Adding custom columns provides crucial insight into real campaign performance

Transcripts

which numbers do you need to keep track

of inside your Google ads account this

is a really common question that we get

asked on account reviews on consultation

calls so today what I'm going to do is

share with you exactly which columns you

need to have open in your Google ads

campaigns so that you can see how well

your campaigns performing which

campaigns are driving conversions where

there are opportunities for expansion

and growth and where you need to start

cutting back and tightening up your

spend so that you can drive a better

costbook inversion and a more profitable

account so without further Ado let's

jump into an example Google ads account

so you can see exactly which settings

and which columns you need to configure

to keep a close eye on the performance

of your campaigns and continue to see

success from your Google

ads so the columns that you have set up

in your account will differ slightly

depending on whether you're trying to

drive leads as in conversions in your

account or you're trying to drive

e-commerce sales as in conversion value

or direct purchases through your Google

ads account so to begin with I'm going

to show you a lead generation account

and the columns that you need to

configure there but then second I'm

going to jump over to an e-commerce

account and show you the differences and

the different columns that you need to

have set up and showing each time you

log in so I'm inside a lead generation

account right now and before I go

through all of the different columns and

how to actually set them up so they're

showing each time you log into your

account let me just take a step back and

remind you of what is actually important

when it comes to lead generation so what

do we really care about when it comes

generating leads we obviously care about

leads that we're generating but what are

the components in that well number one

is obviously how many leads did we get

right how many conversions did we drive

from the spend that we output into

Google ads so that's obviously the First

Column that I'd be looking at inside of

Google ads and that is the conversions

column uh it is important to know that

you obviously need to have your

conversions set up and tracking

correctly in order for this column to be

delivering accurate information uh and

we're going to have a separate video on

how to set up your conversion tracking

for lead gener generation but number of

conversions over a certain time frame

that is a crucial metric number two is

how much did it cost me for each of

those conversions so there's another

video that we have on how to calculate

your cost per lead goal I'm going to

have it linked up in the corner right

now but once you've calculated what your

cost per conversion needs to be in order

to be profitable then you need to make

sure that you're keeping an eye on how

much conversions are costing you inside

your account so that's where this second

important column comes in and if I only

had to pick two would would be these two

uh and that is cost per conversion and

cost per conversion again is telling us

what is it costing us to drive the

actions that we're trying to from the

ads that we're spending money on now the

third column that is obviously extremely

important inside of Google ads is cost

what did we outlay in order to drive the

conversions at the cost per conversion

that we have set so this is important

for multiple reasons one is one of the

other columns here which is set up by

default which you're going to see when

you log in and you looking at the

campaign settings is budget budget is

what we're telling Google we want to

spend per day now Google has a tendency

to not spend exactly what we've asked it

to it will either underspend if the

campaign settings are too constrictive

or it will overspend if we give Google

too much room to maneuver and so we need

to be keeping a close eye on what we

actually spent over a specific time

frame so that we know whether or not

we're on track for our budget and

whether or not it makes sense to start

to scale up what we're spending each day

so again high level what are we actually

focusing on when it comes to our

campaigns we we're looking at what it's

costing us how many conversions we're

driving and what it's costing us per

conversion those are the metrics that

are really steering the ship here but

what are some of these other columns

that can inform us on what we should be

doing these campaigns to improve

performance or where there are

opportunities to expand so let's go

through the next few obviously here we

have status this again is a default

column and it's going to going to give

us a few different pieces of information

depending on the situation in the

campaign so for example if there are

disapprovals in the campaign it will

tell us that or if in this case here we

are limited by search volume that

basically means that Google has run out

of Search terms to show our ads for

within the parameters that we've set in

the campaign with the keywords that

we've set up so there aren't more

searches and if we wanted to drive more

volume we're going to have to expand our

targeting and we've also got limited by

budget now limited by budget is a

important notification to be keeping an

eye on because if we've calculated our

cost per conversion and we know what

it's going to be in order to be

profitable what we need to be hitting in

order to be making money and Google

tells us that we're limited by budget

that basically means that for roughly

the same costbook conversion Google

thinks that it can drive more of those

conversions if we're willing to increase

our daily budget so in other words we're

holding this campaign back we're

constricting it because of what we're

limiting the daily spend to and if we

are willing to increase our budget then

Google is able to drive more conversion

for us however if we do decide to go

down this route and if you click on this

if you see it in your account you can

actually see how much more we need to

spend in order to drive more conversions

and what the impact will likely be on

the cost per conversion this is a good

time to take a pause and figure out

where we want to plan to take this

campaign because if we're scaling

something up that's not profitable it's

only going to get less profitable but if

we are gradually increasing what we're

spending in this campaign and then we're

allowing the algorithm to adjust and

maintain a similar cosper conversion

then we can start to drive dramatically

more conversion volume from our campaign

so this is a really useful tool in order

to direct you in doing that and Google

tells us that we're limited by budget

that basically means that for an

incremental increase in the current cost

per conversion Google thinks it can

deliver more conversions from our spend

it just requires us to be willing to

spend more on a daily basis so if I

click on on this you can see that Google

is giving us some idea of if we increase

our daily budget how many more

conversions will drive and this is

actually very useful so even though this

is definitely a guide and by no means

will you necessarily hit these cost per

conversions as you continue to increase

budget it does give us some idea that if

we do want to get more volume and we are

hitting our cost conversion goal right

now there is the potential to drive more

conversions if we're simply willing to

increase our daily spend and if we're

willing to be patient and gradually

increase that spend over time rather

than ramping up too quickly and blowing

our cost per conversion Sky High uh so

if you are going to increase your daily

budget it's definitely important to do

it slowly but surely in increments of no

more than about 20% at a time so that

your cost per conversion is maintained

as you grow your campaign so let's

continue down these list of columns so

Impressions is obviously important we

want to see that our ads are being seen

by people and clicks is obviously

important if a campaign is getting no

clicks especially for a day or a couple

of days we know that something is

potentially wrong that we need to go in

and fix in that campaign the next two

numbers that are really important though

when it comes to determining what we can

do to improve performance are cost per

click and conversion rate so when we

were looking at the cost per conversion

before and when we're thinking about how

we calculated that cost per conversion

right based on your numbers based on the

value of a customer we work out that the

costbook conversion that we need to be

profitable let's say is $50 now if we

look at this cost per conversion here

this is made up of basically two numbers

the cost per click times the conversion

rate so if we want to improve our cost

per conversion we need to figure out how

can we improve those two metrics either

reducing the cost per click or

increasing the conversion rate so

reducing the cost per click with a

manual campaign is as simple as reducing

your bids on the keywords inside your

campaign reducing your cost per click on

a targeted bided campaign or or a

bidding algorithm based campaign such as

Target CPA that basically comes down to

reducing your cost per conversion goal

that basically is going to influence

Google's bidding algorithm to bid lower

per click to bring down that cost per

click in order to try to hit your cost

per conversion goal now the challenge

comes in when it comes to reducing Costo

click when you start to bid so low that

there isn't enough volume to actually

sustain the campaign so let's just say

all of the clicks are getting bought for

$10 or

and you're bidding $6 you might be

willing to pay $6 for a click but there

aren't any clicks going for that price

so you actually do need to bid higher in

order to continue to get volume and to

continue to get impressions and Clicks

in that campaign so if your objective is

to still maintain volume but also to

drive a profitable cost per conversion

the other metric that you then need to

start focusing on improving is your

conversion rate which is in this column

here so it is important to keep a close

eye on your conversion rate it's a good

idea to be comparing a certain time

period compared to a previous time

period so for example last month

compared to 3 months ago if I've made

some changes to my page if I've made

some changes to my campaigns what is my

conversion rate looking like and if you

can improve your conversion rate let's

say from 5% to 7 and 1 12% all of a

sudden you've improved the performance

of your campaign by 50% and that's going

to allow you to hit a profitable

costbook conversion but it's also going

to allow you to spend more and drive

more volume and be able to stay

profitable as you start to scale your

campaign

[Music]

up so next we have a few more columns

that are really useful especially when

it comes to campaigns that are driving

leads that don't take action immediately

so what do I mean by that well let's say

someone is in research mode and they

come across your site they take a look

around and then they go away they

disappear they think about things they

maybe look at some Alternatives or some

competitors then they come back and

convert a few days later what that means

is that the original click that drove

that person to your site and the actual

conversion took place on different days

potentially different weeks and that

basically means there's some going to be

some latency in the reporting of that

conversion in your standard conversions

column so that's where these two columns

conversions by conversion time and CPA

by conversion time which I'm going to

show you how to set up in a second which

is a custom column these can give you a

much clearer idea of where conversions

are actually at in that recent time

period so if I look at this account here

you can actually see that Google is even

telling us that there is some latency in

reporting because of this delay between

when someone originally clicks on an ad

and when they end up converting for this

date range this bid strategy is

projected to receive 26 more conversions

and 7,000 more in conversion value it

takes up to 13 days after impression for

most of your conversion data to be

reported so in other words there's a

couple week delay on a significant

proportion of our conversions so that's

basically why if you're looking at very

recent data uh a week two weeks even up

to a month it's sometimes better if

Google is giving you this notification

in the graph here which I've brought up

by clicking on this Arrow to bring up

your conversions by conversion time

column in fact here what we can see is

in the last 30 days or so the

conversions column is reporting 73

conversions but the conversions by

conversion time column is reporting

significantly more nearly 90 conversions

and the cost per conversion is differing

quite a bit as well so if our cow

conversion goal was $90 based on the

incorrect or incomplete data over that

recent time frame we're actually over

that cosper conversion goal So based on

that it looks like we're unprofitable

but if we take into account the latency

and the delay in the reporting of the

real conversion data that's coming

through we're actually beating our $90

cost per conversion so we can continue

going full steam ahead so how do you

create this CPA by conversion time

column well that is very easy it's

actually a just a custom setup if you

click on columns here and click on

modify columns and go down to custom

columns and here you can just do create

a custom column I've already created it

so I'll just go into it here so all you

need to do is type in cost divided by

conversions by conversion time and I've

named it CPA by conversion time and if I

hit save now and I go out of this and I

hit apply I can now see that CPA by

conversion time column which is going to

report for me upto-date cost per

conversion based on the real-time data

in the account not based on when the

original click necessarily happened so

that's going to be reporting more

conversions over a recent time frame so

the last couple columns which I have up

in my account are these three and these

give us some indication of where we're

at in terms of the volume that's

possible to hit in these individual

campaigns so what do I mean by that well

we have here search impression share

search top impression share and search

absolute top impression share so search

impression share is basically the

percentage of the time that we're

showing for the terms and the keywords

that we've told Google that we want to

hit inside this campaign search top

impression share is the percentage of

the time that we're appearing in the top

four spots uh which is basically at the

top of the Google search results and

search absolute top impression share is

the percentage of the time that we're

appearing in the number one spot for

Searchers that we're targeting in this

campaign this particular campaign if our

cper conversion is 90 which based on the

conversions by conversion time column

we're hitting

and our search impression share is only

20% that basically means that we should

probably be getting a little bit more

aggressive with this campaign to drive

more conversion volume as long as

everything else is on track it's

essentially Google telling us that there

are lots more Impressions and clicks

that are out there to be had for the

current targeting that you have set and

if we have room within our cost per

conversion goal to continue to push a

bit harder and we can sustain maybe a

slight increase in our cost per

conversion in order to get additional

volume of conversions then it can be

worth it for us to either increase our

daily budget which would be what I would

do here because this campaign is limited

by budget and therefore we could be

spending more per day with the current

cost per conversion goal or if we are

not limited by budget but we still have

a low search impression share if we are

beating our cost per conversion goal as

I've said that we are here then I would

be looking to increase the cost per

conversion goal inside our campaign so

in other words I'd be looking to go into

the bid strategy type click on this

going to the settings and basically

looking to increase our Target CPA from

115 to Let's

say5 or 130 not too much so that Google

overshoots and all of a sudden we're

super unprofitable but enough so that

we're giving Google's bidding algorithm

a bit more room to maneuver and a bit

more room to bid a bit more aggressively

so that it can continue to increase the

volume that we're getting from this

campaign because we can see that this

impression share metric is telling us

that there are more Impressions and

clicks out there for the terms that

we're trying to hit and if it's working

if these leads are good quality if we

want more of them we're going to have to

try to push into that in order to

continue to grow this account and grow

this business so to bring up all of

these columns all you need to do is to

go to the columns button here click on

modify columns and check the following

boxes so under performance we obviously

want Impressions clicks cost and average

CPC I typically will have cost First

then Impressions clicks and average TPC

after that next you want to go into the

conversions Tab and check conversions

cost per conversion conversion rate and

then also conversions by conversion time

to see those conversions that are coming

through on the date that the conversion

actually happens next underneath

competitive metrics we're going to want

to check search impression share search

top impression share and search absolute

top impression share and lastly if you

want to double check the bid strategy

that your campaign is using which is

sometimes useful for us when we're

reviewing an account you can click on

attributes and you can go into bid

strategy type to bring that up or you

can go into the campaign settings at the

campaign level and again the last metric

that I mentioned here was under custom

columns and that is CPA by conversion

time which I've created and which I

outlined how to set up before so once

you've got all of these set up in that

order you can hit apply and you can see

these columns are all here and will show

up in your account each time you log in

if you want to make sure that these

always appear you can click save your

column set and you can name this column

setup official tracking so that each

time you come in you can click on that

column set and view all of the key

metrics in your campaigns and in your

[Music]

account so if you're an e-commerce

business you're going to want very much

the same setup with a few small

adjustments so you still going to

obviously want budget status cost

Impressions clicks average CPC

conversions costbook conversion as

before and you're still going to want

conversion rate but now you're going to

want to really keep a close eye on

conversion value obviously conversion

value is purchases and this is what

needs to be configured in the revenue

tracking inside of the Google ads

conversion settings and then you're also

going to want to have conversion value

divided by cost so this is a standard

column that you can pull up and this is

basically your return on ad spend for

every dollar that you're spending on ads

how much revenue are you producing in

your campaigns this is absolutely

crucial especially when you're trying to

drive profitable Revenue when you know

your margins and you know what return

you need in order to be profitable and

then you can make sure that your

campaign is staying on track at that

return as you continue to grow the other

two columns that I would really

recommend an e-commerce business have

set up in their account are these two

here and these again come back to the

latency that I was mentioning before so

you can see in this case for example for

this date range this bid strategy is

projected to receive 32 more conversions

and 19,000 more in conversion value and

it takes up to 9 days after impression

for most of your conversion data to be

reported so again latency is very common

especially with higher value e-commerce

purchases and so for that reason you

definitely want to bring up conversion

value by conversion time and return on

ad spend by time which is a very similar

custom column let me show you how to set

that up right now so if I go again go

into columns click on modify columns and

go into conversions conversion value by

conversion time again that is revenue

that you've driven from Google ads on

the day that the purchase took place

rather than the day that the original

click happened but for the return on ad

spend by time which is basically your

return on ad spend taking into account

that latency you can click on custom

columns and then here you can see if I

click on this little pencil here row as

by time and here you just want to have

conversion value by conversion time

which you can select divided by cost and

when you set up this custom column in

this way it's going to give you

upto-date conversion value of a cost or

return on ad spend metrics so that when

you're looking at what the campaign is

driving you're reacting to the correct

data and you're not re responding to

data that's incomplete or out of date uh

because this is really upto-date return

on ad spend numbers and that's actually

what you should be responding to and

optimizing the campaign around and not

the delayed data that will come through

in a few weeks so there are a lot of

other metrics that you can look at

inside of Google ads there are metrics

around the type of con version you had

there are the networks that you've been

showing on but when it comes down to

results and that is obviously the most

important thing for for me for you for

anyone running Google ads we want to be

focusing on the metrics that are

directly affecting the results we're

getting from the campaigns how many

conversions we're getting how many sales

we're driving and what our cost per

conversion or return on ad spend is so

so long as you can have these metrics up

in your account and you're checking

these regularly if not daily these are

going to be the metrics that are are

going to basically determine whether or

not your campaigns are succeeding or

failing and whether or not you have the

capacity to start to ramp up and scale

your account definitely go into your

account right now go ahead make sure you

have all these metrics set up so you can

review them easily save them as a custom

column set and then you can come in and

check them every time you log into your

account and you can make sure that your

campaigns are on track as you continue

to optimize for results so with that

being said hope you've enjoyed the video

today let me know if you have any

questions in the comments below and

looking forward to seeing you in the

next

[Music]

one