What Should a Google Ads Agency Report Include?

1 Executive summary: what happened and what it means

The first page should answer one question: was this a good month for your business? Not "was activity high" — was the spend productive. Three sentences max. Written in English, not marketing jargon.

Example of good: "Revenue from Google Ads was up 18% month-on-month on 5% more spend. Conversion rate improved after we paused the underperforming Display campaign. Next month we're expanding into YouTube for awareness."

Red flag: the report opens with a wall of metrics and no interpretation. If the first thing you see is a dashboard, the agency is telling you "figure it out yourself."

2 Core metrics with month-on-month context

Every key metric should have three things: the current value, the previous period, and the percentage change. A number in isolation is almost useless.

Essentials:

• Spend (vs budget)
• Impressions, clicks, CTR
• Conversions and conversion value
• Cost per conversion (CPA)
• ROAS — if you're an ecommerce or revenue-driven business
• Quality Score distribution

Red flag: impressions and clicks leading with big numbers, but conversions buried or missing. Impressions are the easiest metric to inflate. Focus on what drives revenue.

3 Campaign-level performance breakdown

Top-line numbers hide everything. A good report breaks performance out by campaign (or campaign type), so you can see whether Search, Shopping, and Performance Max are all pulling their weight — or whether one is subsidising the others.

Look for a table with: campaign name, spend, conversions, CPA or ROAS, month-on-month change, and a one-line comment explaining any notable shifts.

Red flag: only account-level totals, no campaign breakdown. If you can't see which campaigns are winning and losing, you can't hold anyone accountable for reallocating budget.

4 What was done this month (with change history proof)

This is the section most agencies skip — because this is where laziness shows up. A real report lists specific actions taken in the account, ideally with links or screenshots from the change history.

What good looks like:

• "Added 42 negative keywords across search campaigns based on search term review"
• "Launched 3 new RSA variants in the Brand + Services campaign to test a stronger USP"
• "Increased budget for the Men's Rings ad group by 30% after CPA dropped below target"

Red flag: vague language like "optimised campaigns" or "refined targeting" with no specifics. If they can't name what they did, they probably didn't do much. (Cross-reference against the Google Ads change history — or run our free audit to count human-made changes automatically.)

5 Search terms insights and negatives added

A weekly search term review is table stakes for competent management. The report should show: top search terms that drove conversions, wasted-spend search terms caught this month, and the negatives added as a result.

This proves the agency is actually in the account every week, not just reporting on it monthly.

Red flag: no mention of search terms. Or a rolling count of "negatives added" with no examples. Either means nobody is watching the actual queries triggering your ads.

6 Auto-apply and automation disclosure

If Google's auto-apply recommendations are turned on, that should be documented. A transparent report explicitly separates "changes made by agency" from "changes made by Google's auto-apply."

This is increasingly important because auto-apply settings can inflate the "activity" in your account without any human involvement.

Red flag: big "changes made" numbers with no breakdown of automated vs manual. Lazy agencies happily take credit for Google's automated work.

7 Tests running and learnings captured

A good agency is always testing something: ad copy variants, bidding strategies, landing pages, audience signals. The report should document the tests currently in flight, how long they've been running, and the early signal.

Even better: a running log of past tests with what was learned. That compounding intelligence is what you're paying for.

Red flag: no tests running. Or the same two "experiments" appearing for six months with no resolution. Real testing has beginnings, middles, and endings.

8 Issues caught and fixed

Things go wrong in Google Ads accounts constantly: conversion tags break, budgets get capped, Google auto-applies an unwelcome change, tracking drifts. A proactive agency catches these early and documents the fix.

Look for a "flags and fixes" section — even a short one. Examples: "conversion tag on checkout page stopped firing Mar 12, re-installed same day", "PMax attempted to expand into non-UK markets, excluded those geographies".

Red flag: nothing ever goes wrong in any report. Either the agency is hiding problems, or they're not looking closely enough to catch them.

9 Next month's plan and priorities

A report isn't just backward-looking. It should end with a clear plan for the next 30 days: what the agency is going to test, expand, pause, or fix — and what they need from you to do it.

Example: "Next month we're (1) launching a dedicated campaign for the new autumn collection, (2) testing tROAS on the Brand campaign, and (3) need creative assets for a YouTube test by the 15th."

Red flag: "we'll continue to optimise the account." That's not a plan. That's a placeholder.