Paid search performance report
also called PPC performance reportPaid efficiency reportAd spend reportCampaign performance reportPaid search optimisation
The spend index: cost, clicks, CPC, conversions and cost per conversion swept by campaign, ad group, keyword, match type and search term, with impression share broken into the part lost to budget and the part lost to rank. The rank-loss split is the actionable half, budget loss is a finance decision, rank loss is fixable ground. Negative-keyword and match-type analysis sit here because that is where the waste is found.
Who it is for, and what it settles
- Audience
- PPC manager
- Job to be done
- Show where ad spend goes, what it returns, and which auctions are losing ground to rank rather than to budget.
- Cadence
- Weekly
The metrics, in three tiers
Headline numbers carry the story. Diagnostics explain a headline that moved. Guardrails stop a wrong conclusion. Every row links to the definition, the formula, the caveats and what the metric is not all live on the metric page.
Headline What you lead with 4
Diagnostic Reached for when a headline moves 8
- Paid clicks raw measure clicks
- Paid impressions raw measure impressions
- Average cost per click monetary account currency per click
- Average cost per thousand impressions monetary account currency per thousand impressions
- Search impression share share share of available auction impressions
- Impression share lost to rank share share of available auction impressions
- Top impression share lost to rank share share of available auction impressions
- Absolute top impression share share share of available auction impressions
Required data sources
Skills that produce or interpret it
Method rungs covered
- R1 Reachable , not covered
- R2 Retrieved , not covered
- R3 Referenced , not covered
- R4 Represented , not covered
- R5 Rewarded , covered
It reads the upper rungs only. If a lower rung is broken, fix that before you present this, a report that never checks whether pages can be reached will keep reporting movement that may not be yours.
Ask for it in one sentence
The prompt pack for this report, copy one, or watch it play in the simulator.
- "Where is our ad spend going?" Simulate this → Prompt gallery →
- "What is our cost per conversion by campaign?" Simulate this → Prompt gallery →
- "Which campaigns are losing impression share to rank?" Simulate this → Prompt gallery →
- "Which search terms should we add as negatives?" Simulate this → Prompt gallery →
What to say out loud when you present it
Cost, CPC and spend metrics have a contested direction in the product, a rising CPC is not automatically bad, so state the intended reading rather than colouring the arrow. Conversions depend entirely on which conversion actions the account counts; name them. Geography on the paid feed is unreliable on some tenants and a country filter can silently return zeros, so verify a country-filtered total against the unfiltered one before reporting it.
Related workflows and use cases
Watch a run that builds this report
All runs →
3 min 4 secThe fix shipped. Traffic rose. Now two teams want the credit.Lighthouse + Search Console + Rank tracking · Significance referee · Cross domain correlator◐Recreated from an anonymized session
2 min 3 secYou are buying clicks you already own. So cut them?Google Ads + Search Console · Paid organic balance◐Recreated from an anonymized session
2 min 26 secConversion rate fell 7.5%. The number is real. The panic is not.Web analytics · Significance referee◐Recreated from an anonymized session
2 min 2 secSomething went right this quarter. Now prove it before you say it out loud.Rank tracking + Search Console · SERP feature watch · Significance referee◐Recreated from an anonymized session
How this entry was verified
Knowing the contents is step one.
Someone still has to assemble it, defend the numbers and present it. Here is the rest of the showcase.