Most PPC reports contain too many numbers and not enough insight. A dashboard full of impressions, clicks and CTR looks busy, but none of those numbers answer the question that matters: is this advertising generating profit? The metrics worth reporting are the ones that connect ad spend to business outcomes. Everything else is context at best, distraction at worst.
At Gorilla Marketing, we build PPC reports around the metrics that drive decisions, not the ones that fill slides. Our reporting for Google Ads and paid social campaigns focuses on what the data means for the business, not just what the platform recorded. This guide covers which metrics deserve space in your reports and which ones you can safely deprioritise.
The Metrics That Drive Decisions
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
CPA is the most important single metric for most PPC campaigns. It answers a simple question: how much did it cost to acquire each customer or lead?
CPA = Total Ad Spend / Number of Conversions
If your CPA is below your target threshold (based on customer lifetime value or average order value), the campaign is working. If it’s above, something needs fixing. CPA cuts through the noise of impressions, clicks and CTR to measure the thing that actually matters: cost of results.
When CPA misleads: CPA treats all conversions equally. A £15 lead and a £15,000 lead both count as one conversion. For businesses with variable deal sizes, ROAS or cost per qualified opportunity is more meaningful.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
ROAS measures revenue generated per pound of ad spend.
ROAS = Revenue from Ads / Ad Spend
A ROAS of 4:1 means every £1 spent generates £4 in revenue. It’s the metric that matters most for e-commerce and any business tracking revenue directly from advertising. ROAS accounts for deal size in a way CPA doesn’t.
When ROAS misleads: ROAS measures revenue, not profit. A 400% ROAS sounds strong, but if your margins are 20%, you’re only making 80p profit per £1 spent. Factor in product costs, fulfilment and overhead before celebrating high ROAS numbers.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate measures the percentage of clicks that result in a desired action.
Conversion Rate = Conversions / Clicks × 100
It’s the metric that tells you whether your landing pages and offers are working. A campaign with a high CTR but low conversion rate is attracting clicks but not converting them, which usually points to a landing page or offer problem.
Industry benchmarks vary significantly. Search campaigns for high-intent keywords might convert at 5-10%. Display campaigns might convert at 0.5-1%. Compare your rates to your own historical data and industry benchmarks, not arbitrary standards.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
CPC is the price you pay for each click. It’s useful for budget forecasting and competitive analysis, but it’s a means metric, not an outcome metric.
Low CPC isn’t automatically good. A £0.50 CPC that produces zero conversions is worth less than a £5 CPC that converts at 10%. Report CPC for context, but never optimise for it in isolation.
Where CPC matters most: Brand campaigns (where you want to monitor competitive pressure) and budget planning (estimating reach for a given budget).
The Metrics That Add Context
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR measures how often people click your ad after seeing it.
CTR = Clicks / Impressions × 100
It’s a useful indicator of ad relevance and copy quality, and it factors into Quality Score. But CTR alone says nothing about whether those clicks converted. A high CTR with a low conversion rate means your ads are attracting the wrong people or your landing page isn’t delivering.
Report CTR as a diagnostic, not a performance measure.
Impression Share
Impression share tells you the percentage of eligible impressions your ads actually received. It breaks down into two components:
Lost to budget: You’re not spending enough to capture all available impressions.
Lost to rank: Your ad rank (bid × quality) isn’t high enough to compete.
This metric is valuable for understanding headroom. If a profitable campaign has 60% impression share, there’s 40% more opportunity available. If impression share is limited by budget, you know exactly where to invest more.
Quality Score
Quality Score (1-10) measures keyword, ad and landing page relevance. While it’s not directly used in the auction, the factors it measures are. Keywords with Quality Scores below 5 pay a CPC premium; those above 7 typically receive a discount.
Include Quality Score distribution (how many keywords sit at each level) in periodic reports to track account health over time.
Average Position / Top of Page Rate
Since Google removed average position, top of page rate and absolute top of page rate have replaced it. These show how often your ads appear at the top of search results.
Useful for competitive monitoring. Less useful for performance evaluation, since top position doesn’t guarantee best CPA.
Metrics for Different Campaign Types
E-commerce Campaigns
Focus on: ROAS, revenue, CPA, average order value, conversion rate by product category. Report at the campaign and product level. Track ROAS trends weekly.
Lead Generation Campaigns
Focus on: cost per lead, cost per qualified lead, lead-to-close rate, cost per acquisition. The gap between cost per lead and cost per qualified lead is where most reporting falls short. A cheap lead that never closes isn’t cheap.
If possible, integrate CRM data to report on downstream metrics: MQL-to-SQL rate, pipeline value generated, revenue closed from PPC leads. This is where analytics and tracking integration becomes valuable.
Brand Awareness Campaigns
Focus on: reach, frequency, impression share, CPM, view-through conversions. These campaigns aren’t optimised for direct response, so judging them on CPA is the wrong frame.
Performance Max Campaigns
PMax reporting requires a different approach because Google controls placements across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail and Maps. Standard campaign metrics apply, but dig into asset group performance to understand which creative combinations work.
Key PMax metrics: asset performance ratings (best, good, low), search term insights from the Insights tab, new versus returning customer split if configured, and network breakdown. Watch whether PMax cannibalises brand campaigns. If most PMax conversions come from branded searches, the campaign may be claiming credit for traffic that would have arrived anyway.
Attribution Windows and Reporting Accuracy
Google Ads defaults to 30-day click attribution and 1-day view-through. These work for impulse purchases but underreport for B2B or high-consideration products.
For lead generation with long sales cycles, extend the click window to 60 or 90 days. Otherwise conversions in week five get attributed to organic or direct instead of the ad that started the journey.
Consent Mode and enhanced conversions add modelled data that may inflate reported conversions by 15 to 20% compared to actual observed events. Cross-reference with CRM or backend data regularly to calibrate.
Building a Report That Drives Action
A good PPC report answers three questions:
Is this working? (CPA/ROAS vs. target)
Why? (Conversion rate, CTR, Quality Score, search terms)
What should we do next? (Budget reallocation, campaign changes, tests to run)
Structure recommendation:
Executive summary: 2-3 sentences. Performance vs. target. The single most important insight.
KPI dashboard: CPA, ROAS (or relevant primary metric), conversions, spend. Month-over-month and year-over-year comparison.
Campaign breakdown: Performance by campaign with the primary metric highlighted. Flag underperformers and outperformers.
Insights and actions: What changed, why it changed, what you recommend doing about it. This is the section that separates useful reports from data dumps.
Reporting frequency:
Weekly: Quick performance check. KPIs only. Flag anomalies.
Monthly: Full report with insights, campaign breakdowns and recommendations.
Quarterly: Strategic review. Trend analysis, competitive context, budget recommendations for the next quarter.
Metrics to Stop Reporting
Some metrics add noise without insight:
Impressions (alone). Without context, raw impression count means nothing. A million impressions with zero conversions isn’t success.
Clicks (alone). Clicks cost money. If they don’t convert, they’re a cost centre, not a success metric.
CTR (as a headline metric). CTR is diagnostic context, not a business outcome.
CPC (as a success metric). Low CPC feels good but means nothing if conversions don’t follow.
These metrics belong in appendices or diagnostic sections, not in the executive summary.
Connecting PPC Metrics to Business Outcomes
The strongest PPC reporting goes beyond platform metrics and connects to revenue. That means integrating Google Ads data with CRM data, sales data, or e-commerce transaction data to answer: how much revenue did PPC actually generate, and at what margin?
This integration isn’t always straightforward, but it’s the difference between reporting that says “we spent £10,000 and got 200 leads” and reporting that says “we spent £10,000 and generated £85,000 in pipeline, of which £35,000 has closed.”
If your reporting currently stops at platform-level metrics, building that pipeline connection is the single most valuable improvement you can make. Gorilla Marketing builds this kind of integrated reporting through our analytics and tracking work alongside PPC management. Get in touch to discuss your reporting.
