There are seemingly an unlimited number of ways you can generate reports for your PPC campaigns. Built-in reporting, spreadsheets and scripts, Google Analytics, Looker Studio, and a plethora of 3rd party tools are all good options.
But which PPC reporting tool is right for you?
In this article I’ll look at each option and what type of users they are most suitable for. Importantly, while there are many free solutions, those often require a lot of elbow grease to set up and maintain. Therefore, you should consider that effort when evaluating your options.
Built-in PPC Reporting
Google Ads, Meta Ads, MS Ads, and most other popular PPC platforms have some form of built-in reporting. More often than not, you can view a variety of standardized reports and output those in tabular format as an Excel/Sheets compatible spreadsheet or PDF.
In the case of Google Ads, you can also build custom reports including pivot tables, schedule them, and automatically send them to users that have access to the ads account.
But there are many limitations and problems with this type of reporting.
First, if you want comprehensive reporting you will need to develop quite a few individual reports. Second, this type of reporting tends to be devoid of charting (excepting Google Ads), which can be extremely useful for visualizing trends. Third, you may have stakeholders that don’t have access to the account, which means you have to manually download reports and email or at least forward them.
Lastly, if you run campaigns on 3 or 4 different ad platforms you now have to multiply that work by 3 or 4 times. This adds up to a very time-consuming process each month, week, or on demand whenever the CEO wants to see the numbers. And of course, reports from the different platforms will all use different formatting which adds to confusion.
Best For: Individual businesses that work with 1-2 ad platforms and only require basic reports
Scripts & Spreadsheets
There are a number of scripts floating around that automatically generate reports. This mainly applies to Google Ads at the moment, although MS Ads script-based reporting should also be possible now. And of course, you can write and maintain your own reporting scripts.
These reports generally output as Google Sheets and can easily be scheduled to run automatically as needed.
The great thing about Google Sheets is that once you import the data you can create any number of charts and different reports with it. You can really go nuts with macros too. One other benefit is you can send notices to as many users as you want and they can access different tabs in the sheet to view whatever reports are relevant to them.
This PPC reporting option is pretty powerful and flexible but is really only good for Google Ads.
Of course, this requires somebody that can write and maintain Google Ads scripts and knows how to write macros in Google Sheets. And that is no mean feat. What happens when something stops working and you don’t have any reports for a week while the script gets sorted out?
Realistically you can get off-the-shelf solutions for less than the cost of development and maintenance.
Best For: Google Ads advertisers with in-house expertise to develop and maintain the scripts
Google Analytics
Google Analytics can provide some very robust reports in spreadsheet or PDF format. And, since it can track traffic and conversions from virtually any source, you can use it to report on all of your PPC platforms.
The current version of GA4 does have a learning curve, but it’s not horrible. Anybody with a few hours can learn how to generate, save, and schedule PPC reports for their business. Those reports can be in tabular or chart form or even a combination of both.
Reports can also be exported or imported between accounts so you could roll this out across multiple GA4 accounts pretty easily.
But GA4 is limited the same way built-in platform reporting is. You end up with a bunch of disparate reports that you have to review one at a time.
Still, this is an often overlooked reporting tool that should be used by more advertisers.
Best For: Small business users with multiple PPC accounts
Looker Studio
Google Looker Studio is a free data visualization tool that integrates seamlessly with a wide range of PPC platforms, Google Analytics, and many other tools. It enables marketers to create interactive and dynamic reports and dashboards using various data sources. With drag-and-drop functionality, Looker Studio simplifies the process of visualizing and sharing campaign performance data.
While extremely powerful, Looker Studio is a bit complicated to work with and setting up initial reports is time-consuming. Fortunately, there are a bunch of 3rd party templates around you can use as the basis for building your own reports.
Overall, Looker Studio is well-suited for enterprise users that use less common ad platforms and tools or need complex custom reporting.
Best For: Budget-minded enterprise advertisers and full-service agencies
Supermetrics
Probably the most popular reporting tool for agencies, Supermetrics essentially connects with everything. Pricy but virtually unlimited, Supermetrics offers all the capabilities of Looker Studio without the setup and maintenance headaches.
Importantly, Supermetrics is designed to capture data and automatically generate reports in whatever tool you want, e.g. Looker Studio, Excel, Power BI, etc. Thus the tool is ideal if you work with clients that require customized reporting solutions.
Best For: Growing agencies looking to upgrade from Looker Studio
Swydo
Swydo is a cloud-based standalone reporting tool that covers all major PPC platforms and commonly used tools. While not nearly as powerful as Looker Studio and Supermetrics, it’s perfectly suited for typical small to midsize business reporting needs.
Most importantly, set-up is easy and building templated reports for new clients can be done very quickly. The tool set includes multi-user access controls, a variety of ways to automate and share reports and dashboards, and beautiful-looking reports.
Pricing is based on the number of unique data connections making it affordable for most user types. It’s our weapon of choice at Ten Thousand Foot View. If you don’t like Sywdo’s feature set you might also want to checkout Dashthis, Whatagraph, or Reporting Ninja.
Best For: Small to medium businesses and PPC agencies that value efficiency over customization
Summary
Indeed, there are a wide variety of ways to generate PPC reports. While there is no ideal solution, some options are better than others when you look at your specific situation. On the low end you can use built-in PPC reports from Google, Meta, and other ad platforms that are free and easy to generate. Agencies, on the other hand, can save many person-hours using automated features afforded by paid solutions like Supermetrics and Sywdo. And, if you’re a large company with complex reporting needs you might turn to using scripts and sheets or customizing everything in Looker Studio.
