Google Ads Data Studio report your PPC team and your boss can both read

What should a Google Ads Data Studio report include?

Start with the four numbers a budget holder asks about: cost, conversions, cost per conversion and conversion value or ROAS, each compared with the previous period. Below that, a daily or weekly trend, then a campaign table with impression share and click-through rate for the PPC team.

I usually add three more pages. A search terms page for the analyst who manages negatives. A device and geography page. And a budget pacing page that compares month-to-date spend with the monthly budget, driven by a parameter so the budget can be changed without editing the report.

• Overview: cost, conversions, CPA and ROAS with period comparison.
• Campaigns: type, status, impression share, CTR and CPC.
• Search terms and keywords: match type, quality signals and wasted spend.
• Pacing: month-to-date spend against a budget parameter.
• Channels: Google Ads beside Meta and LinkedIn on shared definitions.

How do I report on multiple Google Ads accounts in one dashboard?

Connect the manager (MCC) account and add the account name as a dimension. One data source then covers every client account under that manager, and an account filter control lets each viewer narrow the report to the account they own.

For agencies or businesses with many brands, I pair this with a mapping sheet that assigns each account to a brand, region or owner. A blend on account ID brings those labels into the report, so you can filter by region instead of scrolling through account names. If different viewers should see only their own accounts, the cleaner route is separate reports or row-level filtering built in BigQuery, because sharing in Data Studio works at the report level.

Can a PPC dashboard in Data Studio include Meta and LinkedIn ads?

Yes, through partner connectors. Data Studio has native connectors for Google Ads, GA4, Campaign Manager 360 and Display & Video 360, but Meta and LinkedIn need a partner connector such as Supermetrics, Windsor.ai, Porter Metrics, Funnel, Power My Analytics or Catchr. Their plans and prices change, so I work with whichever one you already use or help you compare current options.

The harder part is definitions. Each platform counts conversions in its own way, with its own attribution window. I build a channel-level page that uses spend from each platform and leads or revenue from GA4 or your CRM, so the comparison is fair. Platform-reported conversions stay on their own pages, clearly labeled.

When the channel count grows, blends become the bottleneck, because a blend joins at most five sources. At that point I append the platforms into one table in Google Sheets or BigQuery and point the dashboard at that.

What are the limits of a Google Ads Data Studio report?

The Google Ads connector is a fixed-schema source, so a table can hold up to 10 dimensions and 20 metrics. Most PPC tables fit, but wide exports with every attribute will not, and they also load slowly.

Performance Max campaigns expose less detail than Search campaigns, so asset-level and placement-level reporting is limited. I report Performance Max at campaign and asset group level and say so plainly on the page, rather than inventing a split the data does not support.

There is also a recent deprecation. Google Ads location extension fields were sunset in Data Studio on May 4, 2026. Reports that used them show broken charts or configuration errors, and I replace those fields or remove the charts as part of a cleanup.

Why does my Google Ads report disagree with the Ads interface?

Usually because of time zone, currency, conversion action or date settings. The Ads interface may show all conversions while the report uses the primary conversions column, or the account time zone differs from the report's default. Currency is another trap when an MCC holds accounts billed in different currencies.

I add a small notes panel to each report that states which conversion column, currency and attribution are in use. It answers the question before anyone asks it, and it makes the report safe to forward to a finance team that has never opened Google Ads.

Who builds and maintains the report after launch?

I do the build, and your team owns the result. The report and data sources move to your Google account, with credentials set so the report keeps working if anyone leaves. Scheduled email delivery sends a PDF to stakeholders each Monday, and I document every calculated field, including ROAS, CPA and the channel grouping.

If you want ongoing changes, such as new campaign types or a new market, you can come back for small fixed-scope updates. Many teams prefer to learn the editor themselves, and the training sessions on this site cover exactly that.