Your monthly report arrives. The numbers are green, the arrows point up. Click-through rate rose 12%. Impressions too. Everything looks fine. But where are the search terms that bring people to your e-shop? Where’s the comparison with last year, when May was your strongest month? And what does the agency plan to do next month?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you’re not alone. More and more clients are leaving their agencies precisely because PPC reports arrive late, are confusing, or contain nothing but rows of numbers without a single comment. In this article you’ll get a precise 11-point checklist of what a monthly PPC report from an agency should always contain, plus five warning signs that suggest someone isn’t being entirely straight with you.
Why a good PPC report matters more than the campaigns themselves
A good report isn’t a formality – it’s a management tool. Without a readable monthly overview you can’t make decisions about budget, you don’t know what’s working, and you have no basis for a conversation with the agency about what to do differently.
Yet most monthly PPC reports end up as unread documents full of numbers that lead no one to action. The agency sends it, the client opens it, saves it – and a month later has no idea what the outcome was. Such an overview has no value either for you or for the specialist: they don’t know what interests you, and you don’t know what to ask.
Here’s a paradox we run into repeatedly during audits: some agencies send 15-page PDFs precisely so that the sheer volume looks like transparency. Lots of data signals effort. But if no number answers the question of how the campaigns translated into revenue or orders, it’s just a pile of data. A quality report should be short, clear, and actionable.
11 things that must be in every monthly PPC report (checklist)
The points below are ordered the way a client should work through them: from the main goals to campaign detail, through the technical side, all the way to the outlook. Take your last monthly overview and check how many of them you can find in it.
1. Performance against agreed KPIs
The first thing to look at: met, or not? Not “how it went.” Not “how it could have been.” In every monthly summary the agency should explicitly state which goals you set together at the start of the month and how they were met. If the KPIs weren’t met, that is exactly what should come first in the report – including an explanation of why and what will be done differently.
A report that presents results with no link to the original goals isn’t reporting – it’s a presentation of numbers. Ask specifically: “What KPIs did we set, and how did we meet them?” If the agency has no answer, it’s a good time for a conversation about how the two of you communicate.
2. Total spend vs. planned budget
How much was spent, and on which platform. The total across Google Ads, Sklik, and Meta Ads separately – not just one combined number. If you receive a report where all costs are merged into a single line, you don’t know where your money is actually going.
Any deviation from the planned budget should be commented on: was less spent because there wasn’t enough search volume? Or more, because the agency identified an opportunity and scaled up? Both situations are fine – but only when you know about them.
3. Number of conversions and cost per conversion (CPA)
CPA – Cost Per Acquisition – tells you how much one order, sign-up, or enquiry from advertising costs you. Alongside it, the report should clearly state what counts as a conversion. A form submission, a purchase, a click on a phone number – a conversion can be many things.
If that isn’t explained in the overview, you don’t know what you’re actually measuring. And without that information you can’t compare results across months or judge whether CPA is improving or getting worse.
4. ROAS / cost-to-revenue ratio (e-shops only)
The cost-to-revenue ratio (in the Czech market known as PNO) is a simple calculation: advertising cost divided by the revenue the advertising generated, times one hundred. In practice: if you spent CZK 10,000 and the campaigns brought in CZK 100,000 in revenue, your
ratio is 10%.
A common reference range for e-shops is 10–20%, but the right target depends on the margin of your product range – electronics with low margins needs to sit well below 10%, whereas fashion goods with high margins can be profitable even at 25% and above. Year-on-year comparison is essential here – otherwise seasonal swings can turn a good month into a bad-looking number, and vice versa.
5. Performance by campaign
A single total-spend figure tells you little. You need to know which campaigns work and which don’t. Brand campaigns show different results from performance campaigns on keywords. Remarketing campaigns are measured differently from acquisition.
A breakdown of results by individual campaign – ideally with a comment on each – lets you understand where value is being added and where money is more likely being lost. If keywords are expensive and conversions low, you want to know – not after another month of spending.
6. Search terms overview
What people actually typed before clicking your ad – that’s one of the most valuable pieces of data in the whole account. A good specialist uses precisely this section to pull out irrelevant queries and add them as negative keywords.
In the overview you should be able to see what was excluded as irrelevant and why. If this data is missing, you don’t know whether your ads are being shown to people with an entirely different intent from your product. It’s worth asking: “Which queries did you add as negatives this month?”
7. Quality Score and ad status
Quality Score is a Google diagnostic tool rated on a scale of 1–10. It draws on three components: expected click-through rate (CTR), ad relevance, and landing-page experience. A higher score helps achieve better auction positions and can potentially lower costs – but it is a diagnostic indicator, not a direct input into the auction.
Alongside it, the report should show the approval status of ads and flag any disapproved ads. A disapproved ad doesn’t show, and no figures reflect its performance until the problem is fixed. If the score isn’t in the report, you don’t know whether it’s gradually eating into your budget.
8. Comparison with the previous period
Month-on-month comparison is standard for most businesses. For seasonal ones – fashion goods, garden equipment, holiday services – year-on-year comparison is an absolute necessity. Don’t compare March 2025 with February 2025, but with March 2024.
Otherwise a normal seasonal dip turns into alarm, and a normal start of the season into a result that looks better than it is. The agency should state in the overview which comparison it uses and why.
9. Data from GA4 and independent analytics
Here lies one of the most important traps in all of PPC reporting: ad systems credit themselves with a higher share of conversions than independent analytics shows. It’s down to attribution – one and the same order can be credited simultaneously to Google Ads, Sklik, and Meta Ads, because the customer saw an ad on each of these platforms.
Google Analytics 4 tracks performance across all channels and gives a more comprehensive view than Google Ads alone – for reference reporting, GA4 is the more reliable choice. Even GA4, however, will never fully match the figures in the ad systems: the differences stem from different attribution logic, consent settings, and data modelling.
A report that works exclusively with data from the ad system shows an inflated reality – GA4 is the correction that brings it back down to earth. The report should contain both sets of figures and a comment explaining the difference.
10. Attribution model
The attribution model determines which customer touchpoints are counted as credit for a conversion. A last-click model attributes everything to the final click. A data-driven model distributes credit across all interactions. This isn’t a technical detail: it can change a campaign’s numerical result by hundreds of percent.
A good specialist states in the overview which model they use and what that means for interpreting the data. If they don’t mention it, you’re working blind – and comparing results between months can be misleading if the model has changed.
11. Plan for next month
A report that ends with a chart for last month and no look ahead says one thing: you’re working with a delay. What will be optimised? What will be tested? Which budgets are being shifted, and why?
The plan for next month isn’t a formal add-on – it’s proof that the agency is genuinely thinking about your business and not just maintaining running systems. If there’s no outlook with every report, ask directly: “What do you plan to do differently next month, and why?”
5 warning signs that your report is hiding something
The situations below aren’t hypotheses. They’re specific scenarios we encounter when auditing PPC accounts taken over from other agencies.
The report arrives without a single comment
Automatically generated exports from Google Ads or Sklik without a single sentence of interpretation are one of the most common marks of poor reporting. You get a PDF with tables and charts, and nowhere does it say what it means or what will be done next. The specialist sends you the numbers – and leaves the interpretation to you.
Ask specifically: “What do you consider the most important result of this month?” If the answer comes only after your question and not as part of the report, that tells you something about the agency’s approach to your account.
You see nothing but green numbers
In the real world, campaigns fluctuate. Budgets don’t line up. Keywords get more expensive. Competitors reposition their ads. If every month brings an overview where everything grows and nothing falls, it’s usually manipulation of the baseline period or the metric result.
The simplest trick: bend the averages so everything looks fine. An agency that also reports failures is an agency you can trust. An honest report doesn’t hide negative results – it explains them.
GA4 data is missing
As we showed in point nine, ad systems always credit themselves with more generous results than independent analytics. If your overview works exclusively with data from Google Ads or Sklik and there’s no GA4, you have no independent view of performance.
This signal may be ignorance – but it can also be intent. In both cases the solution is a request: “Please add GA4 data to the report as well, along with a comment on the differences.” The agency’s reaction will tell you more than a table of numbers.
You don’t have access to the ad account
If an agency refuses to share access to the data or claims “that’s our know-how,” that’s unacceptable. Advertising data is your data – you pay for it, you’re entitled to it, and you have the right to access your account at any time.
Agencies that block this access usually have a reason: either the results aren’t as good as they claim, or they use methods the client wouldn’t approve of. Read access is the minimum standard – request it by name.
No plan for next month
A monthly overview that describes what happened but offers no outlook for the next month has no management value. It’s bookkeeping, not partner-level campaign management.
If you don’t know what comes next each time you receive a report, consider whether you’re talking strategy with the agency – or just paying for maintenance.
What a report from ADS Agency looks like – our standard
We report monthly, on dates agreed in advance. Every overview contains all 11 points from the checklist above – including GA4 data, the attribution model, and a concrete plan for the following month.
Every number comes with a comment. Not exported tables – always an interpretation: what happened, why, and what it means for the work next month. If an anomaly occurs during the month – a sharp drop in traffic, a technical error, a sudden auction price spike – we inform you within 2 hours, not at the end of the month in the report.
We’ve seen what happens when a client gets a bad report too late: one e-shop lost its strongest week of the season because no one wrote that the campaign on the main product category had stopped working. It only came to light in the monthly PDF. This isn’t an exception – it’s a pattern that keeps repeating.
The client has access to their ad account at any time, without restrictions. Your data is yours. You don’t want to wait for our report to know what’s going on – you can log in and look for yourself.
→ Want to see what an honest PPC report looks like? Request a free consultation and we’ll show you our standard on a concrete example.
How to read a Google Ads report even if you’re not a PPC specialist
You’ve received the monthly summary. You don’t know what to read first. Here’s the approach.
Step 1: Start with the KPIs
The first section tells you whether what you agreed on was met. If there are no KPIs there, make that your first question at the next meeting. Without that information there’s no point reading the rest.
Step 2: Compare spend and results
Did you spend the planned amount? How many conversions came in? What did one order or enquiry cost? These three numbers pull most of the important information out of the report and tell you whether the month was good or not – regardless of the green arrows.
Step 3: Look for what’s missing
It’s not only about what’s in the report – but what isn’t. A plan for next month? GA4 data? A comment on the campaigns? A comparison with last year? If you feel something is missing, it usually is. Use the 11-point checklist as a control list – that’s exactly what it’s for.
Step 4: Ask about a bad number, don’t get annoyed
If the search terms show irrelevant keywords, don’t be afraid to ask: “How do we prevent this next month?” A good specialist welcomes your curiosity – it’s an interest in results. An agency that resists questions or reacts defensively to them tells you more by that alone than any number in the report.
A good PPC report is a management tool, not a formality
A monthly PPC report from an agency shouldn’t be a mere summary of what happened. It should be a tool that helps you make decisions – about costs, strategy, and the future direction of your campaigns. Compare your last overview against these 11 points:
- Performance against KPIs
- Spend vs. budget by platform
- Number of conversions and CPA
- Cost-to-revenue ratio (for e-shops)
- Performance by campaign
- Search terms overview
- Quality Score and ad status
- Comparison with the previous period
- GA4 data
- Attribution model
- Plan for next month
If any point is missing, you don’t know how to address it – or you have doubts about how the agency interprets it – it’s a good time to have an audit done.
→ Not sure whether your report contains everything essential? Request a free audit of your PPC account.
