What should a PPC report include? A checklist (with sample)

A good PPC report starts with business results, not ad metrics: sales or qualified leads, ad spend, and the return on that spend, compared with your target and the previous period. It then shows how each channel contributed (with a note where platforms are over-counting), explains what changed and why in plain English, lists what was done, and ends with what happens next and any decisions needed from you. Clicks, impressions and click-through rate belong in the detail, if at all, not at the top.

If your agency only reports clicks and impressions, you can’t tell whether your ads are making you money. This guide shows what to ask for instead, with a checklist you can hand to your agency.

If your report only shows clicks and impressions

Clicks and impressions describe activity, not results. They can go up while sales go down: a broader keyword, a cheaper audience or a new placement can all bring more clicks from people who never buy. A report built on them answers “how busy were the ads?” when the question you care about is “what did the money bring in?”

That isn’t always the agency hiding something. Often the tracking simply isn’t set up to see sales or qualified leads, so activity is all there is to report. Either way, the fix is the same: agree the numbers that matter, make sure tracking records them, and report on those first.

The 7 things a good PPC report includes

1. Business results first. Sales or leads, ad spend and the overall return, against your target and the previous period. For shops that’s revenue and MER (total revenue divided by total ad spend); for lead generation it’s qualified leads and cost per qualified lead.
2. New customers. How many sales came from new rather than returning customers, and what each new customer cost. Repeat buyers often come back without ads, so new customers show what the spend is really adding.
3. Results by channel, with honesty. Spend and results for Google, Meta, Microsoft and the rest, with a note where a platform is likely over-counting. Each platform claims the sales it touched, so added together they usually claim more than you sold.
4. Lead quality, not just lead volume. For lead generation: how many enquiries were genuine, how many became opportunities and how many were won, taken from your CRM. A cheap lead that never buys isn’t cheap.
5. What happened and why. A few plain-English sentences: what moved, and the reason. “Costs rose because a competitor started bidding on our brand” is useful; a chart with no explanation isn’t.
6. What was done. The main changes made in your accounts: new ads, budget moves, keywords added or removed, tests started or ended.
7. What’s next, and what’s needed from you. The plan for the coming period and any decision you need to make, such as a budget change, a new offer or approval for a test.

Alongside the written report, ask for a live dashboard you can check any day, built on the same numbers. See what ours looks like.

What to report instead of vanity metrics

Click and impression data still has a place in the detail, for diagnosing problems. It just shouldn’t be the headline.

Weekly vs monthly: what goes in each

• Weekly: short and factual. Headline results against last week, anything unusual, what was changed and anything that needs a decision. It should take two minutes to read.
• Monthly: the bigger picture. Trends over several weeks, results of tests that have finished, how you’re tracking against the quarter’s targets, and clear recommendations for next month’s budget and priorities.

A monthly report without recommendations is just a longer weekly report. Ask your agency to end every month with what they’d change and why.

Reporting for SaaS and B2B

For SaaS and B2B, platform conversions (form fills, demo requests, trial sign-ups) are only the start of the journey. A useful report follows leads through to revenue:

• Demos booked and trials started, with the cost of each
• Qualified leads or SQLs, confirmed in your CRM rather than counted from form fills
• Pipeline and revenue won, by channel and campaign where your CRM allows
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC) and payback, so spend can be judged against what a customer is worth. Our LTV:CAC calculator works it out.

To get there, outcomes from your CRM need to flow back to the ad platforms with offline conversion imports, so Google and LinkedIn can optimise toward leads that turn into revenue. That’s how we report for SaaS companies and B2B businesses.

Reporting for online shops

For eCommerce, the headline should come from your own shop data, not the platforms:

• Revenue, ad spend and MER, so you see total return across every channel
• Profit or POAS where margins vary a lot between products. See MER vs ROAS vs POAS
• New customers and cost per new customer, using your shop platform’s own record of first orders
• Platform ROAS by channel, clearly labelled as the platform’s view

Red flags in an agency report

• No business results at all, only clicks, impressions and CTR
• Platform numbers added together and presented as total sales
• “Conversions” that aren’t defined, or that include page views and clicks
• Charts with no commentary, or commentary that only describes the charts
• No actions and no next steps, so you can’t tell what the agency actually did
• Reports you can’t get without asking, or that arrive weeks after the period ends

Questions to ask your agency about reporting

• What’s our headline number, and is it from our own data or the ad platforms?
• How do you count a conversion, and does it match what we see in our shop or CRM?
• Can we see new customers, or qualified leads, separately?
• What did you change this week, and why?
• What would you do differently with our budget next month?

If the answers are vague, our 12-point checklist for choosing a PPC agency covers what else to look for.

What Brightpace sends

Every client gets a short weekly report written by the person running the account, a live daily dashboard and a monthly call, all included in the management fee. Reports lead with your real sales or qualified leads, new customers and overall return, and every one ends with what’s next. See a sample weekly PPC report, with a made-up business and made-up numbers.

FAQs

What should a PPC report include?

Business results first (sales or qualified leads, ad spend and overall return against target), then new customers, results by channel, lead quality for lead generation, what happened and why, what was done, and what’s next. Clicks and impressions belong in the detail, not the headline.

My agency only reports clicks and impressions. What should I ask for?

Ask for sales or qualified leads, ad spend and the return on that spend, compared with your target and the previous period, plus a plain-English note on what changed and what they did. If they can’t report sales or leads, ask them to fix the tracking first.

How often should a PPC agency report?

A short report every week and a fuller review with recommendations every month is a good rhythm, with a live dashboard in between. Weekly reports catch problems early; monthly reports are where budget decisions get made.

What KPIs should a SaaS PPC report track?

Demos booked or trials started, qualified leads confirmed in your CRM, pipeline and revenue won, customer acquisition cost and payback period. Form fills alone don’t show whether the spend is building revenue.

Should a PPC report use the ad platforms’ numbers?

Yes, for each channel’s own detail, but not for the headline. Each platform counts the sales it influenced, so they overlap. Judge overall results on your own sales or CRM data.

Who should own the reporting data?

You should. Your ad accounts, analytics, dashboards and the data behind them should be in your name, with the agency given access, so you keep your history if you change agency or bring the work in-house.

In short

A good PPC report leads with the numbers your business runs on (sales or qualified leads, spend and return), shows new customers and lead quality, is honest about what each platform claims, explains what happened and what was done in plain English, and ends with what’s next. If yours only shows clicks and impressions, ask for these instead, and fix the tracking if that’s what’s in the way.

Want reports that lead with your real results? See our sample weekly report, read how we work, or let’s chat.