Google Ads: the 7 metrics your clients actually read

The problem isn't a lack of data

The Google Ads interface exposes dozens of columns, and it's tempting to show them all to prove the work was thorough. The effect is the opposite: the more figures on screen, the less the client knows which one to look at, and the further the meeting drifts into detail.

An executive wants three things. Is it working. What is it costing. What happens next. Seven metrics answer that.

The seven, and why

1. Spend. The starting point, against the planned budget. Any gap above 10% gets explained before the question is asked.

2. Conversions. The volume of results. Always state what is being counted: a form submission and a contact page view are not the same thing.

3. **Cost per conversion**. What a result costs. This is the profitability metric when the client sells a service, and it's read against a known target.

4. Conversion value, or **ROAS**. As soon as a conversion carries an amount, it replaces cost per conversion as the headline figure.

5. **Conversion rate**. It separates an acquisition problem from a website problem. If traffic holds and the rate collapses, the issue isn't in the account.

6. **Impression share**. It answers the question every executive asks: can we do more? With its two loss columns, budget and rank, it even says through which lever.

7. Trend. Not a column but a second reading: every figure against the previous period. That's what turns an observation into a decision.

The ones you keep to yourself

Some metrics are essential to management and unreadable in a meeting. CTR and CPC explain the cost but decide nothing on the client's side. Quality Score is an internal diagnostic tool, of no use to anyone not running the account. Impressions alone flatter without informing.

The rule: if you can't name the decision a metric leads to, it belongs on your working dashboard, not in the presentation.

The presentation rule

Order matters. Opening with spend frames the meeting around cost; opening with results frames it around performance.

The sequence that works: how many results, at what unit cost, for what total spend, and what's left to take. Spend comes third, never first.

Translate without distorting

Technical vocabulary impresses no one and costs explanation time. Cost per acquisition becomes "what a new contact costs us". ROAS becomes "for every pound spent we bring back four in revenue". Impression share becomes "we're capturing 42% of the reachable market on these queries".

If the client asks for a definition again month after month, the translation never happened. For the terms worth being able to define yourself, our glossary gives the formula, a worked example and the common misreading for each one.