Google Ad Manager Reports You Need to Maximize Ad Revenue

Did you know that you can check the number of AdSense or Ad Exchange impressions available in the Google Ad Manager? Not only this, but you can also even check the total number of impressions or revenue received via the Safari browser. Sounds interesting, right?

That’s one of the reasons why Google Ad Manager is a central place for publishers. Ad Manager not only serves ads but also provides revenue optimization and advanced forecasting through its reporting feature. It is capable to scan all networks or demand partners to find where you get the most impressions and revenue and display the analytics via reports.

In this guide, we’ll show you what are Google Ad Manager reports and how to pull them out to collect data about the performance of your ad campaigns.

Table of Contents

• Google Ad Manager Reporting
• System-generated Reports
• Custom Reports
• How to Generate A System-Defined Report
• How to Generate A Custom Report
• Conclusion

Google Ad Manager Reporting

Google Ad Manager Reporting helps you to evaluate the performance of demand partners, yield partners, Ad Exchange, AdSense, and discover actionable insights to improve your ad revenue and yield management. 

A Google Ad Manager or dfp report typically consists of dimensions and metrics, dates, filter values, etc. A Dimension could be an attribute of your ad network, server, or exchange while a Metric is simply a number that is used to measure one of the characteristics of a Dimension.

Now that we’ve introduced both the terms to you, let’s see what are types of reports available in Google Ad Manager.

1. System-defined reports, and 
2. Custom Reports that you can create from scratch.

So, before you generate a report, we’d recommend you get an overview of the types of reports and then experiment with the existing reports (i.e. System-defined).

System-generated Reports

System-generated reports can be found in the Templates section of Reporting feature on the Google Ad Manager homepage. Here, you can find eleven reports:

• Currently Running Campaign Report (all under an advertiser) – This report presents an overview of the performance of all orders and associated line items which delivered ads yesterday.

When to Use? Use this report to know how many impressions a line item or a group of line items delivered yesterday or earned revenue. You can check the number of clicks or impressions, a house ad, or a line item gathered.

Similarly, you can find out the performance of an order or a creative by selecting “Currently Running Campaign Report (all under an order)”.

• Creatives Report: It shows the total number of impressions or clicks an advertiser’s ad creative has delivered in the last month.

• Monthly Network Performance Report: This report gives a view of the performance of AdSense, Ad Exchange, and Ad Manager (Including all demand channels) ads on a daily basis or in the last 30 days. Select Daily or Monthly type as per your requirement.

When to use? Use this report when you want to compare the performance of Ad Manager with AdSense or Ad Exchange in terms of impressions or revenue. You can pull out a report for the current and the previous month or year, and check which one is the best-performing platform for you.

• Network Geography Report: This report shows the performance of AdSense, Ad Manager, and Ad Exchange in the last month. However, the results are displayed by breaking down on a country basis. 

When to use it? Pull out this report when you want to compare the performance of AdSense, Ad Exchange, and Ad Manager ads across different countries e.g. you want to compare how many impressions AdSense and Ad Manager ads got in the US and Canada and contributed to your revenue.

• Monthly Ad Unit Report: It shows how an ad unit or a set of ad units performed in the last month. 

• Device and Browser Report: It shows various metrics related to AdSense and Ad server, broken out by different targeting criteria such as operating systems or browsers. 

When to use? Use this report to understand if the maximum impressions are coming from Safari or Chrome. Or if you are getting maximum revenue from Mobile or Tablet.

• Billing Report: It shows the total number of impressions an order has got in the last month. So, if you just want to know the impressions for a particular order, then generate this report.

• Downloaded Impressions: This report displays the number of impressions and downloaded impressions got by the ad server in the last seven days. ICYDK, a downloaded impression, is counted only after the initiation of ad retrieval by the publisher. However, a served impression is counted when an ad is sent.

• Safari Browser Report: It displays the performance of the ad server, ad network, and exchange based on the demand channel “safari browser” and includes the data for the last seven days.

Besides the above-discussed reports, there are a few more types of reports that are available in Google Ad Manager such as Daily network performance reports and Bids by ad unit and rejection reasons. You can save or share these pre-defined reports based on the requirements.

Custom Reports

If you want to create a report from scratch by adding custom query parameters to the report, then you can do that as well. But first, you need to know the different types of custom reports available in the Ad Manager.

• Historical
• Ad Exchange historical
• Future sell-through
• Reach
• Partner finance
• Ad speed
• Video content reports (Beta)
• Analytics reports (Beta)
• User messages (Beta)

Historical – This report shows the number of clicks, impressions, revenue, etc. you got in the past few dates through different demand channels.

Ad Exchange historical – This report helps publishers to analyze how their primary ad exchange account performing. Here, the primary exchange account shows the one that is used for first look and exchange bidding.

Future sell-through – It compares the availability of ad impressions for the Google Ad Manager network. Publishers can even check how many impressions got served yesterday or will be served for up to three months. However, Future sell-through is available only for Google Ad Manager Premium publishers*.

Reach – Reach report provides a combined view of the number of unique visitors exposed to different advertisers, line items, orders, or ad units in the Ad Manager account over a period. However, it doesn’t include impressions from Ad Exchange of AdSense. Also, a publisher having access to Ad Manager 360 can pull out the Reach report*.

Partner finance – This report is for the publishers who collaborate with third-party publishers and place some of their ads on their websites. It gives a detailed view of host-partner revenue splits based on the ad impressions and date range.

Ad speed – Ad Speed report displays how the network’s ad serving speed in the last 30 days. It can help you identify the factors contributing to slow ads or fast ads and find areas of improvement across the network.

Video content – It offers insights into the number of video content views when a pre-roll video ad is served.

*If you want to extract these reports through your Google Ad Manager Small Business account, then you need to contact your Google Account Manager to enable it for your account.

User message – The User message report is a powerful tool that enables you to better understand how your users are interacting with your privacy messages (CCPA and GDPR notices). With these reports, you can take action and determine appropriate strategies for improving your messaging in order to increase the consent rate.

Now, let’s see how to pull out these reports in Google Ad Manager.

How to Generate A System-Defined Report in The Google Ad Manager?

Google Ad Manager, by default, can create reports based on system-generated queries, digging into what your advertisers, line items, etc. have performed in the past and how much revenue you’ve got from them. These system queries work as templates and have certain recommended items pre-selected. And can save a lot of time since you don’t have to start from scratch. 

That said, follow the below steps to use these predefined templates or system queries to generate a report in the Ad Manager.

• Sign in to your Google Ad Manager account.
• Click Reporting > Templates. And select the report type you want from the list.

• Let’s say, you selected the ‘Currently running campaign report (all under an advertiser)‘ report. Now, you can simply select the Date range from the drop-down menu.
• Add the Filters to refine your search, and select the required Dimensions and Metrics.

•  Now, schedule the time for report generation. You can even share the results generated with other people via their emails. At last, click Save and run your report.

How to Generate A Custom Report in The Google Ad Manager?

In order to create a report in Google Ad Manager, a publisher has to follow the below steps:

• Sign in to your Google Ad Manager account.
• Go to Reporting > Reports > New report. Then select the type of report. Let’s assume you selected ‘Historical report’. Enter the name and date range.

• Select the Dimensions and Metrics, and schedule the time for report generation. Save and run the report.

Note: You can up to 10 Dimensions to a report. Also, the complexity of the report increases with the number of dimensions. So, we suggest you choose wisely and the only required ones to reduce the latency and achieve higher accuracy while running a report. 

Conclusion

Undeniably, Google’s reporting dashboard is one of the best and the most extensive in the industry. By letting publishers know where they are at with their advertising partners, Google ad manager reports or GAM reports can ensure that sellers are on the right track.

You can analyze thousands of events with a few clicks and get the dashboard ready in a matter of minutes. Use it regularly to identify opportunities and improve your revenue. Have questions related to Google Ad Manager, or its advanced reporting feature? Reach out to us now.