How to tell whether your Google Ads report is telling the truth

A polished report can be completely accurate and still leave the wrong impression. The usual problem is not a made-up number. It is a real number with the inconvenient context removed.

1. Match conversions to real business

Take the reported purchases or leads and compare them with completed orders, booked jobs or qualified enquiries. Expect attribution and timing differences, but investigate large gaps. Look for test orders, spam leads, duplicate form events and cancelled sales.

2. Ask what counts as a conversion

A phone-number click is not a sale. A contact-page visit is not an enquiry. Reports sometimes combine these softer actions with purchases or submitted leads, making the total look healthier than the commercial result.

3. Check revenue against margin

ROAS uses revenue. Your business keeps margin. A campaign selling discounted low-margin stock may lead the revenue chart while contributing less profit than a smaller campaign. Ask for product cost, fulfilment and agency or software fees to be acknowledged even when Google cannot see them.

4. Compare like with like

• Use the same date range and time zone.
• Check whether tax and delivery are included in order values.
• Separate brand searches from new-customer demand.
• Compare year on year where seasonality makes last month misleading.
• State whether the report uses click date or conversion date.

5. Read the change history

Performance changed for a reason. A useful report names the important edits, when they went live, who approved them and what happened next. Without that record, improvement gets credited to activity rather than evidence.

6. Look beyond averages

An account-level average can hide one excellent campaign funding several poor ones. Break the result down by campaign, product group, location and brand versus non-brand demand. The purpose is not to create more tables. It is to find where the next decision sits.

How AdKing makes reporting accountable

AdKing links approved work to later account outcomes. Reports combine results, account health, changes and recommendations, while the history records what actually reached Google. It does not claim that every movement was caused by one edit, but it gives you the evidence needed to judge it.