Here’s your practical guide to the key Google Ads metrics you should monitor every week to make smarter decisions and maximize ROI.
1. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR = (Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100
A high CTR means your ad is relevant to your target audience. It reflects how compelling your ad copy and creative are.
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Why it matters: CTR directly affects your Quality Score, which impacts ad rank and cost-per-click (CPC).
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Benchmark: Industry standards vary, but aim for a CTR of 2% or higher in search campaigns.
Pro Tip: If your CTR is low, consider testing new headlines, using more targeted keywords, or applying ad extensions.
2. Conversion Rate (CVR)
Conversion Rate = (Conversions ÷ Clicks) × 100
This tells you how well your ads are turning traffic into real actions—like purchases, form fills, or signups.
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Why it matters: High traffic with low conversions = wasted budget.
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What to do: Evaluate landing page experience, ad-to-page consistency, and conversion tracking accuracy.
Weekly Tip: Identify any sudden drops in CVR and correlate them with changes to ad copy, landing pages, or keyword intent.
3. Cost Per Conversion (CPA)
CPA = Total Cost ÷ Total Conversions
This is your true cost of acquiring a lead or customer.
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Why it matters: It helps you understand profitability.
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Goal: Your CPA should be less than your customer’s lifetime value (LTV) to stay sustainable.
If your CPA rises unexpectedly, examine your bidding strategy, keyword match types, and search terms.
4. Impression Share
Impression Share = Impressions ÷ Total Eligible Impressions
This tells you how often your ads are showing up compared to how often they could.
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Why it matters: A low impression share might mean you're losing out due to budget limitations or low ad rank.
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Types to watch:
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Search Impression Share
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Lost IS (budget)
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Lost IS (rank)
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Adjust budgets or improve Quality Score to recover lost impression share.
5. Quality Score
Quality Score is rated from 1 to 10 and is based on:
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Expected CTR
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Ad relevance
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Landing page experience
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Why it matters: Higher scores = lower CPCs and better ad positions.
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Where to find it: At the keyword level in your account.
Weekly action: Focus on low-scoring keywords and improve either the ad copy or the landing page relevance.
6. Search Terms Report
The Search Terms Report shows the actual queries that triggered your ads.
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Why it matters: It reveals irrelevant traffic and opportunities for new keywords.
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What to do:
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Add irrelevant queries as negative keywords
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Identify high-performing terms for exact match targeting
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Weekly check-in here can save you from wasted spend and uncover high-intent opportunities.
7. Top Performing Ads
Look at ad-level performance, not just keywords.
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Compare:
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Headlines and descriptions
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CTR and conversion rate
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Ad extensions used
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Why it matters: Rotating underperforming ads out and focusing on what works boosts overall campaign health.
Try A/B testing two variations every week to find winning combinations faster.
8. Budget Pacing
Track how much of your daily and monthly budget is being spent.
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Why it matters: Overspending leads to budget caps before the end of the month, while underspending means missed impressions.
Weekly review helps you rebalance campaigns and make timely adjustments.
9. Device and Location Performance
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Segment your performance by:
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Device: Desktop, mobile, tablet
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Location: Country, city, or radius targeting
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Why it matters: Some audiences perform better on certain devices or in certain regions.
Example: If mobile traffic has high CTR but low conversions, consider optimizing your mobile landing page.
10. Audience Performance
If you're using remarketing or in-market audiences, check how they perform compared to broader targeting.
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Why it matters: You may discover that specific audiences deliver higher ROI.
Weekly action: Adjust bids or segment campaigns by audience for greater control.
Final Thoughts
Success with Google Ads isn’t just about setting up campaigns—it’s about consistently reviewing and optimizing performance. Monitoring these key metrics on a weekly basis gives you the agility to adapt quickly, reduce waste, and increase ROI.
Start with a Google Ads dashboard or automated report that shows these metrics every Monday. Your budget (and your boss) will thank you.