Template-based AdWords Reports

AdWords Report Templates are Not Awesome

By virtue of the standard, limited report types of templates you are locked into a ceremonial decay of real intelligence and possibility to offer something more for your clients.

Yes, you can add comments to a standard chart of cost and revenue and say something positive about it. But why should you pay for a service that provides the same report data that you can quickly, easily, and even automatically (scheduled reports, AdWords scripts) download into Excel directly from AdWords?

Template-based or white-label reporting forces you into specific data points and destroys the possibility of distinguishing your agency beyond standard reports and a custom logo

Is it really so difficult to cut and paste PPC report data from Excel into a Powerpoint?

Templates force you into specific data points

We’ve connected our client AdWords accounts to white-label reporting software for “powerful SEM reporting” and were amazed at how uninspiring and useless the template-based AdWords reports were. “Easy, more convenient” reporting was only an illusion and the reality was slow, cumbersome reporting; and the white-label report was embarrassing to look at, let alone to share with clients.

So, back to using Excel to explore AdWords data, along with Powerpoint to present it. Ultimately we built our own PPC reporting tool (that is now available for free as a public beta).

Our conclusion so far is that even the most expensive and the best white-label AdWords reporting software for AdWords can’t deliver a story that is in touch with your client goals.

If you are truly engaging with clients and their data and want to support their business growth by delivering insightful reports & visualizations, then template-based AdWords reports are a disservice to your agency and to your client business.

Continued: On the way to PPC success, we need a PPC strategy that shows leadership and analytic direction while being aligned with client goals; and it’s helpful to have an arsenal of PPC tools in support of this strategy. read more »

This blog post is part 2 in a series of posts:

• Dear AdWords Agency Tool, Please Tell Me Something New (Part 1)
• Template-based AdWords Reports (this post)
• PPC Agency Strategy (Part 3)
• Successful Agencies Tell the Best Stories (Part 4)
• PPC Reporting Tools Matter (Part 5)