An issue when compare AdGroup Performance report with Search query Performance report.

[chenrui zhang]

Hi,

After aggregating the search query performance data on adgroup level, the click number is inconsistent with the adgroup performance report.

Both of the data is on the  AdNetworkType1 == "Search network" and AdNetworkType2 == "Google search".

Does this reasonable?

Thanks,

Chenrui

[Vincent Racaza (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Chenrui,

I believe that you really cannot compare the AdGroup Performance Report with the Search Query Performance Report as the two reports are totally different. The two report types are mapped on different entities. The AdGroup Performance Report is on ad group level and the Search Query Performance Report is on search queries/terms level. They also have different mappings in the UI as you can see in these links (ad group mapping, search query mapping).

Let me know if this clear to you or if you have further clarifications.

Thanks,

Vincent

AdWords API Team

[chenrui zhang]

Hi Vincent,

I notice that Search Query Performance Report has one column "AdGroupId". Then I group the data by AdGroupId to get the total click/cost of each ad group. 

But the number is inconsistent with the number in the AdGroup Performance report on the same segmentation.

For one ad group A, I assume that the performance comes from the search terms which triggered the related ads under A actually. Is it right?

Thanks,

Chenrui

[Vincent Racaza (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Chenrui,

You cannot aggregate the result of the Search Query Performance Report and compare it with the result with the AdGroup Performance Report. This is because the metrics from the AdGroup Performance Report are triggered from different criteria types. It does not mean that the metrics from your ad groups in the AdGroup Performance Report comes from your search terms only. It is also possible that your ads under your ad groups were triggered by the actual keywords, location, search terms and other targeting criteria. So this is already an accumulated statistics from different targeting criteria. Just on this scenario alone, you cannot compare the returned values of both report types.

Also, since API only mirrors the AdWords UI, then both have the same values at the same time. However, if you can observe the discrepancies between the AdWords UI and API reports, then just let me know so I can further check.

[chenrui zhang]

Hi Vincent,

Thanks for your quick reply!

One more question about this " It is also possible that your ads under your ad groups were triggered by the actual keywords, location, search terms and other targeting criteria."

For one ad group in Search Network only, the ads can be triggered by a <search query, keywordId> pair(this is the search term). Will the ads be triggered by other ways?

Thanks

Chenrui

[Vincent Racaza (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Chenrui,

Yes, the ads can be triggered in different ways, not just keywords or search terms. The triggering criteria of an ad can be one of these targeting types. So for example, if your ad under an ad group was triggered by location, then in AdGroup Performance Report, that would be 1 impression, however for Search Query Performance Report, that would be a 0 impression as the ad was not triggered by the search term.

Let me know if you have further clarifications.