[Inside AdWords] A few updates on reporting in AdWords

[Inside AdWords Crew]

If you think AdWords reporting is looking a bit different these days, you’re right! Since we announced some important changes to reporting in late June, we’ve been regularly adding statistics and features into the Campaigns tab that were previously only accessible through the Report Center (with many more additions to come).

At the same time, we’ve begun to move reports out of the Report Center entirely. In fact, new Account, Campaign, and Ad Group reports can no longer be created from the Reports tab. Now that the transition is in full swing, we thought it would be a good time to address the feedback we’ve gotten so far, point out available help resources, and highlight a few new features we’ve recently released.

What we’ve heard from you

We believe that reports can be faster and more powerful in the Campaigns tab. You get the flexibility to quickly switch views when you want to dig deeper into performance trends, and to act on the insights you discover by making changes on the same pages where you run your reports.

That being said, we’ve heard that the changes have created issues for some of you. We’ve gotten feedback that it’s been difficult to find all the reporting features you used to access through the Report Center, and that some statistics and segmentation options aren’t available in every place you’d like to use them.

Your input on this first set of changes has been incredibly helpful, and we’re acting on the feedback we receive. For example, in the next few weeks we plan to add “Total” rows to every report you download from the Campaigns tab, and new options to view overall search network traffic (Google search + search partners). We’ll keep making changes based on your requests, so please continue to send us your thoughts.

Help resources

If you’re having trouble finding a specific statistic or reporting feature in AdWords, we’ve created materials that we think will help you out.

• Download our PDF guide for a handy and comprehensive resource you can consult if you're wondering where to find particular metrics.
• We also have a recorded webinar and extensive FAQs available on a regularly updated page in the AdWords Help Center.

New features

While we’ve focused most of our energies adding Report Center options to the Campaigns tab, we’ve also added some new reporting features to campaign management. In fact, some advanced reporting options are only available in the Campaigns tab, such as segmenting statistics by device and click type. Additionally, you can now use the Dimensions tab to view and segment performance by the dimension of your choice.

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This new reporting feature lets you quickly see reports such as:

• Your campaign statistics segmented by hour of day (answer questions like “how much shopping do my customers do on their lunch break?”)
• Your account statistics segmented by quarter (get an executive summary of how your performance has changed since you account started running)
• You account statistics segmented by Destination URL (see which pages on your site are getting the most AdWords traffic, or which pages are the most profitable)

Over the coming weeks we’ll add even more reporting functionality to AdWords, and we also plan to continue removing reports from the Report Center as they become supported on the Campaigns tab.

Thank you for all the work you’ve put into the transition already, and for bearing with us throughout this ambitious set of changes. We think you’ll find the new integrated reporting even more valuable once you've had a chance to get used to the changes and the full transition from the Report Center is complete. Until then, please keep letting us know how we’re doing by submitting feedback as any issues arise.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

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Posted By Inside AdWords Crew to Inside AdWords at 9/07/2010 09:07:00 AM