Custom Columns in Google Ads: The Ultimate Guide to Greater Data Transparency

Google Ads offers a variety of standard reports that provide valuable insights into campaign performance. However, these reports often reach their limits when it comes to analyzing specific data points or creating individual analyses. This is where custom columns come into play.

With custom columns, you can tailor Google Ads data to meet your needs and gather the most relevant information. In this blog post, we explore how custom columns work and introduce you to important formulas that you can implement directly in your account.

What are custom columns?

Custom columns in Google Ads are specially tailored data fields that you can define yourself. Unlike predefined columns, which are available by default in Google Ads, custom columns offer the flexibility to create your own metrics and perform complex calculations. This feature is particularly useful for gaining detailed insights into your campaign performance and tracking specific metrics.

Benefits of using custom columns

The use of custom columns in Google Ads offers numerous advantages:

1. Personalization of data analysis:

You can create metrics that are precisely tailored to your business goals. For example, you can calculate ROI, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), or other business-specific KPIs.

2. Increased efficiency:

Custom columns in Google Ads allow you to perform complex data calculations directly within the Google Ads interface, reducing the need for external spreadsheets and speeding up the analysis process.

3. Improved decision-making:

With customized metrics, you can make more informed decisions as you gain specific insights into your campaign performance that would otherwise not be visible.

4. Better reporting:

Custom columns make it easier to create detailed reports that deliver exactly the information your stakeholders need.

Creating and implementing custom columns

The creation of custom columns in Google Ads is a relatively simple process. Here are the basic steps:
Log in to your Google Ads account and navigate to the campaigns section. On the right side, you will find the menu item “Columns.”

Figure 1: Step 1 Select Columns

Click on “Custom,” but you can also reach your goal through “Customize Columns.”

In the next step, go to the overview page and open “Custom Columns.”

Figure 2: Step 2 Tailor Columns for Campaigns

From here, you can now create the corresponding columns.

Figure 3: Step 3 Create Columns

Give the column a name and description. Choose the desired metric and calculation formula.

Formulas and calculations:

You can use simple calculations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to create your custom metric. After creating the custom column, you can add it to your reports and dashboards. This allows you to monitor and analyze your campaign performance using the new metrics.

Important custom columns for Google Ads

To help you get started, we've put together some useful custom columns that you can create directly in your Google Ads account:

1. Expected costs for the current month:

This column shows you what monthly budget you need to account for if you do not change existing settings or budgets.

Formula:

Cost: Custom time period / (day(today()) - 1)) * day(offset_days(offset_months(month_start(), 1), -1))

*Custom time period:  Start date: First day of this month; End date: Yesterday

2. Cost-per-conversion by conversion action:

This column shows the average cost per conversion for different conversion actions (e.g., purchase, newsletter signup). This allows you to better understand the profitability of your conversion actions.

Formula:

Cost-per-conversion by conversion action = Conversion costs / Conversions

Here is a selection of conversions that we have created in our account:

Figure 4: Overview of created conversions

These are also backed with the corresponding CPA per conversion.

The above data provides extremely useful insights into each conversion phase.

Different views can also be considered to see which search terms, keywords, and ads are performing accordingly, enabling you to identify very specifically where you need to optimize, cut, or increase your budget.

3. CPA in the last 7 days:

The column shows the average CPA in the last 7 days. This allows you to compare the CPA development over the last 30 days and the last week at a glance.

Formula:

Cost: Last 7 days / Conversions: Last 7 days

4. ROAS in the last 7 days:

The column shows the average ROAS in the last 7 days. This allows you to compare the ROAS development over the last 30 days and the last week at a glance.

Formula:

Conversion value: Last 7 days / Cost: Last 7 days

5. Budget utilization:

The “Budget Utilization” column shows how much percentage of the set daily budget the campaign has spent on average per day over the last 7 days. It is important that if the daily budget is increased or reduced, the column also changes accordingly.

It is only meaningful if the budget is not adjusted.

Formula:

Cost: Last 7 days / 7 / Daily budget

Conclusion

Custom columns in Google Ads are a powerful tool that allows you to tailor Google Ads data to individual needs. By creating your own columns, you gain deeper insights into your campaign performance and can make informed decisions to optimize results.

We are happy to help you identify and create the right custom columns in your Google Ads account. Just contact us through the contact form and secure your non-binding offer!