If you use the local tracking methods of the Advanced Ads Tracking add-on, it is pretty simple to share impressions and clicks of your ads with advertisers as long as you choose one of the two local methods.
You can send them a link to the non-indexed public statistics or create an automatic email report. But how to manage those reports if you track your ads with Google Analytics instead of the local methods?
This tutorial describes creating custom reports in Google Analytics and sharing these ad statistics with your customers. It will consider both property types: Universal Analytics (UA) and Google Analytics 4.
Table of Contents
Set up the ad tracking with Google Analytics
To record and manage the statistics of your ads in Google Analytics, you first need to choose Google Analytics as your preferred tracking method in Advanced Ads > Settings > Tracking. Then, you can insert one or more Google Analytics tracking IDs.
Afterward, you will find the clicks and impressions of your ads in the event section of your Google Analytics dashboard.
Please find a detailed description of how to set up Google Analytics tracking in our dedicated tutorial.
Create custom ad reports in Universal Analytics
Open your Google Analytics dashboard and navigate to Customization > Custom Reports > New Custom Report.
If you have problems finding the custom reports, please look at this Google Analytics page or our tutorial mentioned above.
Add metrics and dimensions to your report
After clicking on New Custom Report, you can edit a blank one. At first, you should title your report and give it a descriptive name.
Then, you need to add several dimensions (Event Action, Event Label) and metrics (Unique Events, Total Events) to your report.
It is crucial to add those metrics in the proper sequence. Look at the following screenshot and follow my example if you need clarification.
Add filters to show the results of specific ads
Without any filters, your custom report will contain the impressions and clicks of all your ads.
That can be useful for your ad management. But if you share this report with one of your customers, you probably don’t want to show your complete statistics, but just those which belong to the customer’s ads.
You can use the optional filters of Google Analytics to choose individual data sets for your custom report.
If you want to show only statistics for some specific ads, you need to filter the Event Labels. You can combine different filters to exclude or include results.
Share this report or configure an email report
Once you have created the custom report, you can share it with your ad manager, advertisers, or clients.
You are able to export the custom report as a PDF, CSV, or XLSX file. Or you ship this data to Google Spreadsheets.
Of course, you can also automate an email report (PDF, CSV, XLSX) and send it to your customers in a chosen frequency (once, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly).
Create custom ad reports in Google Analytics 4
If you use a Google Analytics 4 property for your tracking, the backend will look slightly different, and you will find your data elsewhere.
To create an ad report, it’s best to navigate to Reports > Engagement > Events.
On this page, you’ll first see all recorded events, not just those directly related to your ads.
But don’t worry; you can now customize and share this data according to your needs.
Filter results of particular ads
To map the performance data of one or more specific ads in a report, click the button to add a filter. Now you can fine-tune this filter on the right side of the screen.
Select the dimension Custom > Advanced Ads in the “Include” tab to do this. Then, under “Dimension Values”, you can select the ads whose performance data you want to map in your report in a dropdown.
When you have made your selection, press the Apply button to save it. After that, the report will update and show only events related to Advanced Ads. In addition, the data is now limited to the selected ad units.
Share Google Analytics 4 reports
Unfortunately, Google Analytics 4 does not let you automatically send these reports as an email, as you can do that in Universal Analytics properties. However, you do have the option to share your reports in another way.
To do so, click on the share icon on the right side in the upper part of the screen. You can now get a direct link you can share with your customers. Remember that your customers also need access to your property to open this link.
Alternatively, you can download this report as a CSV or PDF file and send it to your customer.
Joachim started marketing his first local news website in 2009. Shortly after, he successfully monetized his travel blogs about Morocco. He is an expert in affiliate marketing in the tourism and travel industry. When he's not writing tutorials for Advanced Ads or supporting other users, he prefers staying in Marrakech or at the Baltic Sea.