Updated 2026-10-24

Google Ads Looker Studio template: what to include and how to set it up

A Google Ads report in Looker Studio (now Data Studio, after Google changed the name back in 2026) should answer three questions quickly. What did we spend? What did we get for it? What should we change next? Most templates add charts until those answers get buried. This guide covers what belongs in a useful Google Ads Looker Studio template, how to connect it with Google’s free native connector, and the mistakes that make report numbers disagree with the Google Ads interface.

You can follow along with our free Google Ads Starter template, or build your own from scratch with the same structure.

Start with the audience, not the charts

Before you add a single chart, decide who reads the report:

• A client or business owner wants spend, results, cost per result and a trend. They rarely need keyword-level detail.
• A PPC manager wants to know where to act: campaigns limited by budget, keywords that spend without converting, search terms to add as negatives.
• An agency lead wants to compare accounts side by side.

A good template serves the first group on page one and the second group on the pages after it. Comparing accounts (the third group) is a separate problem, covered near the end.

The KPIs to include

Use the field names that Google’s Google Ads connector shows. That way anyone who edits the report later can find them in the field list.

Show each headline KPI as a scorecard compared with the previous period. A number with no comparison invites “is that good?” questions. A number with a green or red delta answers them.

Impression share deserves extra attention, because it’s the most useful metric that most templates leave out. If a campaign converts well but loses a lot of impression share to budget, the obvious next step is to raise its budget. If it loses impression share to rank, the fix is bids, ad quality or landing page experience instead. Google explains how these metrics are calculated in Get impression share data.

A page structure that works

Four pages cover most needs without overwhelming anyone.

1. Overview

• Eight scorecards: Cost, Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Avg. CPC, Conversions, Cost / conv., Conv. value / cost.
• A time series with two axes: Cost against Conversions by day. If cost goes up while conversions stay flat, you can see it straight away.
• A bar chart of cost and conversions by Advertising Channel Type (Search, Performance Max, Display, Video and so on).

2. Campaigns

One table with Campaign, Campaign status, Cost, Clicks, CTR, Conversions, Cost / conv., Conv. value / cost, Search Impr. share and the two “lost IS” columns. Add heatmap colouring to Cost / conv. and the lost-IS columns, so problem rows stand out without anyone reading every number.

3. Keywords and search terms

• A keyword table with Keyword, Keyword match type, Quality score, Clicks, Cost and Conversions.
• A search term table with Search term, Clicks, Cost and Conversions. This is where negative keyword ideas come from.
• A scatter chart of Cost (x) against Conversions (y) per keyword. Keywords far to the right and close to the bottom are spending without converting.

Note that keyword and search term data only exist for campaigns that use keywords. Performance Max campaigns appear on the Overview and Campaigns pages but not here. Say so on the page so nobody thinks data is missing.

4. Audience and device

• Device split (pie or bar).
• A geo map by Country/Territory, or by City for local businesses.
• A heatmap of conversions by Day of week × Hour of day, which is useful when you set ad schedules.

Filters and controls

Put the same controls at the top of every page:

• Date range control, defaulting to the last 28 days, with comparison to the previous period.
• Data control to switch the Google Ads account. This one control turns a static report into a reusable template: anyone with access to an account can view the report with their own data. Google documents it in Data control.
• Drop-down filters for Advertising Channel Type, Campaign and Device.

How to set it up with the native connector

Google’s own Google Ads connector is free. You don’t need a third-party connector for a standard report. The official steps are in Connect to Google Ads. In short:

1. Sign in to Looker Studio / Data Studio and click Create → Data source.
2. Choose the Google Ads connector and authorize access if prompted.
3. Under All accounts, select the account (you can search by ID or name), choose Overall Account Fields, and click Connect. Google says this option combines all your Google Ads fields into a single list.
4. Check the field list, add any calculated fields you need, and click Create report (or Add to report if you’re adding the source to an existing template).
5. If you started from a template, open it, click ⋮ → Make a copy, and swap the template’s sample data source for your new one.

Owner’s vs viewer’s credentials

On the data source you choose who can see the data (About data sources):

• Owner’s credentials: viewers see the data through your access. Use this for client reports when the client doesn’t have their own login to the Google Ads account. Share only with people you trust to see that data.
• Viewer’s credentials: each viewer needs their own access to the account. Use this for internal or self-serve templates.

Manager (MCC) accounts and multiple clients

Google’s documentation says a single Google Ads data source can connect to one account, or, through a manager (MCC) account, to up to 50 sub-accounts. Viewers then need access to the manager account and the selected sub-accounts, not just the sub-accounts. When you select a manager account you can add an Account (or customer name) dimension to a table and compare clients side by side.

If your accounts aren’t under one manager, or you want to mix in GA4 or Search Console data, you’ll need blends. A blend joins up to five data sources on shared dimensions such as Date. Blends work, but they’re easy to get wrong. Pick the join type deliberately, and remember that metrics with mismatched dimensions can duplicate or drop rows.

Why your numbers don’t match Google Ads

When a client says “the report is wrong”, it’s almost always one of these:

1. Date range or time zone. Data uses the account’s time zone. Make sure the report and the UI cover the same days.
2. Conversions vs All conv. “Conversions” includes only conversion actions in that column (primary actions). “All conv.” includes everything. Pick one, use it everywhere, and label it.
3. Recent conversions are still coming in. Conversions are credited back to the click date, so the last few days can increase after the report is first viewed.
4. Filters on the page. A leftover campaign filter on one chart is easy to miss. Check each chart’s filter settings.
5. Data freshness. Data sources cache results. You can refresh data from the report menu, and adjust freshness on the data source.

Design rules that make reports readable

• Keep page one to a single screen: scorecards, one trend and one breakdown.
• Use the same colour for the same metric on every page (for example, cost always red and conversions always green).
• Format currency and percentages in the data source, not chart by chart.
• Put a short “How to read this report” note on page one, and a link to it on every other page.
• Label anything that might surprise people, such as “Keyword data excludes Performance Max”.

Checklist

• Native Google Ads data source, Overall Account Fields
• Scorecards with previous-period comparison
• Cost vs conversions trend
• Campaign table with impression share lost to budget and rank
• Keyword, search term and cost-vs-conversion scatter
• Device, geo and hour-of-day heatmap
• Date range control, data control and campaign filters on every page
• Credentials chosen deliberately before sharing

Get the template

Our free Google Ads Looker Studio template follows this exact structure. You can preview it with your own account through the data control before you copy it. If you report on many accounts, the multi-client pack adds an account roll-up and white-label client pages for $39 one-time, with a 14-day refund.