# Data Overview

Microsoft Ads reports contain performance data across your campaigns, keywords, ads, audiences, and more. Each report type returns different dimensions (grouping fields) and metrics (numeric values).

## Report categories

| Category                  | Reports                                                                           | Use case                                                     |
| ------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Campaign & structure**  | Campaign performance, Ad group performance, Account performance                   | Monitor overall account health and campaign performance      |
| **Keywords & search**     | Keyword performance, Search query performance, Negative keyword conflict          | Analyze keyword ROI and user search intent                   |
| **Ads & creatives**       | Ad performance, Ad extension detail, Dynamic text ads, Asset performance          | Test ad copy and track creative performance                  |
| **Conversions**           | Conversion performance, Goals and funnels, Call detail                            | Measure conversion sources and funnel flow                   |
| **Audiences**             | Audience performance, Age gender audience, Professional demographics              | Understand demographic and audience segment performance      |
| **Shopping & products**   | Product dimension performance, Product partition performance, Product match count | Track product-level metrics in Shopping campaigns            |
| **Hotel & accommodation** | Hotel dimension performance, Hotel group performance                              | Monitor hotel ad group and dimension performance             |
| **Advanced**              | DSA performance, Share of voice, Budget summary, Search campaign change history   | Track Display Search Ads, market share, budgets, and changes |

## Campaign & structure metrics

#### Performance metrics

* **Impressions** — Number of times your ads appeared
* **Clicks** — Number of clicks on your ads
* **Spend** — Total cost of all clicks
* **CTR** — Click-through rate (clicks ÷ impressions)
* **Average CPC** — Average cost per click
* **Average position** — Average ad position in results

#### Share metrics

* **Impression share** — Your impressions ÷ estimated total available impressions
* **Absolute top impression share** — Impressions at position 1 ÷ total available
* **Top impression share** — Impressions at positions 1–2 ÷ total available
* **Click share** — Your clicks ÷ estimated total clicks available

#### Impression loss metrics

* **Impression lost to budget** — Impressions lost due to low daily budget
* **Impression lost to rank** — Impressions lost due to low ad rank

## Conversion metrics

#### Conversion data

* **Conversions** — Total tracked conversions
* **Conversion rate** — Conversions ÷ clicks
* **Cost per conversion** — Spend ÷ conversions
* **Revenue** — Total e-commerce or app revenue attributed to clicks
* **Return on ad spend (ROAS)** — Revenue ÷ spend
* **Assists** — Attributed assists (if multi-touch attribution is enabled)

#### Quality metrics

* **Quality score** — Microsoft's relevance score (1–10)
* **Expected CTR** — Predicted ad click rate
* **Ad relevance** — How relevant your ad is to the search query
* **Landing page experience** — Quality of your landing page

## Keyword & search dimensions

#### Keyword level

* **Keyword** — The keyword text
* **Match type** — Broad, phrase, exact, or broad match modified
* **Status** — Enabled, paused, or removed
* **Quality score** — Microsoft's relevance score
* **Bid** — Current keyword bid

#### Search level

* **Search query** — Actual search term a user entered
* **Query intent** — Inferred intent (city, country, DMA, postal code)
* **Top vs other** — Whether ad appeared in top positions or side
* **Device type** — Mobile, desktop, or tablet
* **Network** — Bing, Yahoo, AOL, or search partners

## Ad & creative dimensions

#### Ad structure

* **Ad ID** — Unique ad identifier
* **Ad group** — Ad group name and ID
* **Campaign** — Campaign name and ID
* **Ad type** — Expanded text ad, responsive search ad, product ad, etc.
* **Status** — Enabled or paused

#### Ad elements

* **Title** — Ad headline (Title part 1, 2, or 3 for responsive ads)
* **Description** — Ad description line
* **Final URL** — Destination URL
* **Display URL** — URL shown in ad
* **Custom parameters** — Tracking parameters

#### Performance by asset

* **Asset ID** — Unique asset identifier
* **Asset type** — Text, image, video, etc.
* **Asset content** — The actual text or asset content
* **Asset impressions** — Impressions this asset appeared in

## Audience & demographic dimensions

#### Audience segments

* **Audience name** — Name of the audience list or segment
* **Audience type** — Remarketing list, in-market audience, similar audience, etc.
* **Bid adjustment** — Bid modifier applied to this audience

#### Demographics

* **Age group** — Age range (18–24, 25–34, 35–49, 50–64, 65+)
* **Gender** — Male, female, or unknown
* **Professional demographics** — Job function, company size, industry (B2B only)

## Common metric combinations

**Quick health check:** Impressions, Clicks, Spend, CTR, Avg CPC

* Tells you volume, efficiency, and average cost

**Conversion analysis:** Conversions, Conversion Rate, Cost per Conversion, Revenue, ROAS

* Measures ROI and conversion efficiency

**Quality optimization:** Quality Score, Expected CTR, Ad Relevance, Landing Page Experience

* Identifies areas to improve ad and landing page quality

**Share of voice:** Impression Share, Absolute Top Impression Share, Click Share

* Shows your market position vs. competitors

**Trend analysis:** Any metric with Split by Period = Daily/Weekly/Monthly

* Reveals seasonal patterns and campaign momentum

## Use cases by role

{% tabs %}
{% tab title="PPC Managers" %}
**Goal:** Monitor campaign performance and optimize bids and budgets.

**Reports to pull:**

* **Campaign performance** — Review spend, conversions, ROAS by campaign daily or weekly
* **Keyword performance** — Identify high-performing and underperforming keywords; pause or increase bids on top performers
* **Search query performance** — Find new keyword opportunities and negative keywords from actual user searches
* **Quality score trends** — Track quality score changes over time to spot relevance issues early

**Pro tip:** Use **Append** to combine Microsoft Ads data with Google Ads data in a single dashboard for unified account oversight. Use **Aggregate** to roll up keyword metrics to the ad group level for faster reporting.
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="Analysts" %}
**Goal:** Analyze performance trends, understand user behavior, and support strategic decisions.

**Reports to pull:**

* **Search query performance** — Understand search intent, seasonal trends, and user language
* **Geographic performance** — Identify high-performing regions and markets
* **Audience performance** — Test audience targeting strategies and segment performance
* **Conversion performance** — Analyze conversion sources and cost per conversion by campaign or audience

**Pro tip:** Use **Split by Period** (Daily/Weekly/Monthly) to create trend charts in Looker Studio. Export to BigQuery and use SQL to combine Microsoft Ads data with other business data for deeper insights.
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="Marketing Leaders" %}
**Goal:** Track ROI, budget allocation, and overall campaign effectiveness.

**Reports to pull:**

* **Account performance** — High-level overview of total spend, conversions, and ROAS across all accounts
* **Campaign performance with share statistics** — See market position (impression share, top impression share) alongside ROI
* **Conversion performance** — Understand which campaigns and audiences drive the most conversions
* **Budget summary** — Verify daily budget spend and identify under-utilized budgets

**Pro tip:** Create a dashboard in Looker Studio or ChatGPT that auto-updates daily. Use **Join** to link campaign names from your internal planning sheet to Microsoft Ads data for budget variance analysis.
{% endtab %}
{% endtabs %}

## Platform-specific notes

* **API latency:** Microsoft Ads data can take 24–48 hours to fully process. Your report might not include today's data; schedule imports for early morning to capture the previous day's complete data.
* **Holiday and weekend data:** Microsoft may temporarily exclude data during holidays or weekends. If your report looks incomplete, wait a few hours and retry.
* **Revenue metric behavior:** The Revenue metric is exported as text by some report types. In Looker Studio, you may need to convert it to a number using a calculated field. See [Common Issues](#common-issues) for a workaround.
* **Account access:** You must be an Admin or Standard user on the Microsoft Ads account. Read-only users cannot authorize the connection.
* **Multiple accounts:** You can select multiple Microsoft Ads accounts in a single data flow and append data from all of them.
* **Custom report fields:** When creating a custom report, select both a **Resource** (e.g., Campaigns, Keywords, Ads) and relevant **Dimensions** and **Metrics** for that resource.
* **Performance Max campaigns:** If you run Performance Max campaigns, use the **Campaign performance report** to pull overall metrics, but note that detailed keyword and ad-level data is not available for Performance Max (Microsoft optimizes keywords internally).