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What Should Be in a Monthly Google Ads Report for a Plumbing Company?

Quick Answer: A legitimate monthly Google Ads report for a plumbing company should clearly show: total conversions (calls + form fills), cost per lead, total ad spend, conversion rate, and a summary of what changed or was optimized that month. If your report doesn't show actual lead counts and cost per lead — just clicks, impressions, and click-through rate — it's not giving you the information you need to know whether your money is working.


You get a report every month from your Google Ads agency. It's got a lot of colorful graphs. Numbers. Percentages. It looks professional.


But when you put it down and try to answer the question 'did my marketing work this month?' — you still don't know.


That's not a report. That's a distraction.


Here's exactly what a monthly Google Ads report for a plumbing company should include — and why each piece matters.


The Non-Negotiable Core Metrics

These five numbers should be impossible to miss in any report worth reading:


1. Total Conversions

How many leads did your ads generate this month? This means actual calls and form fills — not clicks, not site visits, not impressions. Conversions.


This is the number that ties most directly to your business results. Everything else in the report provides context for this number. If this number isn't prominently displayed, the report is burying the lead.


2. Cost Per Lead (Cost Per Conversion)

Total ad spend divided by total conversions. If you spent $1,800 and got 20 leads, your cost per lead was $90.


This is your most important efficiency metric. It tells you what you're paying for each opportunity. For plumbing companies, $60-$150 per lead is typical depending on market. Know your number. Track it month over month.


3. Total Ad Spend

How much did Google actually charge you in ad spend? This should match your credit card statement. Not the budget you set — the actual amount spent.


4. Conversion Rate

Of everyone who clicked your ads, what percentage became a lead? Calculated as: (conversions / clicks) x 100.


For home service companies, 8-15% is a healthy conversion rate. Under 5% often points to a landing page issue. This number helps you separate 'the ads are working but the website is losing leads' from 'the ads themselves aren't attracting the right clicks.'


5. Clicks

How many times did someone click your ad? Useful for context and calculating conversion rate, but not a primary success metric on its own. Clicks without conversions don't pay your bills.


If your report leads with impressions and click-through rate and buries conversions in the fine print — or doesn't include conversions at all — ask for a revised report with these five numbers front and center. Any agency managing Google Ads for a home service company should know these are the metrics that matter.


Campaign-Level Performance Breakdown

A good report doesn't just give you totals — it breaks performance down by campaign so you can see what's working and what isn't.


For a typical plumbing company, this might show:

  • Emergency Plumbing Campaign: 12 leads, $72 cost per lead, 14% conversion rate

  • Water Heater Campaign: 6 leads, $118 cost per lead, 9% conversion rate

  • Drain Cleaning Campaign: 4 leads, $155 cost per lead, 7% conversion rate


That breakdown tells you something useful: emergency campaigns are your most efficient. Drain cleaning leads cost more than twice as much as emergency leads. Maybe you scale emergency budget up and reduce drain cleaning spend — or investigate why drain cleaning conversion rate is lagging.


You can't make those decisions from a single rolled-up total. Campaign-level data is essential.


Month-Over-Month Comparison

Every metric should be shown alongside last month's numbers so you can see the trend. Not just 'this month we got 18 leads' but '18 leads this month vs. 22 last month — here's what changed.'


Seasonal context matters here too. A plumbing company getting fewer emergency calls in May vs. January isn't necessarily a campaign problem — it's seasonality. A good report acknowledges that context rather than presenting raw numbers without explanation.


What Changed This Month (The Optimization Summary)

This section separates agencies that are actively working from agencies that are collecting fees.


Every month, your agency should be able to tell you specifically what they did to improve your account:

  • New negative keywords added (and how many)

  • Ad copy tests run or paused

  • Keyword bids adjusted (which keywords and why)

  • Budget reallocations between campaigns

  • Landing page recommendations made

  • Any campaign structural changes


If the 'what we did this month' section is empty, vague ('continued monitoring and optimizing campaigns'), or missing entirely — your account is being managed passively, not actively. You're paying for vigilance and getting neglect.


Ask your agency to produce a specific change log for each month. Not a paragraph of general language about 'ongoing optimization.' A real list: 'Added 34 negative keywords. Paused 3 underperforming ad groups. Tested 2 new headline variations. Increased emergency campaign budget by 15% based on strong performance.' That's what active management looks like.


Search Terms Highlights

A strong monthly report will include a sampling of top-performing and top-wasting search terms.


Top performing: the actual search queries that drove your best-converting clicks. This tells you what language your customers actually use — useful for ad copy refinement and for understanding your audience.


Top wasting: irrelevant searches that burned budget, now added to the negative keyword list. This shows the agency is cleaning up the account regularly.


You shouldn't need to go find this yourself in the account every month. The agency should be surfacing it.


Quality Score and Account Health Indicators

Not every report needs to deep-dive on these, but a monthly note on account health is useful:

  • Average Quality Score — Google's rating (1-10) of your ads' relevance. 7+ is good. Below 5 for important keywords means your ad relevance or landing page experience needs work.

  • Impression Share — what percentage of auctions you're winning. Low impression share often means budget constraints or bid competitiveness issues.

  • Invalid Clicks — Google automatically filters fraudulent clicks, but knowing this number is zero or near-zero confirms your budget isn't leaking to bot traffic.


What Should NOT Be the Focus of Your Report

Some metrics show up prominently in reports that don't actually tell you much about whether your campaigns are working:

  • Impressions — how many times your ad appeared. Irrelevant unless combined with CTR and conversion data.

  • Average ad position — deprecated metric that Google removed from the main interface years ago. Some reports still reference it. It doesn't tell you much.

  • Click-through rate alone — CTR without conversion data is incomplete. A high CTR that doesn't convert is just expensive popularity.

  • 'Reach' metrics — relevant for brand awareness campaigns, not for lead generation.


These metrics aren't useless — they provide context. But when they're the headline of your report and conversions are buried or missing, someone is managing your expectations instead of your account.


FAQ: Monthly Google Ads Reports for Plumbing Companies

How detailed should my monthly report be?

Long enough to be informative, short enough to be readable. A 2-3 page report with clear visuals for the core metrics, campaign breakdown, optimization summary, and any notable insights is ideal. A 15-page PDF crammed with every available metric isn't more useful — it's more confusing. Clarity over volume.


My agency sends automated dashboard reports. Is that enough?

Only if the dashboard shows the right metrics. Many automated reporting tools (AgencyAnalytics, DataBox, etc.) can be configured to show meaningful data or configured to show vanity metrics. Log into your dashboard and check: does it show conversions, cost per lead, and a campaign breakdown? If it only shows traffic and click data, ask your agency to reconfigure it to include conversion metrics.


Should the monthly report include a phone call walkthrough?

For most home service companies spending $1,500+/month, yes — a monthly check-in call (even 20-30 minutes) is worth doing. Reports are better with context. An agency that can walk you through what the data means, what changed, and what they're watching for next month is doing more than order-taking. Some agencies include this by default; others charge extra. It's worth asking for.


What should I do if my report never mentions negative keywords?

Ask specifically: 'Can you show me the negative keyword list for our account and tell me how many have been added in the last 90 days?' A well-managed account adds negative keywords regularly — at least monthly. If the list has been static for 3+ months, keyword hygiene is being neglected and budget is almost certainly being wasted on irrelevant searches.


Is it a red flag if I can't understand my own report?

Yes. Your report should be understandable by you — a smart, busy business owner who doesn't have a marketing degree. If you need a translator for every section, either the report is poorly designed for your audience or it's intentionally complex to obscure simple facts. Ask your agency to reformat it: 'Can you send me a one-page summary that answers: how many leads did we get, what did each one cost, and what changed this month?' Any decent agency can produce that.


Ready to stop guessing where your leads come from? KaeRae Marketing handles Google Ads and local SEO exclusively for home service businesses — no contracts, no confusion, no runaround. Book a free consultation and find out exactly what's possible for your business.


Want to learn this stuff yourself? KaeRae Education has courses, resources, and a membership community built specifically for home service business owners. Visit KaeRaeEducation.com.

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