# Campaigns — Google Ads

> How to read your Google Ads spend, performance, and attribution in Ordinary once the Google Ads integration is connected.

Source: https://help.tryordinary.com/features/campaigns-google

---

> Google Ads campaign reporting requires **Starter or higher** and
> a connected Google Ads account. See [Connecting Google Ads](https://help.tryordinary.com/integrations/google).

Once Google Ads is connected, Ordinary pulls your campaign,
ad-group, ad, and keyword data and cross-references it with
pixel-observed attribution. Left nav → **Campaigns → Google**.


## The list view

One row per campaign. Columns:

- **Campaign name**
- **Status** (Enabled / Paused / Removed — read directly from
  Google)
- **Channel type** (Search, Display, YouTube, Shopping, Discovery,
  Performance Max)
- **Spend** — cumulative in the date range, in your display
  currency
- **Impressions, Clicks, CTR**
- **Purchases** — Google-reported purchase conversions in the date
  range. Ordinary counts purchase conversion actions only — page-view,
  add-to-cart, and other micro-conversion goals that some Google Ads
  accounts count in their Conversions column (for example, goals
  auto-created by Shopify's Google & YouTube channel app) are
  excluded, so this can read lower than the Conversions column in
  Google Ads itself. The full per-goal split is on the campaign
  detail page's Conversion actions tab.
- **Orders attributed** — orders at your storefront that had this
  campaign in the UTM chain or a Google click identifier match
- **Revenue attributed** — sum of those orders' revenue
- **ROAS** — Revenue attributed / Spend
- **CPA** — Spend / Orders attributed

Click any row to drill down.

## The detail view


The campaign-detail page has tabs for:

- **Ad groups** — same columns as the campaign row, one per ad
  group, with click-through to the ad-level view.
- **Ads + Keywords** — drill into a specific ad group to see ads
  and keywords with the same metric set.
- **Asset Library** — headlines, descriptions, image and video
  creatives associated with the campaign and its ad groups.
- **Placement Breakdown** — performance split by device (mobile /
  desktop / tablet) and network placement (Search, Display,
  YouTube, Shopping, Discovery, Performance Max).
- **Demographic Breakdown** — age range, gender, parental status,
  household income range. Google redacts demographic data when the
  underlying sample size is too small; redacted rows collapse into
  an "Unknown" bucket.
- **Geographic Breakdown** — performance by the physical location of the
  people who saw and clicked your ads. The "Top regions" card breaks your
  spend, conversions, and ROAS out by country and region/state (e.g. which
  U.S. states your customers are in), surfacing your highest-spend regions.
- **Cohort & LTV** — new vs. returning customers acquired by this
  campaign, projected lifetime value, and time-to-conversion
  histograms. First-party join between Google-attributed orders
  and your store-side customer history.
- **Conversion Gap** — compares Google-reported conversions to the
  orders your store actually recorded for this campaign. Surfaces
  attribution gaps so you can see where Google over- or
  under-counts vs. your authoritative store data.
- **Configuration History** — daily snapshots of each campaign's
  budget, status, bidding strategy, and target CPA/ROAS, so you can
  line up a performance shift against the day a setting actually
  changed. Only days where something moved are shown.

A time-series chart at the top of every tab shows spend vs.
revenue (or your selected metric pair) across the date range.

## Attribution model

The model selector at the top of the page affects the "Orders
attributed" and "Revenue attributed" columns. Same four models as
the main attribution report — last-click (default), first-click,
linear, time-decay.

See [Attribution models explained](https://help.tryordinary.com/concepts/attribution-models).

## Why Google's numbers don't match

Like Meta, the Google tab has a **Click-through / View-through** toggle
in the page header. Across your whole account Google will usually report
more conversions than Ordinary's Click-through view — that's expected,
the two count different things, and the gap is a question to test, not a
number that's simply "wrong." Reasons they differ:

- **Google reports cross-device and view-through conversions** via
  its identity graph. Ordinary uses click-based attribution against
  the storefront pixel and the Google click identifier (`gclid`)
  on the order's URL.
- **Attribution window** — Google's is configured per conversion
  action, often 30 days post-click. Ordinary credits the actual last
  ad click in the customer's journey under your chosen model, looking
  back up to **180 days** — a different window and method, so the
  counts won't line up one-to-one.
- **Google adjusts conversion counts retroactively** for several
  weeks as late-arriving conversions arrive. Ordinary's daily
  refresh picks these up; if you're looking at "yesterday's
  numbers" the day-of, Google's count is preliminary.
- **Smart Bidding modeled conversions** — Google fills in gaps
  with modeled conversions (where ITP / consent / cookieless
  shoppers can't be deterministically tracked). Ordinary doesn't
  model — it reports the deterministic count from your storefront
  pixel.
- **Ordinary counts purchases only** — if your Google Ads account
  includes non-purchase goals (page views, add-to-cart, begin
  checkout) in its Conversions column, Google's own UI will show a
  much higher number than Ordinary. The campaign detail page's
  Conversion actions tab shows every goal Google reported so you can
  see exactly what your account is counting. If you see page-view or
  add-to-cart goals listed as primary conversions there, consider
  setting them to Secondary in Google Ads — primary conversion
  actions are also what Google's Smart Bidding optimizes toward.
- **A single campaign can occasionally flip** — show *more*
  click-verified orders in Ordinary than Google reports for it.
  That's last-click crediting the campaign that got the final click,
  while Google spreads credit differently. It evens out at the account
  level — compare totals there, and treat the per-campaign gap as
  directional.

If you need to reconcile specific numbers, use Google Ads for
delivery metrics (impressions, CTR, CPC) and Ordinary for outcome
metrics (orders, revenue, ROAS).

## What if ad spend looks zero

- **Connection expired** — check Settings → Integrations → Google
  Ads. If it says "Needs reauth," click Reconnect.
- **Date range past your plan's lookback** — partial data badge
  will show.
- **Initial sync hasn't run yet** — first sync typically takes
  5–15 minutes after connecting.
- **No spend on Google Ads for the date range** — confirm in
  Google Ads UI directly.

## Related articles

- [Connecting Google Ads](https://help.tryordinary.com/integrations/google)
- [Attribution reports](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/attribution)
- [Attribution models explained](https://help.tryordinary.com/concepts/attribution-models)
- [Cohort & retention reporting](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/cohort-retention)
