PPC Reporting Tools: Use Cases, Types, and More

Tracking PPC (pay-per-click) performance across multiple ad platforms helps businesses manage ad spending and improve campaigns. Built-in tools like Google Ads offer basic insights. However, PPC reporting software like TapClicks provides custom PPC reports, cross-channel reporting, and actionable insights.

In this post, we'll look at three types of PPC reporting tools agencies use. We'll also discuss TapClicks' detailed PPC reporting and analytics capabilities to give you insight into your pay-per-click marketing campaigns that can be extrapolated, graphed, and presented to your clients.

TapClicks simplifies the reporting process by pulling all your PPC data into one platform. Book a demo and start a 14-day free trial today!

What Is a PPC Reporting Tool?

A PPC reporting tool collects PPC data from platforms like Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Bing Ads. They help businesses track PPC performance, monitor key metrics, and optimize campaigns.

For most agencies evaluating their PPC reporting software options, price, scalability, and ease of use are typically the first criteria that come to mind. While there are more factors to consider, we think there are two in particular that are worth more attention than they receive:

1. Is this PPC reporting software going to make me better at marketing?

2. Will this PPC reporting software promote sales enablement?

The best PPC reporting tools will help you gain data-driven insights to develop, execute, and maintain your clients' paid marketing strategies. This requires more than just scalability, ease of use, and straight reporting. You need data enrichment and data transformation, two features often missing in PPC reporting tools.

Having a tool that improves your paid marketing efforts ties directly into sales enablement. Users can show value to internal stakeholders (such as your head of marketing) to help justify your PPC budget. Similarly, you can present this data to external stakeholders (such as your clients and potential clients) to keep SOWs ongoing while signing on new accounts.

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The Four Main Use Cases of PPC Reporting Tools

Running PPC campaigns across different ad platforms makes tracking performance difficult. Businesses use PPC reporting software to collect data, create reports, and improve decision-making.

These tools help manage multiple reports by organizing data, automating updates, and making client communication easier.

1. Handling Disparate Data Sources

Most of your agency's clients are advertising on multiple channels and across different media. This means several disparate data sources need to be tied together. However, doing it manually is time-consuming and prone to errors.

The more data sources you handle manually, the more likely a human error will be made. Even small mistakes in PPC analytics can lead to huge misreading of the data. If you're showing an inflated return on ad spend (ROAS), you can let a problem go undetected for weeks or longer.

Eventually, the accurate data will rise to the top, and you'll have lost the trust of your client.

PPC reporting software solves both of these problems by automatically pulling data from different platforms into a single dashboard. Unfortunately, that's where plenty of PPC reporting software solutions stop. Getting data into a dashboard is only half the battle of handling disparate data sources.

What you should look for is a tool that understands the different types of intent behind different advertising platforms.

Different Platforms Bring Different Data

For example, Facebook is a more socially motivated platform. People on Facebook want to see updates from their friends, and then they find your ad. So, the data you're collecting from Facebook is gathered from more discovery-based ads.

Compare that to Google, which is more inbound-based, where people go to Google to search for an answer. The clicks you get on Google Ads (or even Bing Ads) tell a fundamentally different story than those on Facebook Ads.

So, the hard part for marketers is tying these data sources together and telling the overall story of their pay-per-click advertising efforts to their clients.

Agencies often struggle to evaluate the effect of multi-touch attribution properly. Multi-touch attribution is when a customer sees an ad on one platform but doesn't convert. Then, they see a different version of the ad elsewhere, and they do convert.

Turning off, say, Facebook ads would be a mistake if Facebook helped boost your Google Ad conversions. By telling the whole story of your PPC efforts, this is where PPC reporting software can show the value you bring to your clients.

2. Building Client-Facing Reports

Client-facing marketing reports need to be presentable, professional, and intuitive to read. High-quality PPC reporting software offers white-label functionality, as well.

White labeling allows you to customize your reports according to your or your clients’ branding. Both of these help create brand recognition by setting your agency apart from the competition.

If you're building reports manually, it's another task that can consume hours of your week. Some agencies will spend an entire business day just working on reports.

This is because they have to tie all the disparate data sources together. Plus, they need to add data visualization (graphs, charts, etc.) and customize the report for the client. A client doesn't need to see every metric; they need to see proof that your paid marketing efforts are working.

Another major factor in building client-facing reports is labeling metrics correctly. Let's say you're bringing data from Google and Facebook. Google calls the data cost, and Facebook calls it spend. These metrics measure the same thing.

However, these data sets are under different names, which means you need a tool to help calculate your total spending across Google and Facebook. Otherwise, your report will be hard to read, and your wins will be more difficult to illustrate.

3. Sending Out Reports Automatically

Like handling different data sources manually, sending out reports without PPC reporting software is time-consuming and repetitive.

The best PPC reporting software can:

• Aggregate data

• Turn it into a shareable report

• Send it out on a schedule you've assigned (such as daily, weekly, or monthly)

The goal of PPC reporting software is, in part, to free up your time (or your team's time). This way, you focus on monitoring Facebook ads or developing new pay-per-click strategies for a new product rollout.

4. Bringing on New PPC Clients

Marketing agencies always want to bring on new clients. Sometimes, the clients want to work with these agencies, but the agencies can't handle the extra workload.

This is an annoying (and growth-stopping) pain point that PPC reporting software can help solve. It gives your agency the necessary tools to replicate and automate processes.

For example, If you have five clients and they're eCommerce brands focusing on Facebook and Google Search ads, you can create templates specific to those clients. If you found success with running strategic multi-touch attribution campaigns, you'd create dashboards for those custom metrics.

Now, when a new eCommerce client signs on to work with your agency, you don't have to waste time building a new dashboard or reporting template for them.

Track, analyze, and optimize your PPC campaigns with TapClicks. Get your custom-built dashboards. Book a demo now!

The Three Main Types of PPC Reporting Software

There are three main types of PPC reporting software most agencies are considering when evaluating different solutions: Business Intelligence (BI) platforms, Extract/Transform/Load (ETL) tools, and straight reporting platforms.

Here's a closer look at each one and what they can offer your agency:

1. BI Platforms

Business intelligence (BI) tools like Domo, Looker, Datorama, and Tableau can function as PPC reporting software. However, they are not designed with marketing agencies in mind. These platforms serve ERP, accounting, and HR systems, making them broad in scope but lacking depth in paid marketing insights.

Some BI platforms use their own modeling languages to create SQL-based data relationships, which can be complex for agencies that focus on PPC campaign management rather than database management.

• BI tools are built for broad use, not marketing-specific needs.

• They often require SQL knowledge, making them harder to use for agencies focused on PPC performance.

• Marketing agencies handle multiple brands and require cross-channel reporting, which many BI tools do not specialize in.

• Advanced BI tools can be overcomplicated, similar to using an iPad just for basic calculations.

While BI tools support various industries, few are built specifically for marketing agencies.

Brands may manage fewer integration channels, but agencies working with multiple clients need scalable PPC reporting solutions that focus on ad performance, automation, and cross-platform insights.

The difference between a brand and an agency is significant. Agencies have a wider and more diverse set of marketing-specific needs.

2. ETL/Data Funneling Tools

An ETL (extract, transform, load) tool—also called a data funneling tool—isn't technically PPC reporting software. Instead, it's a tool agencies use to get their data into reporting software.

So, why use ETL software instead of a BI tool or a straight PPC reporting tool?

Most BI tools are complex and not specifically designed to help marketing agencies improve PPC performance for their clients. ETL software provides agencies with the ability to extract, transform, and analyze data without the need for a full BI platform.

Agencies may find ETL tools useful if they use cloud-based data management systems to store and analyze PPC data. For example, an agency that wants to consolidate paid marketing data in Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) or a data warehouse can use an ETL solution to automate this process.

However, ETL tools can be costly and often require IT support to set up and run.. This can be burdensome on marketing departments who need fast access to their data.

To address this gap, TapClicks offers ETL solution called TapData that provides everything that marketing departments need without getting other departments involved. This allows agencies to gain valuable insights without committing to high-cost, high-effort ETL or BI platforms.

3. Straight PPC Reporting Tools

Finally, there are straight PPC reporting tools. These include TapClicks to help marketing agencies get the data they need.

TapClicks is a comprehensive marketing operations and analytics platform that helps agencies analyze, optimize, automate, and report on various marketing channels, including PPC.

Setting up a TapClicks account begins with connecting ad networks like Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, and Bing Ads. It integrates with Google Analytics and CRM platforms like Salesforce for deeper performance tracking and attribution. This setup takes only a few minutes.

Once connected, users can generate white-label custom reports that update automatically, reducing manual work. One TapClicks client, BusinessOnline, saved 960 hours by using the platform to pull data from LinkedIn Campaign Manager. Eliminating manual reporting allows the agency to reallocate a full-time employee to focus on:

• Strategy development instead of data entry

• Higher-value tasks that drive business growth

• Client insights and campaign optimization rather than routine reporting

However, traditional PPC reporting tools have limitations, particularly in data enrichment and data transformation. Agencies looking for deeper insights may need advanced reporting solutions that support custom data modifications and enhanced cross-platform analysis.

Get started today and take control of your PPC data! Try TapClicks Now

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How TapClicks Helps Marketers Get Better Results and Promotes Sales Enablement

At TapClicks, the best PPC reporting software goes beyond data aggregation and automated reporting. Many tools offer white-label reports, scheduled updates, and cross-platform integration, but the true value comes from data enrichment and data transformation—key features that help marketers optimize campaigns and drive business growth.

How TapClicks Enhances PPC Reporting

A strong PPC reporting tool should:

• Improve marketing strategy by providing deeper insights into PPC performance.

• Support sales enablement by demonstrating ROI and helping businesses increase marketing budgets.

Data Enrichment: Understanding Lead Quality

Merging multiple data sources into one dashboard provides a more complete view of PPC marketing efforts. A basic PPC reporting tool may show that a Facebook Ads campaign generated ten leads, but without data enrichment, it won’t reveal who those leads are or whether they converted.

Integrating CRM data allows TapClicks to show which campaigns drove those leads, allowing businesses to evaluate lead quality rather than just lead volume. This helps determine whether increasing an ad budget is worthwhile or if adjustments are needed.

Data Transformation: Making PPC Data More Actionable

Pulling data from Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Bing Ads is not enough. Data transformation allows businesses to blend multiple PPC data sources into a unified report, making it easier to analyze performance across different platforms. Here’s how TapClicks can help:

• Combines similar metrics, such as Facebook’s spend and Google’s cost, into a single view.

• Tracks multi-touch attribution, showing how users interact with different ad platforms before converting.

With TapClicks, businesses get more than just PPC reports—they gain a complete view of advertising performance, helping them make informed decisions and drive better results.

A Bonus of Using TapClicks: We Built Our Platform With Our Clients

TapClicks was built to help marketing agencies tackle complex PPC reporting and analytics challenges. From the start, the platform was developed in collaboration with customers to address both basic reporting needs and more advanced data transformation issues.

One agency, for example, required a way to segment PPC data based on specific naming conventions. In response, TapClicks created a find-and-replace solution, allowing businesses to modify metric names and standardize reports across multiple clients.

With all PPC data consolidated in TapClicks, users can leverage the find-and-replace tool to maintain consistency in reporting. Transforming raw data into structured insights will allow agencies to present a clearer narrative of campaign performance and client value.

Looking for an all-in-one solution? Book a demo with TapClicks today and see how it can maximize your PPC performance.

TapClicks Is the Right PPC Reporting Solution for Your Agency

TapClicks was built with direct input from marketing agencies to solve real PPC reporting challenges. Instead of offering a generic solution, TapClicks developed features based on actual customer needs, addressing both basic reporting processes and complex data transformation.

TapClicks created a find-and-replace tool that allows businesses to rename metrics and standardize custom PPC reports across multiple clients. This feature ensures data consistency and makes reporting clearer.

Once data is imported, users can modify and organize it to create meaningful insights that highlight key performance indicators (KPIs) and demonstrate campaign success.

Stop wasting time on manual reports—get your custom-built dashboards plus a 14-day trial. Book a demo today!

FAQs About PPC Reporting Tools

What is PPC reporting?

PPC reporting is the process of tracking and analyzing PPC campaign performance across Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Bing Ads, and other ad platforms. It helps businesses measure key metrics like click-through rate (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC), conversion rate (CVR), and return on ad spend (ROAS) to optimize their advertising efforts.

Which tool is used for PPC?

Businesses use Google Ads reports, Google Data Studio, TapClicks, Supermetrics, ReportGarden, and Optmyzr to track and optimize their PPC campaigns. The best tool depends on the level of automation, cross-channel reporting, and data visualization needed.

How do I monitor PPC?

You can monitor PPC performance using built-in reporting tools like Google Ads reports or advanced PPC reporting software like TapClicks or Supermetrics. These tools help track ad spend, conversions, and audience engagement in real time.

Which is the best reporting tool in the market?

The best PPC reporting tool depends on business needs. Google Data Studio is great for free reporting, TapClicks offers cross-platform reporting and automation, and Optmyzr provides AI-driven PPC optimization.

How do I automate PPC reporting?

Use TapClicks, Supermetrics, or ReportGarden to automate PPC data collection and schedule custom reports. These tools pull real-time data from Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Bing Ads into one platform. Some offer drag-and-drop dashboards for easier customization.