Ads Spend report

Who this is for: marketers who run Google Ads for their own company, and digital agencies who manage Google Ads for their clients and report on it every month.

What you'll learn: what the Ads Spend report shows, how its Scale, Watch and Investigate verdicts are reached, why it reads differently from Google Ads, how to run it in your AI assistant, how to share it with a manager or a client, and how to take it further with your own questions.

Google Ads tells you what a click cost. It can't tell you whether the person behind the click was a buyer, a researcher, a bot or someone who left after a second, so the campaigns and keywords that look cheapest are often the ones that bring the least. The Ads Spend report starts from the other end: what your paid traffic costs per visitor worth having, which campaigns and keywords bring the people who became Engaged Leads and Won/Closed, and where the same money would do more.

In short: The Ads Spend report is a ready-made report your AI assistant builds from your Bread & Butter data and your connected Google Ads account, for any period you choose. It shows what each campaign type, campaign, keyword, landing page and region costs per Focused visitor and per Engaged Lead, how Google's conversion count compares with the people who raised their hand, and which keywords send people to the wrong page. Every campaign and keyword carries a status or a Scale, Watch or Investigate verdict, judged against your own account. Your assistant then suggests up to three budget shifts at the same total spend, and the report tracks every change you make in Google Ads and what it did. Run it monthly, or weekly while you're changing budgets. Owners, Administrators and Marketers can run it.

What the report answers

Which campaigns and keywords bring people worth paying for? Every campaign type, campaign, keyword, landing page and region is measured by what a Focused visitor and an Engaged Lead cost, not only by what a click cost.

Is Google flattering some campaigns? Google Ads counts conversion actions; Bread & Butter counts people. The report puts the two side by side for every campaign type, with Won/Closed next to them.

Where should next month's money go? Each campaign, ad group and keyword gets a verdict judged against your own account, and your assistant turns the verdicts into at most three budget shifts that keep your total spend the same.

Did the last change work? Every shift, cut and increase you make in Google Ads is picked up and shown against what happened to your Focused CPM and Engaged Leads afterwards.

What's in it

The report opens with your paid traffic at a glance: ad spend, the Focused Rate of your paid traffic, Focused CPM and cost per Engaged Lead, each against the period before, with a short paragraph on whether the account is healthier or weaker and the one thing holding it back. The cost per Engaged Lead is shown next to the old school figure, spend divided by the leads from your own website forms only, with the multiple between the two. Focused CPM is what 1,000 Focused visitors cost.

Then come the cards, each one on its own:

Paid funnel. How paid visitors became Focused visitors and Engaged Leads in the period, with the drop at each step. It shows which part of the budget reaches people who behave like buyers, and whether the landing pages do their job once they arrive.

Channels. Each Google Ads campaign type (Search, Performance Max, YouTube, Display and any others you run) with what 1,000 visitors cost against what 1,000 Focused visitors cost, its spend, its Engaged Leads, its cost per Engaged Lead and its verdict. Two pie charts compare each type's share of traffic with its share of Engaged Leads.

Campaigns. The same comparison for every campaign: All Traffic CPM against Focused CPM, Engaged Leads, Focused Rate and a verdict. Lower is better.

What Google counts against who raised their hand. The conversions Google Ads reported for each campaign type, against the Engaged Leads and Won/Closed Bread & Butter recorded from the same clicks, with the number of Google conversions for each Engaged Lead. Google counts every conversion action set up in the account, more than once per person and including view-through conversions. Engaged Leads are people, counted once. A wide gap shows where Smart Bidding is being taught to buy more of the wrong thing.

Cost per Won/Closed. What the period's spend cost per Won/Closed for each campaign type, with the cost per Engaged Lead next to it. The two don't always rank the campaign types the same way: a campaign that brings cheap leads that never close is the most expensive one on the report. A campaign type with no Won/Closed yet reads None. A lead can take weeks to close, so the latest month always reads high.

Keywords. The keywords behind your Search campaigns: what a click cost against what a Focused visitor cost (Focused CPC), the Engaged Leads each one brought, its Focused Rate and its verdict. The average Focused Score of each keyword's visitors sits under its name, the quickest read on whether the people typing it are shopping or browsing. Every run also checks for keywords sent to the wrong page: a keyword whose Focused Rate is well below your paid average while a page that matches the search does better. Each one is listed with the page it lands on, the page it should land on and the expected gain. If there are none, the card says so in one line.

Search terms. What people actually typed before clicking a Search ad, from Google's search terms report, with the keyword it matched, the clicks and the cost. Google doesn't say which visitor typed which search term, so this card has no Focused Rate and search terms never carry a verdict. It is where you see research phrases or your own brand name creeping into a campaign through broad or phrase match.

Landing pages. Where paid visitors land, with All Traffic CPM against Focused CPM, Engaged Leads and a verdict for each page. The ad has already been paid for; the page decides whether the visitor stays.

Spend by region. Where the budget goes, with the same comparison per region. The report picks the level that fits your account, provinces or states for a national account, cities for a local one, countries for an international one, and names it in the card's subtitle.

Budget shifts. Up to three changes your AI assistant suggests from the report's data, in order of expected gain, with two tiles showing the projected Focused Rate and projected Engaged Leads at the same total spend. See below for the rules it follows.

Budget changes timeline. Every budget shift, cut and increase Bread & Butter detected in your Google Ads account, with the week, what lost spend and what gained it, the amount, and the verdicts at the time, plotted against your Focused CPM and Engaged Leads. It shows what each change did.

Impact to date. Focused CPM, Focused visitors a month and Engaged Leads a month since Google Ads was connected, with the line of your Focused CPM month by month. This is the card to show whoever signs off on the budget.

Under every card are three short sections: What the chart says, the three findings that matter; Why it matters, in a sentence or two; and What to keep an eye on, the figures to watch next period and the level at which each one needs a look.

How the verdicts work

Each campaign, ad group and keyword is judged against your own account's paid Focused Rate: the share of your paid visitors who are Focused visitors. It is not compared with other advertisers.

Scale means Bread & Butter is 90% confident it does better than your paid average.
Investigate means Bread & Butter is 90% confident it does worse. It tells you to look closer, not what to do. There is no Pause: the decision stays with you, because you know things about your business the data can't see.
Watch is given at the end of an item's window when the data never reaches 90% confidence either way.

Every verdict shows how many days of data it rests on. Keywords with too little traffic to judge alone are judged with their ad group, or with their campaign if the ad group is small too, and the report says so next to the keyword.

Before a verdict, an item shows its status:

Calibrating: Bread & Butter is collecting data. The count is tracked visitors, not Google clicks, and the item shows the date a verdict is expected.
Learning · waiting for Google: Google's bid strategy for the campaign is in its learning phase. The campaign, its ad groups and its keywords get no verdict until it finishes.
Up next: next in line for a verdict.
Second round: after a verdict, the item goes back into calibration and counts only data from after the verdict, so it measures whether the change you made worked.

When the first verdicts arrive. Bread & Butter reads the 90 days of Google Ads visits from before you connected, so the first verdicts can arrive before day 15 when that history gives enough data. Otherwise they arrive on day 15. If nothing is confident by then, your two biggest-spend campaigns go out as Watch so you have a starting point.

In Bread & Butter. The Insights tab shows two cards, Campaigns and Keywords, each with six on rotation: two Scale, two Watch and two Investigate. The full tables, with every campaign and keyword, are in this report. On the Free plan after the trial, the verdicts on the Insights tab are locked.

How the budget shifts are built

The Budget shifts card is written by your AI assistant from the data in the report; Bread & Butter doesn't calculate it. Your assistant follows the same rules every time:

At most three shifts, in order of expected gain.
Money moves only from a campaign or keyword marked Investigate or Watch to one marked Scale.
Your total spend stays the same. It never recommends adding budget.
A shift moves at most 25% of the source's monthly spend, and only to a destination with at least 100 Focused visitors in the period, so the destination's Focused Rate is stable enough to rely on.
Each shift states the amount a month, where it comes from, where it goes, the cost per Engaged Lead or Focused CPM of both, and the expected gain in Engaged Leads a month.
When a keyword with a good Focused Rate lands on the wrong page, it suggests the landing-page fix instead, marked "No budget change".
If nothing meets the rules, it says there is no shift to recommend this period and leaves out the projection tiles.

A caution box under the shifts says it plainly: the shifts come from your AI assistant, not from Bread & Butter; different assistants can reach different recommendations from the same data, and the same assistant can answer differently on another day; and nothing changes until you apply it in Google Ads.

You don't need to record what you applied. Bread & Butter keeps the daily spend of every campaign and keyword, so when spend moves from some campaigns or keywords to others from one week to the next, it records a budget shift. A fall with no matching rise is recorded as a cut, and a rise with no matching fall as an increase. Nobody ticks a box. Each one appears on the Budget changes timeline, and the items involved go into their second round.

Why it reads differently from Google Ads

It counts people, not clicks. Every number leaves out bots. Focused visitors are the real people reading your website: everyone who has become a lead, plus every visitor scoring 6 or more on Focused Score. A campaign is judged by how many of its clicks became Focused visitors and Engaged Leads. See Why does the Focused Tab show so much less traffic than my analytics?

It counts each person once. An Engaged Lead is someone who gave a verified email, through your own form or a Bread & Butter conversion tool. Google's conversion count includes every action you set up, repeat actions and view-throughs, which is why the two numbers differ and why the report shows both.

It ends at the sale. Google Ads stops at the conversion. This report carries on to Won/Closed, so a campaign is judged by the deals it led to as well as the forms it filled.

It judges you against yourself. The verdicts compare each item with your own paid Focused Rate and wait for 90% confidence, so a keyword isn't marked on a lucky week, and every verdict tells you how many days of data it rests on.

It reads only. Bread & Butter reads your Google Ads account and never changes it. Every change is yours to make in Google Ads.

How to run it

Connect your AI assistant to Bread & Butter first, and connect your Google Ads account in Bread & Butter. See Bread & Butter MCP server connections and Connect Google Ads.

Finding the reports. Once you're connected, the reports are ready to run straight away; there's nothing to download or set up. Ask your assistant "What Bread & Butter reports can I run?" and it lists the reports your role can run, with what each one is for. The Insights tab in Bread & Butter lists them too, each with a prompt you can copy.

More than one account. If your login gives you access to several Bread & Butter accounts, name the one you want. If you don't, your assistant asks which one before it runs anything.

Coming back later. The connection stays in place, so there's no code or key to remember. Open a new conversation, check that the Bread & Butter connector is switched on for it (in Claude, under the + button, then Connectors), and ask for the report by name. If the connection has lapsed, your assistant asks you to reconnect first.

Ask for the report by name, with a period:

"Run my Bread & Butter Ads Spend report for last month."
"Run my Bread & Butter Ads Spend report for last month and list the budget shifts at the top."
"Run my Bread & Butter Ads Spend report for the last 7 days, for my main website."

Your assistant gets the report from Bread & Butter, fills it with your account's data and shows it as a page. Each run uses credits like any other question. See How do Credits work across storage, syncing, and profile enrichment?

A good rhythm is monthly, on the first. The budget shifts need a full month of data. While you're changing budgets, run it weekly as well, to watch a change land on the Budget changes timeline. To have it arrive on its own, see Run your Bread & Butter reports on a schedule.

For a marketing manager. The first card is the summary: four figures and a paragraph on the month. The Impact to date card answers the question whoever signs off on the budget asks most: is the money reaching more of the right people than it used to. The budget shifts give the meeting its agenda.

For an agency reporting to a client. Run the report for each client's website on the first of the month and send it as it is. It explains itself: every chart carries its own reading, so the client doesn't need you in the room to understand it. The comparison of Google's conversions with Engaged Leads and Won/Closed shows the client what their ad spend brought in people, not in actions, and the Budget changes timeline shows what each change you made did. Each card can be printed on its own, for a slide or a monthly pack, and printed copies leave out the prompts and the schedule box. If your client's team works in Bread & Butter with the Sales role, they see their leads but not this report, which lets you go through the results and the budget shifts with them first. See What are the different team roles, and what do they have access to?

Someone forwarded it to you? The box under the first card explains how to connect your own assistant and run it yourself.

Taking it further with your own questions

The report is a starting point. Every card ends with Try this next in your AI assistant, a question chosen from that card's most important finding, with a button to copy it. Ask it, or ask your own. A few examples:

Narrow it down. "Show the Ads Spend report for Search campaigns only." "Run it for one province or state." "Show only the keywords marked Investigate, with the days of data behind each verdict."

Go one level deeper. "Show the ad groups inside my biggest campaign, with the Focused Rate and status of each." "Which search terms matched my lowest Focused Rate keyword last month?" "Show my keywords by device."

Compare. "Compare last month with the same month last year." "Compare the Focused CPM of every campaign this month with last month and list the biggest movers."

Follow the money. "Which campaigns brought the Engaged Leads that became Won/Closed this quarter, and what did each Won/Closed cost?" "Show every budget change since I connected Google Ads, and what happened to Engaged Leads in the four weeks after each one."

Change the report. "Add a card with spend and Engaged Leads by day of the week." "Leave out the region card." "Write the summary paragraph for a client who doesn't know what a Focused visitor is." "Translate the report into French."

Make it yours. Once a version works for you, ask your assistant to remember it, or save the prompt as a scheduled task so it arrives the same way every month.

Your assistant can only answer from the data your account has. When a card has nothing to show for the period, it says so instead of guessing, for example when no Engaged Lead has been marked Won/Closed yet. An account without Google Ads connected gets a short note at the top with the steps to connect it.

What it needs

Google Ads connected in Bread & Butter. Bread & Butter reads your Google Ads account and never changes it. Google Ads is the ad platform the report covers. See Connect Google Ads

Bread & Butter installed on your website. Data starts with the next visit. See How to Install Bread & Butter on Your Website

Up to fifteen days for the first verdicts. Spend, Focused Rate, Focused CPM and cost per Engaged Lead show from the first report. Verdicts arrive once Bread & Butter is 90% confident, often sooner when the 90 days of Google Ads visits from before you connected give enough data, and on day 15 at the latest.

Won/Closed marked in Bread & Butter. The Cost per Won/Closed card and the Won/Closed column on the Google comparison get sharper with every profile you mark Won/Closed. See How do Lead Stages work in Bread & Butter, and why does marking Won/Closed matter?

The Pro plan or the free trial. Connecting an AI assistant is part of both. On the Free plan after the trial, the verdicts on the Insights tab are locked.