Use graphs to see data for every level of your campaign

The account performance trend graph gives you at-a-glance understanding of how your accounts, campaigns, and ad groups are doing over time.

Graphs are a great way to monitor progress, identify patterns, and keep track of your campaign's development. Becoming familiar with them can help you break down and understand your data in a whole new way. Account performance trend graphs appear on most tabs on the Campaigns page and on the Accounts summary page with the graph open. You can always close the graph by selecting the Show graph toggle.

On any graph, you can choose from eleven different metrics: average CPC, clicks, cost per acquisition (CPA), conversions (Conv.), click-through rate (CTR), impressions, spend, average position, conversion rate, revenue, and ROAS along with the time comparison of daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. Peaks and valleys in the graph show where you have had good performance and where you haven’t.

Using the graph, you can compare your recent performance:

To your performance in a previous period or same period last year by turning on compare.
To a moving average, a performance baseline for measuring your campaign's success.
Between weekdays and weekends.

How to review the performance trend graph expando image

From the top menu, select Tools > Accounts > Accounts summary.

If you're using the new Microsoft Advertising navigation, from the navigation menu on the left, select Tools > All accounts > Accounts summary.
Or, from the collapsible menu on the left, select All campaigns > Campaigns > Campaigns.
If the graph is closed, select the Show graph toggle to open it. It remains open until you close it.
Select a time range and a comparison range.
The darker line shows the performance trend for the recent period and the lighter line shows the comparison graph for the previous period, the same period last year, or the moving average, depending on your selection. Weekends are marked by gray vertical bars.
Hover over the graph to see differences in current performance and past performance. You can also see a comparison summary, which shows the total difference between performance for the selected time range and for the comparison range.

How it works expando image

To start reviewing your graph, select a date range and turn on compare. The darker color line shows the performance trend for the recent period and the lighter color line shows the comparison graph for the previous period, the same period last year, or the moving average, depending on your selection. Weekends are marked by gray vertical bars. You can hover over the graph to see differences in current performance and past performance. You can also see a comparison summary, which shows the total difference between performance for the selected time range and for the comparison range.

An example expando image

You want to see how many clicks you are getting over time for a new ad campaign. Looking at the last three months, you notice that overall the number of clicks looks good, but you see some periodic dips in the graph. You narrow down the date range to last month and notice that clicks drop off significantly on the weekend. To make sure that this isn’t an anomaly, you select the "Show moving average" checkbox. The lighter line is consistent with what you are seeing over the last four weeks.

With that knowledge, you can investigate and take action. For example, are your customers only searching for your product during the week? If so, maybe target Monday through Friday only. Or maybe the competition is stiffer on Saturday and Sunday, and you need to increase your bids on the weekend. To make adjustments like this to your campaign, see How can I get my ads in front of my customers? and How to target my customers by adjusting my bids.

How we calculate moving average expando image

Moving average is calculated by averaging the performance metrics across the previous four days. All days are the same day of the week. For example, if you are looking at the number of clicks on a Wednesday, the moving average will be calculated by taking the average number of clicks for the four previous Wednesdays. Moving average can be used as a baseline because it smooths out random fluctuations. It answers the question: How did my campaign do on this day compared with a typical day? Note that moving average is only available for a time range up to 30 days.

Note

If your accounts are in different currencies, you won’t see overall totals for performance metrics and budget data that provide financial information (for example, average CPC, spend, IO budget). If you do not see your performance metrics and budget data on the Accounts Summary page, please filter to one currency at a time.