Google Ads Dashboard in Looker Studio for Online Stores

A Google Ads dashboard for an online store needs two layers. The account layer shows spend, revenue, ROAS, orders, conversion rate, average order value and cost per click, with awareness campaigns kept apart. The product layer shows how the budget splits across products and how much goes to products that never sell. Looker Studio, now called Data Studio again, builds both for free. The blind spot that matters most is products that never got an impression. They have no row, so compare the product table with your Merchant Center catalogue.

What belongs on a store’s Google Ads dashboard?

This article is the dashboard part of our Google Ads reporting guide. The guide sets out which numbers a store reports and how often. A dashboard is the screen where the in-house marketer checks them. It refreshes on its own, so nobody has to rebuild a spreadsheet.

Four pages cover the job. Each page answers one question, so nobody scrolls past 30 charts to find the one that matters.

The campaigns page splits campaigns the way the portal does. The portal judges Search, Shopping and Performance Max strictly on purchases. It lists Video, Display and Demand Gen separately and does not penalise them for having none.

The products page matters more than it looks. Performance Max runs in 141 of 146 stores in our data and takes a median 95.7% of their ad budget (GetProfit data, June 2025 – June 2026). For most stores, Performance Max fills almost the whole campaigns page. The detail that explains a good or bad month sits at product level.

Looker Studio (now Data Studio) or the dashboards inside Google Ads?

Looker Studio is Google’s free report builder, and in April 2026 it went back to its original name, Data Studio. According to Welcome to Data Studio, the product now lives at datastudio.google.com. Old lookerstudio.google.com links redirect there, and existing reports need no changes. Many templates and guides still use the old name, so this article uses both.

Google Ads has dashboards of its own. According to Create and edit dashboards, you open them from Campaigns → Insights and reports → Dashboards. You build them from three kinds of cards: scorecards, tables or charts made in the Report Editor, and notes. Manager accounts can use them across client accounts. Google’s Dashboard: Definition adds that people with email-only access receive the dashboard by email, and anyone without access gets a PDF.

Choose the Google Ads dashboards when everyone who reads them already works in the account and Google Ads is the only source. Choose Data Studio when the owner wants GA4 or CRM orders next to the ads, or a view for people outside the account. The guide to Google Ads reporting tools compares spreadsheets, Data Studio and dedicated tools by hours and blind spots.

How do you build the dashboard in Looker Studio?

The connection steps follow Google’s guide Connect to Google Ads. The other steps adapt it to a store.

1. Connect the account. Sign in at datastudio.google.com, click Create → Data source and pick the Google Ads connector. Authorise access if asked, click All accounts and choose the account. Select Overall Account Fields, which puts every Google Ads field in one list. Click Connect. Check: the fields panel opens with the account’s dimensions and metrics.
2. Choose whose credentials the data uses. With the owner’s credentials, colleagues can view the report without access to the ad account. With the viewer’s credentials, each person needs their own access. Check: open the report from a colleague’s login before you share it widely.
3. Start from a template or a blank report. According to Create a report from a template, Google’s Template Gallery includes Google Ads templates, in English only. Open one, click Use my own data, then Replace data. Check: every chart shows your account, not the sample, and the report has all four pages: Account, Campaigns, Products and Data health.
4. Write ratios as one sum divided by another. ROAS is SUM(conversion value) ÷ SUM(cost); average order value is SUM(conversion value) ÷ SUM(conversions). Google’s About calculated fields shows that a scorecard sums a formula worked out row by row. A ROAS built that way is no longer the account’s ROAS. Check: the scorecard matches the account total in Google Ads for the same dates.
5. Pick one conversion date per chart. Google Ads’ standard conversion columns put a conversion on the day of the click (Understand your conversion tracking data). That keeps cost per order and ROAS on the same basis as spend. Since October 2025 the connector also has versions “by conv. date”, counted on the day of the conversion (Data Studio release notes). Use those next to GA4 or CRM orders, and keep the standard columns for ROAS. Name the choice in the chart title.
6. Add controls. A date range control sets the period. A data control lets each viewer switch to another Google Ads account they can access, so one report serves several stores (Data control).
7. Add other sources only where they answer a question. A blend joins up to five data sources in one chart. Google’s example is Google Ads and Google Analytics joined on campaign name (How blends work in Data Studio).
8. Schedule delivery. Share → Schedule delivery sends a PDF of the pages you choose on a fixed schedule (Schedule automatic report delivery). Send the Data health page every week; a person still writes the monthly explanation.

The same October 2025 release added Gross profit and Gross profit margin fields to the connector. Google’s Retail Campaign Performance guide ties these metrics to Conversions with cart data. Without cart data, the dashboard shows revenue, not profit.

What does the Google Ads connector leave out?

Google lists most of these limits in its Connect to Google Ads guide.

Auction insights itself stays in Google Ads: Monitor and optimize your Shopping campaigns lists the report among the places to check a Shopping campaign. The 50-account limit and viewer access shape agency reporting most. The guide to reporting across many client stores shows how agencies work around them.

The zero-impression rule matters most for a store, because a large part of a catalogue can go without a single impression. In our study of 1.4 million products, 1,196,357 products started the period with zero spend, and 74.1% of them never got a single impression over 13 months. On a dashboard, that part of the catalogue has no rows. No chart warns about it, because there is nothing to chart.

Google’s API documentation draws the same line. According to Reporting | Google Ads API, the Shopping Performance View holds the history of products that have served ads. The Shopping Product report gives the current state of every product, whether it served or not. Google’s About Product Reporting points to the Status column in the Products tab for the same job: a top product that moves to “Not eligible” shows the reason in the issues column.

Two more rules apply to any product chart:

• Product impressions don’t add up to campaign impressions. Each product shown in an ad gets its own impression, so product rows can add up to much more than the campaign total. Google attributes cost and conversions so that their sum across products stays within the campaign figures. The same API page describes both rules.
• 15 June 2026 splits the series. From that date, Google’s product reporting includes all Performance Max networks, such as YouTube. Google’s Retail Campaign Performance guide warns of a one-time increase in reported metrics. Mark the date on every product chart that spans it.

In the median store, 10% of advertised products take 69% of the budget

Campaign totals hide how a budget splits inside the catalogue. Two product-level numbers show it. GetProfit data, 114 stores with at least eight months of data between June 2025 and June 2026:

These are observations across stores, not an experiment, measured over the whole window. A one-month version counts more products as unsold, so it usually comes out higher. Compare your store over a similar long window.

Neither number exists in a campaign table: both need product rows. The guide to the products report in Google Ads shows which columns and date range to use, and how to avoid cutting your long tail by mistake.

Example store, not client data.

A tableware shop with 3,000 products spends 40,000 a month on Google Ads and gets 180,000 in revenue, a ROAS of 4.5. Its dashboard’s product table has 1,200 rows: the products that got impressions and spend. The 120 products with the most spend took 26,000 of the 40,000, or 65%. Products with spend and no sales took 6,800, or 17%.

The dashboard never says that the catalogue has 3,000 products. The other 1,800, 60% of the catalogue, never got an impression and have no row. To find them, compare the product table with the number of products in Merchant Center.

Where a dashboard stops and the portal starts

Data Studio is strong where you own the view: your layout, your captions, and several sources in one report, such as GA4 and a CRM. The tool is free; what you put in is the time to build and maintain it. It shows the numbers it receives. Deciding which products to scale, test or cut stays with you.

The portal starts from that decision. It gives every product one of eight product labels based on how it behaved in ads over 12 months: Bestsellers, Strong, Long tail, Marginal, Newcomers, Loss-making, Dormant and To remove.

It also keeps a separate list of products that used to sell and dropped out of impressions, with the reason and the days they have been out. That is the part a connector without zero-impression rows can’t show. The portal reads only Google Ads and Merchant Center, so GA4 and CRM data stay in your dashboard.

The two can work together: you can export any label group in the portal’s product view as a CSV list and show it to the team on the dashboard. Upload the file with Data Studio’s CSV connector or paste it into a Google Sheet. According to Upload CSV files to Data Studio, Data Studio appends new files to a dataset and keeps any duplicates. Keep each export in a new dataset, or in one Google Sheets worksheet that you overwrite, so each product counts once.

If you need product history in your own warehouse rather than a file a month, automating Google Ads exports compares scheduled reports, Google Sheets and BigQuery.

What to set up this week

1. Count the catalogue against your product rows. Compare the products in Merchant Center with the products that have impressions on the dashboard over the last 90 days. The gap is what the dashboard can’t show.
2. Rebuild ratios from sums. Check that ROAS and average order value on the dashboard match Google Ads for the same dates.
3. Move awareness campaigns into their own block. For Video, Display and Demand Gen, show spend and the job each campaign was given instead of ROAS.
4. Add the two product numbers. Show the share of spend taken by the top 10% of products with spend, and the spend on products with no sales. Use the same long window each time.
5. Mark 15 June 2026 on product charts. Before and after that date, Performance Max product data covers different networks.
6. Name the conversion date in every chart title. Use click date for ROAS, and conversion date when the chart sits next to GA4 or CRM orders.
7. Read Auction insights in Google Ads. Data Studio dropped these fields.
8. For agencies: count sub-accounts per data source. Keep each under 50, and check that viewers have access to the manager account.

Which products bring money in and which spend it. Every product gets its own label based on how it behaves in ads — from bestsellers to dormant ones that spend budget without a single sale. The portal changes nothing without your consent.

Label your catalogue →

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free Google Ads template for Looker Studio?

Yes. Google’s Template Gallery includes Google Ads templates. They are in English only, though your data appears in the language it was collected in. Before you rely on one, check it for the four pages a store needs (Account, Campaigns, Products and Data health) and add the ones it lacks.

Why don’t the dashboard numbers match Google Ads?

Often for one of five reasons:

• Data Studio refreshes Google Ads data every 12 hours.
• A chart uses conversion-date fields while Google Ads shows click-date columns.
• A manager account source converted mixed currencies into one.
• A chart compares product impressions with campaign impressions.
• The period spans 15 June 2026, when Performance Max product reporting widened.

Sources

• Connect to Google Ads — connection steps and Overall Account Fields; entities with zero impressions don’t appear; up to 50 sub-accounts per manager account data source; viewers need access to the manager account and all sub-accounts; currency conversion to the top-level manager account; Auction insights fields removed on 24 August and 23 September 2024. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Welcome to Data Studio — Looker Studio renamed Data Studio in April 2026; datastudio.google.com; old links redirect and reports need no changes; a no-cost tool. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Manage data freshness — Google Ads data refreshes every 12 hours and the rate can’t be changed; manual refresh by editors, and by viewers when the editor allows it. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Create a report from a template — Google Ads templates in the Template Gallery, in English only; Use my own data and Replace data. Checked 2 October 2026.
• About calculated fields — a row-level formula is summed in a scorecard. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Data control — viewers switch the report to another Google Ads account they have access to. Checked 2 October 2026.
• How blends work in Data Studio — up to five data sources in a blend; Google Ads and Google Analytics joined on campaign name. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Schedule automatic report delivery — PDF delivery on a schedule from Share → Schedule delivery. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Upload CSV files to Data Studio — uploaded files are appended to a dataset; duplicates are not removed. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Data Studio release notes — “by conv. date” conversion fields, Gross profit and Gross profit margin added to the Google Ads connector on 2 October 2025. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Monitor and optimize your Shopping campaigns — the Auction insights report among the places to check a Shopping campaign. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Create and edit dashboards — the path to dashboards in Google Ads; scorecards, Report Editor charts and notes; manager accounts. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Dashboard: Definition — sharing a Google Ads dashboard by email or as a PDF. Checked 2 October 2026.
• About Product Reporting — the Products tab, its Status and issues columns; product reporting expanded in June 2026. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Understand your conversion tracking data — standard conversion columns are counted by the time of the click; columns by conversion time. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Reporting | Google Ads API — Shopping Performance View covers products that served ads, Shopping Product covers every product; product impressions and the attribution of cost and conversions. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Retail Campaign Performance — from 15 June 2026 product data includes all Performance Max networks, with a one-time increase; cart data metrics require Conversions with cart data. Checked 2 October 2026.
• GetProfit data, 146 stores, June 2025 – June 2026 — Performance Max: number of stores and median share of budget.
• GetProfit data, 114 stores with at least eight months, June 2025 – June 2026 — share of budget taken by the top 10% of products with spend; share of budget on products that never sold.
• GetProfit study of 1,404,808 products over 13 months — products that started with zero spend and never got an impression.
• GetProfit portal methodology — purchases-only judgement for product campaigns and a separate list for awareness campaigns; eight product labels over 12 months; the list of products that dropped out of impressions; CSV export of any label group.