How to Create Custom Columns in Google Ads
You log into Google Ads to check performance, and you're staring at the Google Ads metrics, but the numbers that matter the most to your business aren’t available. But what if you could create them?
Within just a few clicks you can create ‘Custom Columns’ that unlocks data within Google Ads, and transforms Google Ads into a platform that speaks the same language as your business.
What are custom columns?
Custom columns bridge the gap between Google's standard metrics and the data that matters to specific business goals. They are an often overlooked feature that allows you to use formulas to create columns to add to your Google Ads tables and reports.
Google puts it best:
“Custom columns allow you to access and leverage a wide variety of metrics computed from Google Ads data to build your own columns. You can layer in references to other column formulas and spreadsheet functions to make your columns more nuanced. Just like standard Google Ads columns, most custom columns can be filtered, sorted, downloaded and used to customise your performance summary chart above your statistics table.”
Why should you use custom columns?
For most people, there’s nothing more frustrating than when your favourite feature in an app is removed in the latest version update. For marketers, there’s nothing more frustrating than when marketing software hides data from you. The second most frustrating thing for marketers is when we have seen great performance in our marketing, but we’re unable to express this in business terms that our stakeholders will understand. Custom columns solve both of these problems.
A great example to demonstrate this with is the Search Impression Share metric in Google Ads. This metric is supposed to show you the percentage of impressions your ads appeared for out of all of the eligible impressions. However, if your ads appeared for less than 10% - whether that’s 0.1% or 9.9%, the Search Impression Share metric will simply state “< 10%”. This can be frustrating when you are trying to gauge if your market share has increased, or when you’re trying to forecast the total impressions available. Through a custom column that utilises the Impression Share Lost Due To Budget and Impression Share Lost Due To Rank metrics, you can calculate your True Search Impression Share.
[ Custom column formula: 1 - Search_Lost_IS_rank - Search_Lost_IS_budget ]
Now that you have your True Search Impression Share, you can use this to calculate the Total Search Impressions Available (eg. market size) and whether the market size has grown or shrunk over time. This is a metric that your stakeholders will understand and take into account when calculating marketing budgets.
We can even take this one step further by creating custom columns to forecast the potential conversions and conversion value that left on the table due to budget limitations.
Suppose you really want to impress your Financial Director by speaking their language. In that case, you can use your profit margins to create a custom column that estimates your profits from your revenue and even deduct your advertising costs for a Profit on Investment.
3 ways to create custom columns
To create a custom column, click on the Columns icon and choose Modify columns
And now click on the + Custom column button
This will bring up a pop-up window where the magic happens. From here, you’ll name, describe, format and formulate your custom column.
There are three distinct ways to make a custom column, and I’ll now outline each method.
Method 1 - From Scratch
The first option is making a custom column from scratch. This gives you the most creative freedom but it can also be the most time-consuming too. To create your own custom column, you’ll need to type the equation into the formula box. As you’ll see from the picture below, you’ll be able to search for existing columns by typing into the equation box. This is great for discovering columns you weren’t aware of, and for using existing custom columns (these have the prefix c:”) within your new formula.
Method 2 - Google’s Formula Ideas
If you’re new to custom columns, you may have no idea where to start. Fortunately, Google Ads has you covered, as they provide Formula ideas along the right-hand side of the equation box, that you can instantly insert into your formula.
These are great for sparking ideas or providing you some great custom columns straight out of the box, such as the Avg. daily cost (last 7 days) option.
Method 3 - Importing the PPC Community’s Custom Columns
Your third option for creating custom columns is to find custom columns built by other members of the PPC community to copy and paste into your own Google Ads account. At Evoluted, our team of Paid Search specialists have curated a Google Ads Custom Column Library, which we regularly update with new items. From our Google Sheet, you can copy and paste dozens of custom columns into your account to help you track profit, your True Search Impression Share, and projected spend and conversion for the month.
Best Practices
No matter the method you use to create custom columns, you should always follow these best practices.
1. Clearly name your custom columns.
This will save you a lot of time when you’re trying to remember what the custom column does or differentiate between two similar ones. I often append differentiating elements to the end of the custom column name, such as (7 days), (14 days) and (30 days) to help me distinguish between similar custom columns with different date ranges.
2. Provide useful descriptions
These are useful for helping new team members understand the purpose of each custom column, or remind you after an extended period of leave what the column exactly does.
3. Set the correct data format
I recommend triple-checking that you have set the correct Data format before saving your custom column. Unlike everything else in a custom column, the Data format is the only element you cannot change once you’ve saved your custom column. If you do find yourself with an incorrectly formatted custom column, don’t fret, all is not lost.
If you switch the equation box to </> Text mode, you can copy and paste the script formula from the incorrectly formatted custom column to a brand new custom column - just be sure to set the new equation box to </> Text before pasting the formula in. And for your own sanity, please make sure you set the Data format correctly.
Conclusion
Custom columns are powerful and often overlooked tools within Google Ads that allow marketers to turn their platform metrics into business-oriented KPIs and data insights to forecast performance and analyse existing data in tailored formats that align with your business goals.
Who are Evoluted?
We're award winners. We're B Corp™ certified. We're people-first. Since 2008, Evoluted has been helping businesses to thrive in their respective industries. From powerful websites and software to marketing campaigns that cut through the noise, we're the full-service digital specialists focused on delivering measurable value for your brand.
If you’re interested in learning more about how our Google Ads services can help you to align your digital marketing efforts with your business objectives, get in touch today for a free consultation.
