How to read a Google Ads report: impressions, clicks, CTR, position and calls
A Google Ads report is only useful if you can read it in a couple of minutes and know what to ask. This guide explains the numbers in an XLR8 Media report, what Google counts behind each one, and how to read them together. Nothing here needs a marketing background.
XLR8 Media reports regularly through the campaign and at the end of it, and we can run an extra progress report whenever you ask. Each report covers impressions, clicks, click-through rate, position on the page and calls.
Impressions: how often your ad showed
An impression is counted every time your ad appears on a results page, whether or not anyone clicks it. Impressions show how often vendors in your suburb searched and saw your ad. On a campaign built on searches such as "real estate agents [suburb]", the number mostly reflects how often people in your suburb make that search, so it moves with the market: more in a busy spring, fewer in a quiet winter.
Clicks and click-through rate
A click is one person choosing your ad and visiting your profile page. Click-through rate (CTR) is clicks divided by impressions. It is the clearest sign that your ad is relevant to what people searched for and more appealing than the ads around it. Across XLR8 Media client campaigns the average CTR is around 7.5 percent, about 20 percent above the Google search ads average of 6.6 percent. That is an average across all our campaigns, not a promise for any one suburb.
Calls from the ad
Every XLR8 Media ad carries a call button, so a vendor on a mobile can ring you straight from the search results. Calls made from that button are tracked, and we email them to you the next business day, so you know which calls came from the campaign.
The number one position
Google reports more than one measure of where an ad appeared. Top impression share is the share of your impressions that appeared above the organic results. Absolute top impression share is the share in which your ad was the very first ad on the page (Google's definitions). When XLR8 Media says its clients' ads held the number one position on Google 55.18 percent of the time in 2025, that is the absolute top figure, on average across all our client campaigns. Ask any agency which measure it is quoting: "page one" and "position one" are different claims.
Reading the numbers together
No single number tells the whole story. Read them in order:
- Impressions tell you how often vendors searched and your ad was there.
- Click-through rate tells you whether the ad persuaded them to look.
- Position on the page tells you how prominently your ad was positioned.
A steady CTR with fewer impressions usually means fewer people searched that month, not that the campaign got worse. A falling CTR with steady impressions is worth asking about, because it can mean a competitor has changed its ads.
Questions worth asking about any report
- Does it show impressions, clicks, CTR, position on the page and calls, in plain English?
- Which position measure is being quoted?
- Is the agency running campaigns for anyone else in my suburb? If so, whose numbers are these?
XLR8 Media works with one agent per suburb, so every call in your report came from your own ads. Check whether your suburb is open through the suburb availability check.
