Performance targets allow you to monitor and forecast the overall performance of campaigns so that you’ll know if you’re on track to meet your goals. These targets can be applied to campaign groups.
How it works
Performance targets let you view how successfully the campaigns that they are applied to are meeting your measurable advertising goals. When applied to campaign groups, they can help you track the overall performance of multiple campaigns. Performance targets can be created when creating new campaign groups, and they can also be created or edited at any time for existing ones.
Once you set your performance targets, Google Ads can estimate whether you’re on track to meet your goals. If it looks like you won’t reach the targets you set, you can consider adjusting your campaign settings to improve performance.
About campaign groups
You can create campaign groups with any combination of Search, Shopping, Display, or Video campaigns.
- Campaign groups are optional (not every campaign needs to belong to a group).
- Each campaign can only belong to one campaign group at a time.
Example
Julia owns a small hat shop that takes in-store and online orders. Three of her Google Ads campaigns are focused on getting potential customers to buy her hats online. The success of these campaigns is measured by the number of online conversions.
Julia creates a campaign group named "Hats" and sets a performance target of 300 conversions per month. One week in, Julia can see that she isn’t likely to meet her goal, so she makes a few changes to her campaign settings to increase her campaign group’s conversions. A few days later, Julia can see that she’s back on track to successfully meeting her performance target.
Performance target settings
A performance target has three settings:
- A group of metrics you want to track
- The date range for tracking metrics
- (Optional) Specific values you want to achieve for the metrics during each date range
Only one performance target can be active at a time.
Note that creating performance targets doesn’t affect ad service.
Metrics
Each performance target can track a single group of metrics:
- Clicks contain metrics for tracking the number and cost of clicks.
- Conversions contain metrics for tracking the number and cost of conversions.
- Conversion value contains metrics for tracking the value generated from conversions and the cost.
Date range
The date range specifies the time frame for measuring performance. For example if you target ≤$2 USD average cost per click (CPC) and select a monthly date range, Google Ads can estimate whether your CPC for the current month is likely to average $2 USD or less.
You can choose a custom date range or a recurring weekly, monthly, or quarterly period. Targets with weekly, monthly, and quarterly ranges never expire until you remove the target. Each week, month, or quarter, the target resets any totals or averages its tracking. For example, at the beginning of each month a monthly "Number of clicks" target starts counting clicks from zero. Custom date ranges can either be recurring or can start and end on specific dates.
Targets
Targets are specific values you want to achieve for the metrics during each date range. Every performance target needs at least one set target value.
Clicks
- Number of clicks is the total number of clicks you aim to receive during the target's date range.
- Total spend is the total amount you aim to spend during the target's date range.
- Average CPC is the average amount you aim to spend per click during the target's date range. Average CPC is calculated by dividing the amount you pay by the total number of clicks those ads receive.
Conversions
- Number of conversions is the total number of conversions you aim to receive during the target's date range.
- Total spend is the total amount you aim to spend during the target's date range.
- Average cost per action (CPA) is the average amount you aim to spend per conversion during the target's date range. Average CPA is calculated by dividing the amount you pay by the total number of conversions those ads receive.
Conversion value
- Total value of conversions is the total value from conversions you aim to receive during the target's date range.
- Total spend is the total amount you aim to spend during the target's date range.
- Average return on ad spend (ROAS) is the average return you aim to achieve from conversions during the target's date range. Average ROAS is calculated by dividing the total value generated from your total conversions by the amount you pay for ads.
Performance target status
Your performance target’s status is Google Ads’ best estimate of whether you’re on track to successfully meet your target.
On track
Needs attention
Target met
Target not met
- The performance target’s date range has passed, and you did not meet its performance target.
- The performance target’s date range is still in effect, and you have already exceeded the target threshold.
Note:
A performance target’s statistics are calculated using day-to-day historical membership, meaning that the performance target only calculates statistics from a campaign during the time period that it's inside a campaign group. This means making any changes to a campaign group’s current membership will not affect the status of its past performance targets.
Stage
When checking the status of your performance target, keep in mind that your target may be in 1 of 3 stages, based on the date range you set.
