Most reports in Search Ads 360 enable you to understand the overall performance of an advertiser, engine account, campaign, and so on. To drill down and uncover subtleties in the data that may reveal deeper insights, you can segment a report.
You can use segments to see how each ad/keyword combination is performing:
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Break down your keywords by the ads the user clicked after using the keyword as a search term:
On the Keywords tab, click the Segment button in the toolbar above the performance summary graph, select Ad, and click Apply.
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Break down your ads by the keywords the user searched on before clicking the ad:
On the Ads tab, click the Segment button in the toolbar above the performance summary graph, select Keyword, and click Apply.
For example, the Actions column in a keywords report initially displays the total number of action conversions that occurred on all device types and that were recorded by all Floodlight activities.
| Keyword | Ad group | Match type | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | 10 |
If you want to dig deeper into this data, you can segment the report by Floodlight activity. If four Floodlight activities are set up for your advertiser, each keyword will be split into four rows. Each row displays the metrics that were recorded by a single Floodlight activity.
| Keyword | Ad group | Match type | Floodlight activity | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Thank you page | 0 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Request catalog | 2 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Locate store | 5 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Check store inventory | 3 |
For even more details, you can also segment by device type and see if the conversions occurred on desktops, tablets, or mobile devices. (Reports with Floodlight segments only include rows for objects with conversions.)
| Keyword | Ad group | Match type | Floodlight activity | Device type | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Thank you page | Desktop | 0 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Request catalog | Desktop | 1 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Request catalog | Tablet | 1 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Locate store | Desktop | 1 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Locate store | Mobile | 3 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Locate store | Tablet | 1 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Check store inventory | Desktop | 2 |
| red shoes | Shoes | phrase | Check store inventory | Tablet | 1 |
If you download the report, the data in the download will be segmented as well.
Why are some segments missing?
Segments appear in reports only if there's data associated with the segment.
For example, if you segment a campaign report by device type, each campaign will only show metrics for device types that contributed impressions, clicks, or conversions to the campaign.
This campaign generated clicks from all device types:
| Device segment | Campaign | Clicks | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop | Shoes - Brand | 500 | 100 |
| Mobile | Shoes - Brand | 200 | 25 |
| Tablet | Shoes - Brand | 100 | 20 |
However, this campaign only generated clicks on mobile devices, so Tablet and Desktop do not appear for this campaign:
| Device segment | Campaign | Clicks | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile | Shoes - Comparison | 400 | 60 |
Known issue
If you specify segments that return large amounts of data (such as segmenting by day when the report range is set to a long period of time, or specifying many segmentations in a report that already shows a large amount of data), it might take a long time to display data in the report or you might see an error.