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Explanations (Google Ads)

Explanations is a Google Ads feature that tells you why a campaign's performance changed significantly and sometimes suggests what to do about it.

How it works

When a campaign’s results shift significantly, Google offers an explanation: the cause it found, such as a change to the budget, bids or conversion settings, and sometimes a recommendation. By default it compares the selected dates with the previous period of the same length. A range that includes today or reaches beyond the last 90 days gets no explanation.

In Performance Max, Google pairs explanations with performance shifts, which show which asset groups, products and product types drive a change. Explanations answer why; performance shifts answer where.

An explanation gives Google’s view. The store has its own events in the same days, such as a sell-out, a new price or a slow site, so check both before acting. What explanations tell an online store and what they miss: Google Ads Explanations.

Where you see it

  • Google Ads: on the Campaigns or Ad groups page, hover over a figure marked in blue with a dotted line, or over the performance graph, and click View explanations.
  • GetProfit portal: the change feed shows each significant account change and what happened to spend and revenue after it, with a caveat that season and assortment move revenue too.

Example

Example store, not client data.

Conversion value on the tableware shop’s campaign falls from 45,000 one week to 36,000 the next: (36,000 − 45,000) ÷ 45,000 = −20%. An explanation points to a lower daily budget. The shop’s own records show that its best-selling dinner set also sold out that week. The −20% now has two candidate causes.

Not to be confused with

  • Anomaly detection — finds that a figure has left its usual level. Explanations suggest why it did.
  • Change history — the log of edits to the account: what was changed, when and by whom, not what it did to results.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “The explanation names the budget cut, so the cut caused the whole 20% drop.” Right: it names a cause Google found. The sell-out came in the same week, and comparing two weeks cannot split the drop between the two causes.

Sources