Google Ads to Excel and Sheets: Fields to Check Before You Reconcile
For B2B SaaS and DTC teams: export Google Ads to Excel or Sheets, lock date range and account time zone, and read click-time vs conversion-time and primary actions before reconciling with CRM.
Brand promotion: this article introduces Guangsuan's Google Ads management services.
Month-end review for a B2B SaaS or DTC growth team often starts with two files that do not agree: a Google Ads export and a CRM report. Spend and conversions look different, and the temptation is to change bids. In most cases the fix is earlier: the range, the time zone and the conversion definition were not locked before the download.
Choose the export path before the file
You can download from a Campaigns, Ad groups, Keywords, Search terms or Ads table with the download icon, build a report in the Reports area and download it, or query with GAQL through the Google Ads API for recurring pulls. Write the question first, for example which search terms spent budget without qualified leads last month, then pick the range and dimensions that answer it.
Google Ads supports CSV, CSV for Excel, TSV and XLSX, and can send a file to Google Sheets or by email on a schedule.
Use XLSX or Sheets for human review, CSV for scripts and databases, and the Sheets or email schedule only when someone owns the recipient list. For detail on the table and report paths, see Guangsuan's guide to exporting Google Ads data.
Lock dates and time zone before comparing
Exports are dated in the account's time zone, which may not match your calendar or your CRM timestamps.
A monthly export can hide a bad week, while a daily export over a long range becomes hard to read. Export the grain you will analyse, and use the segment control to split by day, week or month rather than joining several ranges later. If you compare two periods, keep the same time zone and the same conversion basis on both sides, or the difference partly reflects settings.
Read the Conversions column without mixing bases
Conversion-time reporting counts a conversion in the period when it happened; click-time reporting counts it in the period when the click happened.
If a customer clicks on the last day of the month and buys a week later, the two bases put that conversion in different months. Neither is wrong, but they must not be mixed when comparing periods.
Only conversion actions marked as primary roll into the Conversions column and into bidding.
Secondary actions, such as a page view or a click to contact, are reported separately and should be labelled as such in your export. Before you build a conversion report, write down the basis, which actions are primary, the counting method and the attribution model, because changing any of them changes historical comparisons. If you rely on offline or CRM-confirmed leads, remember the export only shows what Google was able to record.
Reconcile with CRM in one repeatable order
Keep clicks, platform conversions, qualified leads and closed revenue apart. Adding them produces a number that means nothing.
- Start narrow: one conversion action, one campaign group and one period.
- Align the basis, the date range and the time zone on both sides, and name files with account, report, range, basis and extraction time.
- Separate ad-sourced records from organic and referral ones.
- Check counting settings and repeated uploads before calling a difference unexplained. Keep the raw export unchanged and store analysis separately.
Hypothetical teaching example with invented numbers, not a client result: an export shows 40 form submissions in a month. Sales marks 15 as qualified under a written definition, 11 inside the same month and 4 after it closes, and 3 become orders. None contradicts the others because each describes a different step. If most submissions are never qualified, check queries and the landing page before changing bids.
When to ask Guangsuan for help
Guangsuan's Google Ads management service covers account structure, search terms, landing pages, conversion checks and reporting.
That scope matters when the export is hard to read because naming mixes intents, tracking records the wrong step, or search terms and landing pages point in different directions. Bring the current conversion action list with primary and secondary status marked, plus one real export with its date basis and time zone written on it. For scope, fees and handoff, see the Guangsuan Google Ads management service.
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