How to export Google Ads data: 6 ways and when each one fits

To export Google Ads data, open the table you need (campaigns, keywords, ads), click the download icon above it and pick a format: Excel CSV, TSV, PDF, XLSX, XML or Google Sheets. If you want the same cut every Monday, use the schedule option on that same icon. For a live spreadsheet there is an official Google Ads add-on for Sheets. For a dashboard, Looker Studio has a Google Ads connector. And if you have a developer, there is the API.

That is six routes. The question that picks one is not technical. It is what happens to the data after it leaves the account, and most of the time the honest answer is "someone wants to analyze it." So this guide covers both: how to get the data out, and how to read it once it is out.

The six routes, side by side

I checked each one against the Google Ads and Looker Studio help centers in October 2026.

Route 1: download the statistics table

Open the page with the table, set the date range and the columns, click the download icon in the upper right corner above the table, and choose the format. Three habits keep the file honest:

• The file mirrors the screen. A filtered table exports filtered. A missing conversions column stays missing.
• Exclude today. Today is still spending. Export through yesterday or the last day will look cheaper than it will end up.
• Conversions come with decimals. Google can split credit for one conversion across the clicks that led to it, so rows sum to the total but rounding row by row will not.

Route 2: schedule it by email

The same download icon has a schedule option. You pick the frequency (daily, weekly and others) and the format, and Google emails the file. Per the help center, scheduled reports go to you and to other people with direct access to the account. If your client has no login, they are not on the list, which trips up a lot of agencies.

You can also save the report, which makes it editable later in the Report Editor. One detail almost nobody reads: saved reports that go unopened for more than 18 months are deleted automatically.

If you run several accounts through a manager account (MCC), its Reports page can create and schedule performance reports for every managed account at once.

Route 3: Report Editor

Go to Campaigns → Insights and reports → Report editor → Custom. Drag dimensions such as campaign, day or device and metrics such as clicks or conversions, and build a table, line, column, bar, scatter or pie chart. You can filter, sort and add conditional formatting, and the finished report can be downloaded or scheduled too.

I use it for questions the default table won't answer, like "cost per conversion by day of week and device over the last 90 days." For the weekly report, it is overkill. Route 2 does the job.

Route 4: the Google Ads add-on for Google Sheets

It exists and Google makes it. It is listed simply as Google Ads in the Google Workspace Marketplace, and you install it from the add-ons menu in Sheets. The listing says it creates reports from one or more Google Ads accounts, lets you pick columns and apply Google Ads filters, and refreshes reports with recent data.

Two limits, read on the listing in October 2026: it is available in English only, and it talks about refreshing, not about scheduled refreshes. Someone still opens the sheet and hits refresh. Before you build on it, be clear on where a spreadsheet stops scaling; spreadsheet, dashboard or BI walks through that line.

Route 5: Looker Studio

Looker Studio has a Google Ads connector built by Google. Create a data source, choose the connector, authorize and pick the account. Per the Looker Studio help center, a data source connects to one account; through a manager account, one data source can report on up to 50 sub-accounts. Two things that surprise people in meetings: campaigns and ad groups with zero impressions do not show up in the data source, and viewers can see data through the owner's credentials without having access to the ad account.

It is the right call when a client wants a browser dashboard that updates itself. The cost is building and maintaining the template.

Route 6: the Google Ads API

The API gets any account data into any system you own. It needs a developer token approved by Google and someone to write and maintain the code. Worth it for an in-house team managing many accounts. Overkill for a media buyer who needs a Monday report.

How to analyze Google Ads data once it is out

Exporting is the easy half. The file only earns its keep if it answers a question in this order:

1. Cost, conversions and cost per conversion by campaign, for a closed period, against the previous period. This is the line that decides budget.
2. Conversion value and ROAS, if the account tracks revenue. Read how much Google Ads costs to set the number you should be comparing against.
3. Clicks, CPC and CTR to explain the move. Cost per conversion up with CPC flat points at the landing page or the offer. CPC up with CTR flat points at the auction.
4. Search terms, weekly, in a separate file. That is where spend leaks on Search.
5. Daily trend only when something broke. A daily view on a quiet week is noise.

A worked example with made-up numbers: Campaign A spent US$ 4,200 last month for 60 conversions, a US$ 70 cost per conversion, up from US$ 52. CPC barely moved and CTR held, but conversion rate fell from 6% to 4.5%. That points away from bids and toward the landing page or the lead form. The full diagnostic walk is in how to analyze a Google Ads campaign.

Which route I would pick

• One-off request? Download the table.
• Same cut every week for people with account access? Schedule it.
• Data has to meet other data in a sheet, like the monthly target? The Sheets add-on, knowing someone refreshes it.
• Client wants a live dashboard? Looker Studio.
• You export to answer questions, not to deliver a file? Stop exporting and query the account directly.

That last case is the most common and the least admitted.

Next step

Open the last Google Ads file you exported and ask what decision came out of it. If it was a recurring decision, automate it with route 2 or 4. If it was a single question, the file was never needed. To see Google, Meta and TikTok side by side without exporting anything, look at Vazante plans: from US$ 39 a month, and the first 7 days cost US$ 2.99. The setup for the AI side is in connect Google Ads to Claude.