Two dashboards
Adpulse has two dashboard views. Use the button at the top right of the page to switch between them.
Dashboard: your budget performance charts and My Day, one list of everything that needs your attention, ordered by severity.
Audit View: the same kind of overview with more commentary on what each section shows, what has happened, and how to take action. It is a good place to start if you are new to Adpulse, and filtering it to a client or team gives you a descriptive audit of that segment. Read Audit Dashboard Explained to find out more.
Introduction to the Dashboard
Managing multiple PPC accounts is complex, so knowing at a glance which ones need attention is vital to stay on top of issues and stop anything slipping through the cracks.
The Adpulse dashboard does exactly this. Your budget performance charts sit alongside My Day, one list of every alert and optimization by severity, so you can see which accounts need attention and where to start.
Pro Tip: Use Tags to segment the data on the Dashboard into specific portfolios of clients. Examples are: by user, by team, by vertical, clients at risk, or Tier 1 clients - lots of options to get a unique insight into your clients' performance instantly
What The Dashboard Tells You
My Day
My Day is one consolidated list of every alert and optimization across your ad accounts, ordered by severity, so instead of working out what matters, you can start at the top and work down.
Four colored cards at the top show how many items sit at each severity:
Critical: something has broken, stopped working, or needs urgent attention. It usually affects spend or delivery.
Important: needs attention soon, but nothing is broken outright.
Opportunity: wins Adpulse has identified, such as keywords, audiences, and structures to expand, plus spend with no return that is better reallocated elsewhere.
Hygiene: configuration and hygiene reminders, improvements that compound over time.
Below the cards, each item shows what was found, the ad account or budget it relates to, and how long ago it was first seen.
You can:
Filter the list by clicking a colored severity card, or click the small icon on the card to go to Optimizations or Alerts, filtered by that severity
Click an item to go to where you can review or take action on it
Change the density to see more or less information on each item
The Tag, Platform, and Ad Account filters at the top of the Dashboard also filter My Day, so you can focus on your own clients or team.
You can also choose to be notified about items by severity instead of checking My Day. Read the Alerts & Optimizations settings article <insert Link> to find out how.
Prefer the audit layout? Use the Switch to Audit View button at the top right of the Dashboard to flick between the two. Read Audit Dashboard Explained <insert Link> for more.
Budget Performance
This scatter plot chart plots the Budget Pacing and KPI performance of your Adpulse Budgets, which then fall into quadrants:
Blue (top right quadrant) - Overpacing and overperforming
Red (bottom right quadrant) - Overpacing and underperforming
Orange (bottom left quadrant) - Underpacing and underperforming
Yellow (top left quadrant) - Underpacing and overperforming
We have also added a 5th section:
Green (top center) - Budget pacing is on target and KPI performance is greater than 100%. This is where you want all your budgets to be.
Check out our White Paper 'Quadrant PPC Management - A Framework for Agencies to Scale PPC Management' to work smarter, standardize processes, and focus on actions that improve performance.
Timelapse showing the impact of AutoPacing on a large number of Ad Accounts
If you have nominated an account-level KPI and budget on your Budgets/KPI page, the account appears in the chart as a bubble (updated hourly). The scatter graph combines these two key metrics so you can quickly spot anomalies and underperformance.
Bubble size shows the size of the budget. Color and position show the problem or opportunity for that account, based on its budget pacing and performance vs target.
Green (top center)
The “Goldilocks zone”: performance and pacing are juuuust right 👱♀️. You’re meeting or exceeding your performance goals and spending very close to your budget target. Accounts here cluster around the middle of the graph.
In a perfect world, every client would be here, but that is rarely the reality.
The other zones are listed below in recommended priority order. Check the scatter plot regularly so you can rank your accounts and act accordingly.
Red (bottom right quadrant)
Spending too quickly and performing poorly. These accounts often need your time most urgently, as this is where most clients churn.
Blue (top right quadrant)
The opportunity zone, and the easiest to pull back to green. Performance is great but you are spending too quickly, so either reduce spend or get more budget from your client.
Orange (bottom left quadrant)
The optimization zone: performance isn’t great (gulp), but at least you’re not throwing good money after bad.
Yellow (top left quadrant)
Performance is great, but you’re not spending enough of the budget. Pretty easy to fix.
Budget Pacing & KPI Performance
The fastest way to understand how your account portfolio is pacing or tracking against KPIs.
Budget Pacing
Under lots | <=80 | Red |
under little | >80 & <=90 | Yellow |
On | >90 & <110 | Green |
Over little | >=110 & <120 | Yellow |
Over lots | >=120 | Red |
KPI Performance
Under | <=90 | Red |
On | >90 & <110 | Green Light |
Over | >=110 | Green Dark |
Pro tips
Use tags to group accounts, then filter results to view only those accounts. A great use case here is to tag accounts with team names - selecting your team shows the results just for accounts in your team.
All the graphs and tables on the dashboard contain clickable elements, so you can click through to investigate or act on the item you are interested in. Try it!
Hover over graph elements for more information on that item