A common tactic for analyzing your Google Ads data is to do a year-over-year comparison of the data (or time frame vs time frame). This is especially true during reorganizations, when something seems off in your data.

In those cases, you often compare search term data to see if you stopped showing for some of your top queries due to the reorganization.

For time frame comparisons, there are a few nuances you should know.

To quickly compare two time frames, you can use a tool like the Performance Analyzer to see an entire data story or use the time frame comparisons within Google Ads.

When we compare time frames, we can expand any data column to see the data differences:

Entities and changes are based on your filters

For example, our campaign status is currently ‘all’. If we were showing only ‘active’, then we wouldn’t see the comparison for removed or paused campaigns. When comparing your data, ensure that you’re looking at the statuses you want to compare. Think about paused/removed campaigns if you’re comparing your current data to a time when different campaigns (or ad group, keywords, etc.) were active.

In this case, we wanted to compare year-over-year search term data to check if we stopped showing for certain terms.

When we click to our search term data, our conversions dropped from 273 at the campaign level to 17 at the search term level.

That’s a huge drop in search term data. This brings us to our second major rule about the time comparison data.

Your original time frame must contain the entity

For instance, search term data is always broken out into campaigns, ad groups, and search terms. (You can break it out further, but that’s your minimum segments). If you moved keywords from one campaign or ad group to another, then the initial time frame won’t have that search term for a paused/removed campaign/ad group. That search term is only in the old campaign/ad group. This means that in your initial time frame the entity does not exist, and therefore, it will not compare your empty entity versus your old data.

In our above screenshot, we’re only seeing 17 conversions for our old time frame because there was an account reorganization. The old entities with conversions aren’t in the new time frame and thus, they’re not compared. If we only look at the old time frame and don’t compare the data, we see a very different picture.

Suddenly, we can see all the search term data that had conversions or other status if we only look at the older time frame, rather than within a comparison view.

Check if you’re looking at entities that don’t have segments that can disappear, such as campaign data. You can then enable all campaigns and use the time frame comparison data reliably.

If you’re looking at entities that do have required segments, such as search terms or placements, then you need to download each time frame and use Excel to create your own comparison charts.

Wrap-up

When comparing time frames:

• The entities you’re seeing and the changes are only based on what is being actively displayed.
• If the time frame you’re using for your initial comparison does not have that entity in it, then it won’t compare the data even if your compared-to time frame contains that entity.
• When you want to see the interdependencies of time frame metrics, use a data comparison tool.