How to Read Your AdMob Report

The AdMob dashboard gives you a lot of numbers and very little guidance on which ones matter. Most developers glance at estimated earnings, feel pleased or worried, and close the tab. The useful information sits a level down, in the metrics that explain why earnings moved.

Each metric in the report describes one step in a chain. Your app asks for an ad, a buyer answers, the ad is shown, and sometimes someone taps it. If you know which step a metric measures, you can usually find a problem in minutes rather than days.

This guide walks through the main metrics, the dimensions you can split them by, the patterns that point to trouble, and why the figure on your home screen is not the one you get paid. Google updates the interface from time to time, so menu names and column labels may differ in your account. Dollar figures are estimates from our benchmark tables.

The chain the report describes

Read the core metrics in this order, because each one feeds the next:

1. Requests: how many times your app asked for an ad.
2. Matched requests: how many of those requests received an ad in return.
3. Impressions: how many of the matched ads were actually shown.
4. Clicks: how many impressions were tapped.
5. Estimated earnings: what all of that is expected to be worth.

Every ratio in the report is one of these numbers divided by another. Once you see it that way, the dashboard becomes much easier to read.

Requests, match rate and show rate

Match rate is matched requests divided by requests. It is AdMob's name for what other platforms call fill rate. A low match rate means buyers are not answering, often because of geography, consent status, floor prices or a new app with little history. Our fill rate guide covers the causes in depth.

Show rate is impressions divided by matched requests. An ad can be matched and loaded but never shown, for example when you preload an interstitial and the player quits before the next break. A low show rate usually points to your own code: loading too early, loading too often, or loading ads for screens users rarely reach.

These two ratios answer different questions. Match rate asks whether the market wanted your inventory. Show rate asks whether your app used what it was given.

Impressions, eCPM, clicks and CTR

Impressions are what you are paid on for most formats. eCPM, which AdMob may label observed eCPM, is estimated earnings divided by impressions, multiplied by 1,000. It is the average price your impressions fetched. Our eCPM explainer shows why a blended eCPM can fall while revenue rises.

Clicks and CTR (clicks divided by impressions) tell you how often users tap. Treat CTR as a safety metric rather than a target. A sudden jump, especially on one ad unit, can mean ads sit too close to buttons or that something is generating invalid clicks. That is the kind of pattern that leads to limited ad serving.

User metrics: ARPU and ARPDAU

When user metrics are enabled, usually by linking your app to Google Analytics for Firebase, the report can show active users alongside revenue. That unlocks ARPDAU, average revenue per daily active user, and ARPU over a longer period.

These are the numbers that connect ads to the rest of your business. eCPM tells you the price of an impression. ARPDAU tells you what a typical user is worth per day, after frequency, format mix and engagement are all included. If you want to turn that into lifetime value, read ARPDAU and LTV for apps. The Firebase Analytics documentation covers the setup.

A worked example

Suppose one interstitial ad unit, serving a Tier 1 Android audience, logs 100,000 requests in a week.

• Our benchmark tables put AdMob's fill at about 88%, so matched requests are 88,000.
• Assume a hypothetical show rate of 80%, giving 70,400 impressions.
• At our interstitial benchmark eCPM of about $8.00, earnings are 70,400 / 1,000 x 8.00 = $563.20.

Now raise the show rate to 95% by loading the ad closer to the moment it is needed. Impressions become 83,600 and earnings about $668.80, with no change to users, price or fill. The AdMob revenue calculator lets you test similar changes by format and region.

Dimensions: how to split the numbers

A total is only a starting point. The report lets you break each metric down by dimensions such as:

• App: separates a strong app from a weak one hiding inside an account total.
• Ad unit: the most useful split for finding a broken placement.
• Format: rewarded, interstitial, banner, native and app open behave very differently.
• Country: geography often explains more of eCPM than anything you control.
• Platform: iOS and Android differ, and our tables apply a 1.3x multiplier to iOS.
• Ad source or mediation group, if you use mediation: shows which network won each impression.

Add a date dimension to any of these and you can see when a change began, which you can then match against a release or a settings change.

Spotting problems

Most issues show up as a specific shape in the data. This table pairs common symptoms with where to look first.

When earnings move, split the change into impressions and eCPM before anything else. That one step tells you whether the problem is volume or price. A fall in January, for instance, is usually price, as explained in why ad revenue drops in January.

Estimated versus finalised earnings

The earnings in your reports are estimates. They update through the day and give a fair picture of performance, but they are not a statement of what you will be paid.

After each month closes, AdMob reviews the activity and produces a finalised figure, which appears on the payments side of your account, usually early in the following month. The finalised number can be lower than the estimate, mainly because invalid traffic is removed and advertisers are not charged for it. Small differences are normal. A large gap is worth investigating, and our guide to invalid traffic explains the usual reasons.

Payments then follow AdMob's own schedule. Our AdMob payment guide covers thresholds, timing and methods.

Building a weekly habit

Pick a fixed day and compare the last seven days with the seven before, split by ad unit and country. Note anything that moved by more than a margin you choose in advance, and match it against releases, settings changes and the calendar. Over a few months you will learn what normal noise looks like for your app.

For the definitions behind each column, the AdMob help centre is the official reference, and the AdMob developer guides cover loading and showing ads correctly. Our mobile eCPM benchmarks give you a yardstick for the prices you see.