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How to Analyze Ad Spend Data

How to analyze ad spend data starts with understanding what your ad platform exports — Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, and TikTok all produce different column structures for the same underlying metrics. Before calculating ROAS or cost per click, the export needs to be normalized to a consistent date, channel, and campaign structure.

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Or start with

Which campaign had the highest ROAS last month?What is the cost per acquisition by platform?Which ad group drives the most conversions at the lowest CPC?How does spend distribution across platforms compare to the prior month?Which campaigns are over budget relative to their conversion target?

What this export contains

Date
Campaign Name
Ad Group
Platform
Impressions
Clicks
Spend
Conversions
Conversion Value
CPC

What usually goes wrong with it

  • Multi-platform exports use different column names for the same metric

    Google Ads calls it 'Conversions'; Meta calls it 'Results'; LinkedIn calls it 'Conversions'. Combining exports from multiple platforms requires renaming columns before any cross-channel comparison.

    DataMimi Datamimi normalizes column names across multi-platform exports in one session, mapping platform-specific labels to a consistent structure for cross-channel comparison.

  • ROAS requires a Conversion Value column that some platforms omit

    LinkedIn and Twitter do not always export a Conversion Value column — ROAS calculations for these platforms require importing revenue data from a separate source.

    DataMimi It calculates ROAS from Conversion Value and Spend where available, and flags campaigns that lack a revenue column so they can be handled separately.

  • Campaign Name formats vary by platform and advertiser convention

    Google Ads uses structured naming like 'Brand|Search|Exact' while Meta uses free-form names — grouping campaigns by type across platforms requires manual tagging.

    DataMimi It extracts campaign type labels from structured naming conventions and groups free-form names by keyword pattern, producing a consistent campaign taxonomy.

Common questions

How do I calculate ROAS in a spreadsheet?

ROAS = Conversion Value divided by Spend. Expressed as a ratio, 3.5x means $3.50 returned per $1 spent. A ROAS below 1 means the campaign is losing money on a pure attribution basis — though branded campaigns and awareness spend often have lower ROAS by design.

What should I include in an ad spend analysis spreadsheet?

At minimum: Date, Platform, Campaign Name, Spend, Impressions, Clicks, CTR, CPC, Conversions, and Conversion Value. Add ROAS, CPL (Cost Per Lead), and CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) as calculated columns. Include a Budget column if you want to track pacing.

How do I combine Google Ads and Meta exports in one spreadsheet?

Export both as CSV, standardize the column names (Spend, Conversions, Conversion Value, Clicks, Impressions) to match, add a Platform column to each file, then stack them with paste-below or VSTACK in Excel 365. Datamimi can handle the raw exports and do this normalization automatically.

What does Datamimi cost?

Free plan: $0/month, 40 credits, no credit card required. Lite: $9/month, 400 credits. Starter: $24/month, 1,500 credits, up to 3 simultaneous files. Pro: $59/month, 5,000 credits with rollover. Team: $199/month, 20,000 credits, 5 users.

Try it with your own file

DataMimi reads the file you actually have — merged cells, headers below row one, totals pasted at the bottom — and shows which rows and columns every number came from.

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