Reporting in Microsoft Advertising: Report Builder, Templates, Schedules and Data Delays

This guide uses Microsoft Advertising Help only, mainly Understanding the Report Builder and Is my data updated in real time?, plus the articles linked where they are used. Checked on 12 November 2026. The same jobs in Google Ads are in our Google Ads report editor guide, and LinkedIn's in our LinkedIn Ads reporting guide.

Campaign tables or the Reports page

For a quick look, use the tables on the Campaigns pages. Microsoft calls a download from these tables an instant report: you can download the table from tabs including Ads, Keywords, Audiences, Auto Targets, Change History, Dimensions and Competition, as a .csv or Excel file, with whatever columns, filters, segments and date range you set.

For anything you will run again, share or break down further, use Reporting in the left menu. There you either build a report from scratch with the Report Builder or start from a template, and you can save, schedule and email the result.

Segments, period comparison and custom columns

Three table tools often save running a report at all.

Segments split the rows on the Accounts summary or Campaigns page by Time, Audience, Conversions, Device type, Network, Top vs. Other and Vertical Ad Type (Segment your performance data). Time segments have limits, so pick a date range that fits:

Time segment	Maximum data	Avoid, for example
Day	16 days	Last 30 days and anything longer
Week	17 weeks	Last 6 months and longer; short ranges such as Last 7 days
Month	17 months	Ranges of a month or less, and Entire time
Quarter	13 quarters	Ranges up to Last 3 months, and Entire time
Year	3 years	Anything up to Last year

Microsoft adds that a week or month segment cannot be shown for "This week" or "This month" before the period is over. Day of week, device type, network and Top vs. Other have no limit.

Period comparison puts two date ranges side by side: previous period, same period last year, or a custom range "within the last 3 years" that does not include today (compare performance by date ranges). Each metric then opens into current, comparison, change and change % sub-columns, which you can sort, filter and download.

Custom columns hold your own formula built from performance metrics with add, subtract, multiply and divide, optionally split by a segment, and formatted as number, percent or currency (custom columns). Microsoft's examples include Gross Margin as (Revenue - Spend) ÷ Revenue. A custom column works on other tables in the account, except that Accounts summary columns stay on that page.

Building a report with the Report Builder

Select Reporting > Home > Create report. A report is a set of breakdowns (how rows are grouped, such as campaign, device, region or product) and metrics (impressions, clicks, conversions and so on). Add each with + in the left panel, drag them into order, set the date range at top right and save. Microsoft's examples of use: weekly spend and conversions by campaign and device, isolating a drop across time periods and ad types, and client reports against KPIs such as ROAS, CTR and conversion rate by region and product line.

One rule is easy to miss: reports "will not include campaigns, ad groups, keywords, or other entities with zero impressions." A keyword that never showed will not be in a keyword report, so use the Keywords table if you are hunting for those.

Report templates worth knowing

Templates are ready-made reports under Reporting > Templates, searchable and grouped by type, with Explore all templates for the full list. Any template can be changed with Modify to add, remove or reorder breakdowns and metrics. A selection, with Microsoft's description of each:

• Performance: Account, Campaign, Ad group, Ad and Keyword reports. The Keyword report adds quality score, bid and position for each keyword. Destination URL shows landing pages, and only the first URL in the list is reported.
• Search term: what people searched when your ads showed, for Search and Shopping campaigns. Search term insights covers Performance Max only (Run a search term report).
• Share of voice: impression share and the share lost to budget and to bid, by keyword (share of voice report).
• Negative keyword conflicts: negatives that block your own keywords, and at which level.
• Conversions and Goals: conversions, assists and revenue by campaign, keyword and goal, including UET, offline and app install conversions.
• Targeting: Geographic (physical location or location of interest), User location, Age and gender, and Professional demographics (company, industry, job function).
• Website URL (publisher): sites on the Microsoft Advertising Network where ads showed, to find ones to exclude.
• Product ads: Product partition (each product group), Product dimension (each item in the catalog) and Product match count, for Shopping campaigns. Our Microsoft Shopping campaigns guide explains product groups.
• Asset and Combination performance for responsive search ads and Performance Max assets, and Change history, which shows who changed what.
• Billing and budget: Budget, Billing statement and Insertion order reports.

Microsoft's dimensions overview maps where each lives in the menu.

Graphs and downloads

Any report table can be turned into a graph on the Graphs tab. The graph is built from the table, so an empty table gives no graph. Limits per type:

• Bar chart and line chart: 1 breakdown, up to 2 metrics.
• Pie chart: 1 breakdown, 1 metric.
• Summary table: up to 3 breakdowns and 3 metrics.

Graphs export as CSV or JPEG: the report only, the report and graphs, all graphs, or one graph. A report table downloads as .zip (CSV), .zip (TSV) or .xlsx. Report header names are always in English, whatever the language of the data.

Saving, scheduling and emailing reports

Select Save, name the report and pick where to store it. Saved at account level, everyone with access to that account can use it. Saved at account and user profile level, it follows your profile across all the accounts you can access, which suits agencies running the same report for several clients. Saved reports are under My reports > Saved customized reports.

To send it automatically, open the report, select Schedule report, turn on the toggle and set frequency, day, time, start and end date, recipients and format, with the option to attach the report to the email. Rules to know:

• Frequency is Daily, Weekly or Monthly, and a new schedule must run on one of the first 28 days of the month.
• You can only send to users who have access to the account or campaign the report covers, so a client without access cannot be on the list.
• Anyone can unsubscribe through the link in the email footer, even the person who created it.

Microsoft also advises that changes to campaigns "can take up to a couple of weeks to show in report data", so it suggests running performance reports in two- to four-week intervals.

How fresh the data is

Most metrics update during the day, but not instantly. Microsoft's table of what may not have arrived yet:

Data	Most recent period that might be missing
Clicks, impressions	1 hour
UET conversions	2 hours
Non-UET conversions (app install, offline)	5 hours
Search terms, negative keyword report	3 hours
Share of voice report	16 hours
Auction insights	2.5 days
Search terms insight report, Top mover	3 days

So a report run in the morning for "yesterday" is fine for clicks and spend, but offline conversions or auction insights for the same day may still be incomplete. Offline conversions themselves are covered in our Microsoft Advertising basics guide.

How far back data goes, and time zones

Microsoft says it keeps "campaign performance data for up to 36 months." The detail by report and time unit is in the reporting data retention table. A few examples from it:

• Account, Campaign, Ad group, Ad and Keyword reports: 6 months by hour, 36 months by day and longer.
• Search term and Goals reports: 1 month by hour, 36 months by day.
• Geographic and User location reports: 14 days by hour, 36 months by day.
• Share of voice: 6 months only, with no hourly data.
• Negative keyword conflict and Product match count reports use current settings and keep no history.

If you need older data than that, download and keep it yourself before it ages out.

Dates follow the account time zone, set when the account is created. It decides the Campaigns page date range and the default time zone of reports. You can change a single report's time zone, which affects that report only. Since March 2022 campaigns use the account's time zone.

Why totals can differ between reports

• Search term reports only include search terms with significant volume, so their impressions "may differ from the total impressions shown in other reports."
• Zero-impression items are left out of Report Builder reports.
• Rounding: decimal totals can differ slightly from tab to tab.
• Freshness: one report may include conversions another has not received yet.
• Time zone: a report set to a different time zone splits days differently.

How we set up reporting

This part is our opinion, not Microsoft's. For each client we save one custom report at account and user profile level (campaign, device and week as breakdowns; spend, clicks, conversions, conversion value and ROAS as metrics) and schedule it weekly to the people who have account access. A monthly search term report goes to whoever manages negatives. We read conversions no earlier than the morning after for UET, and later in the week for offline imports, and we keep a monthly CSV export so year-on-year comparisons outlive the retention limits. Where a client looks at several ad platforms, we bring the numbers together as described in our website analytics reporting guide.

Frequently asked questions

How long does Microsoft Advertising keep report data?

Up to 36 months for campaign performance data. Hourly data is kept for less, for example 6 months for keyword and campaign reports, and the share of voice report keeps 6 months.

How quickly do conversions show in Microsoft Advertising reports?

UET conversions from the last 2 hours might not appear yet; non-UET conversions such as offline and app installs, the last 5 hours.

Can I email a Microsoft Advertising report to a client?

Only if they have access to the account or entity the report covers. Scheduled reports can be sent daily, weekly or monthly, as an attachment if you choose.

Why are my search term impressions lower than my keyword impressions?

The search term report only includes search terms with significant volume, so its total can be a fraction of the impressions in other reports.

Why is a keyword missing from my report?

Reports leave out keywords and other items with zero impressions in the date range. Check the Keywords table instead.

Good reports start with tracking that records the right actions on your site. See our website development service and all our services, or email [email protected].