Google introduced a Campaign Data Import Validation Report, giving advertisers a way to check the quality of imported campaign data before it affects reporting. It is designed to surface missing or incomplete data coming from non-Google advertising platforms.
The report reviews both incoming non-Google campaign data and previously imported data, highlighting campaigns that may be missing key performance metrics. Specifically, it flags imports lacking essential reporting fields such as cost, clicks and impressions, making gaps visible before anyone builds analysis on top of them.
Incomplete data distorts reporting. Channel comparisons stop being valid and performance evaluation drifts. A missing cost field is the sharpest example: the channel's ROAS looks better than it is, and budget allocation follows the distortion.
The validation report adds a quality control layer ahead of that, letting teams confirm imported data is complete and reliable before relying on it.
First, treat it as a recurring check rather than a one-time step after setup — platform report schemas change without notice, so an import that validated last month may not now. Second, when gaps are found, recompute cross-channel reports for the affected period and correct any conclusions already drawn from them. Third, treat cost, clicks and impressions as the minimum required set and maintain a mapping document for per-platform field differences.
For how upstream data failures play out operationally, see Google Merchant Center Outage: What Shopping Advertisers Should Do Right Now. For the automation layer sitting on top of this data, see Google Adds Agentic AI to Ads and Analytics — the more dashboards get generated automatically, the more quietly missing inputs propagate.
It reviews non-Google campaign data and previously imported data, flagging campaigns missing essential reporting fields such as cost, clicks and impressions.
Missing data breaks channel comparison and performance evaluation. A missing cost field in particular makes a channel look more efficient than it is, misdirecting budget.
As a recurring check rather than a one-time setup step, since platform reporting schemas can change and previously valid imports can start arriving incomplete.
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