Interactions are the count of main actions people took on your Google ads. Google defines the main action by format: for a Search text ad or a Shopping ad it is a click, for a video ad it is an engaged view or a click, and for a call ad it is a phone call made from the ad. The Interactions column adds these together so a campaign that mixes formats has one engagement total.
How interactions work
Every ad format in Google Ads has one action that Google treats as its primary engagement. When someone takes that action, the platform records an interaction, and on most formats it is also the moment you are charged. A responsive search ad charges per click, so its interactions equal its clicks. A skippable YouTube ad on a cost-per-view basis charges when someone watches long enough or clicks, so both count as interactions.
Three columns use the figure. Interactions is the raw count. Interaction rate is interactions divided by impressions. Avg. cost is total cost divided by interactions, which is why it is labelled differently from average CPC: on a mixed campaign, it is not purely a cost per click.
A worked example shows why the label matters. A campaign that spent £500 and received 400 clicks and 600 engaged views shows 1,000 interactions and an Avg. cost of 50p. Each visit to the website, though, cost £1.25, because only the 400 clicks sent anyone there. Reporting the 50p figure as a cost per click would make the campaign look far cheaper than it is.
Simply seeing an ad does not count as an interaction; that is an impression. Equally, an interaction is not a conversion. It records engagement with the ad itself, not what happened after the person reached your site or phoned your business.
Why it matters
Interactions are what you pay for on most Google Ads formats, so they are the bridge between spend and results. If you run a London dental practice with Search ads and a YouTube campaign, the account total might show thousands of interactions in a month. Without splitting by format you cannot tell whether those were patients clicking through to book or viewers who watched a video and never visited the site.
They are also an early warning, well before conversion data catches up, and they sit underneath the cost figures that Smart Bidding works against. A sudden fall in interactions on a steady budget usually points to fewer impressions, lower ad rank or ads being disapproved, and that is worth catching within days rather than at the month end.
Common mistakes
- Treating interactions and website visits as the same number. Video views and calls never reach your analytics as sessions.
- Comparing Avg. cost on a video campaign with average CPC on a Search campaign.
- Reporting a total of interactions to a director without saying what each one represents.
- Counting calls from ads as leads without checking call length or whether the caller became a customer.
How to act on it
Break interactions down by campaign type and, where possible, by ad format, then put clicks, calls and views in separate columns in your reports. For call ads and call assets, set up call conversions with a minimum call length so that only real conversations count as results rather than every dial.
Then follow interactions through to outcomes. Pair them with conversion rate and cost per enquiry, and investigate any campaign where interactions grow while conversions stand still. If you would like someone to set this reporting up and review it every month, that is part of the PPC management service I run.