Summary
The advertiser should use the Brand Report in Google Ads. It is the self-service reporting destination that visualises deduplicated unique reach, average frequency and on-target reach for completed Video campaigns across devices. Search Lift, Asset Studio and Reach Planner serve other purposes and do not report actual post-campaign deduplicated reach.
Nitin Batra is a Google Video Ads certified professional who plans and reports on YouTube reach and frequency campaigns using Brand Report and Reach Planner in live Google Ads accounts.
Last updated: August 23, 2026
To see exactly how many unique people a completed Video campaign reached and how often they saw the ad across devices, use the Brand Report in Google Ads for deduplicated reach and frequency metrics.
- Search Lift
- Asset Studio
- Reach Planner
- Brand Report
The correct answer is: Brand Report
Key Takeaways
- – The Brand Report in Google Ads is the self-service destination for visualising deduplicated unique reach and frequency for completed Video campaigns across devices.
- – Brand Report counts one person once even if they saw the ad on mobile, desktop and connected TV, which is why its reach number is always lower than total impressions.
- – Reach and frequency reporting exists because impressions alone cannot tell you whether you built awareness among many people or repeated the same message to a small group.
- – Reach Planner is a pre-campaign forecasting tool, not a post-campaign report, so using it to answer ‘how many people did we actually reach’ is the most common mistake on this question.
What does deduplicated reach actually mean in the Brand Report?
Deduplicated reach means each individual is counted once no matter how many devices, formats or placements delivered the ad to them. Google uses signed-in Google account data and modelling to stitch those exposures together. Without deduplication you would simply add up device level reach and badly overstate how many people you touched.
How is average frequency in the Brand Report different from impressions per user?
Average frequency is total impressions divided by unique users, calculated after deduplication across devices. Impressions per cookie or per device inflates the user count and therefore understates frequency. In practice, a healthy awareness campaign usually lands somewhere between two and four exposures per user over the flight, and the Brand Report is where you check whether you actually hit that.
Is Brand Report the same as Brand Lift?
No, and this trips people up regularly. Brand Lift measures the change in ad recall, awareness or consideration using survey responses from exposed and control groups. Brand Report measures delivery, how many unique people you reached and how often, without any survey component. You often read them together, but they answer different questions.
Why does the Brand Report show fewer unique users than my raw impression count suggests?
Because impressions include every repeat view by the same person and every additional device they used. Once the data is deduplicated the unique user count drops sharply, and the gap between the two numbers is essentially your frequency. If reach is low and frequency is high, you have narrowed targeting too much or capped budget in a way that keeps hitting the same audience.