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Fix a report import that fails
What each import message means and how to fix the file, from missing headers and day columns to date ranges, Excel files and number formats.
BenchMarketing editorial team Updated October 7, 2026 3 min readShare
Most failed imports come down to one of a handful of export settings.
"Could not find the column headers"
The file needs at least a cost or spend column and an impressions or clicks column in its first 15 lines. Re-export with those columns visible in the table.
"This report has no Day or Date column"
The workspace import keeps one row per day. Add a daily breakdown (Segment by Day in Google and Microsoft, Breakdown by Day in Meta, Daily in LinkedIn) and export again. The free report does not need one.
"Rows cover a date range rather than a single day"
The export has Reporting starts and Reporting ends columns spanning several days. Add a daily breakdown and export again.
The file is .xlsx
Save or export it as CSV. Excel-style CSV from Google Ads (tab-separated, UTF-16) is fine.
Numbers look ten or a hundred times off
Exports from countries that write 1.234,56 use semicolons between columns; Benchmarketing reads those as decimal commas. If a file mixes formats, open it in a spreadsheet and export again as CSV.
Still stuck
Contact us with the platform name and the message you saw. Please don't attach the file unless we ask: the first lines and the header row are usually enough.
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Benchmark figures in this article come from the BenchMarketing dataset and update when the benchmark pages do. Each benchmark page lists its sources and period; see our methodology.
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