diff --git a/cpp/benchmarks/ast/transform.cpp b/cpp/benchmarks/ast/transform.cpp
index 0f5787955da..af14d48d242 100644
--- a/cpp/benchmarks/ast/transform.cpp
+++ b/cpp/benchmarks/ast/transform.cpp
@@ -85,11 +85,11 @@ static void BM_ast_transform(nvbench::state& state)
 
   auto const& expression_tree_root = expressions.back();
 
-  state.exec(nvbench::exec_tag::sync,
-             [&](nvbench::launch&) { cudf::compute_column(table, expression_tree_root); });
-
   // Use the number of bytes read from global memory
   state.add_global_memory_reads<key_type>(table_size * (tree_levels + 1));
+
+  state.exec(nvbench::exec_tag::sync,
+             [&](nvbench::launch&) { cudf::compute_column(table, expression_tree_root); });
 }
 
 #define AST_TRANSFORM_BENCHMARK_DEFINE(name, key_type, tree_type, reuse_columns, nullable) \