Facebook Ads Reporting: What to Put in a Meta Ads Report (With Template)

What Is Facebook Ads Reporting?

Facebook ads reporting is pulling your Meta ad results into a regular summary that shows what you spent, what it brought in and what to change next. A good report answers three questions: are we making money, what changed since last time, and what do we do about it.

Meta's own tool for this is Meta Ads Reporting, inside Ads Manager. It lets you build custom reports, break results down by audience, placement or ad, and schedule them to be emailed to your team.

The tool is the easy part. The hard part is deciding what goes in. A report with every column Meta offers can still answer none of the three questions.

What a Good Meta Ads Report Answers

Before you pick a single metric, write down who reads the report and what they'll decide from it.

A founder or CFO wants to know if the money is working. A media buyer wants to know which ad sets and ads to move budget between. A creative team wants to know which ads are winning, which are fading and what to make next.

One report can serve all three if it's built in layers:

1. Business results first. Spend, revenue, cost per purchase or lead, and ROAS, compared to your target.
2. What drove the change. CPM, frequency and conversion rate, so you can tell a cost problem from a creative or site problem.
3. Creative. Which ads are carrying the spend, which are new, and which are wearing out.
4. Next steps. Two or three things you'll do before the next report.

If a number doesn't help with one of those four, leave it out.

The Metrics to Include

Here's what we'd put in a Meta ads report for a brand selling online, and why each one earns its spot.

A few notes on the less obvious ones.

MER. Meta's ROAS only counts sales Meta takes credit for. MER counts every sale against every dollar, so it's the check on whether Meta's numbers hold up. Put it next to ROAS, not instead of it.

Hook rate and hold rate. Hook rate is 3-second video plays divided by impressions. Hold rate is ThruPlays divided by impressions. Neither is a default column, so add them as custom metrics. Our hook rate post has the formulas and how to set them up.

A Simple Facebook Ads Report Template

This is the structure we'd use. It fits on one page, and every section points to a decision.

1. Summary (3 lines). What happened, why, and what we're doing next. Write this last, put it first.
2. Account totals. Spend, purchases, cost per purchase, ROAS and MER for this period, the last period and the same period last year.
3. What drove the change. CPM, frequency, link CTR and conversion rate for the same three periods.
4. Top ads by spend. The 5 to 10 ads carrying the account, with spend, cost per purchase, hook rate and CTR.
5. New ads. What launched this period and whether any are getting spend yet.
6. Fatigue watch. Ads whose share of spend is falling, CPM is rising or frequency is climbing.
7. Next steps. Two or three actions, each with an owner.

Here's what the account totals table looks like filled in with made-up numbers:

Read top to bottom, the story is clear. Spend went up, cost per purchase rose about 7%, CPM and frequency both climbed. That points to the same people seeing the same ads more often, which often means the account needs new creative more than new targeting.

How to Build the Report in Meta Ads Reporting

You don't need a paid tool to start. Meta Ads Reporting covers the basics, and Meta's help pages walk through it.

1. Check your access. Meta says you need administrator, advertiser or analyst access to the ad account.
2. Open Ads Reporting. In Ads Manager, open the Reports dropdown and choose to create a custom report, or start from a suggested template.
3. Pick your metrics. Use the Metrics tab to add the columns from the table above. Meta groups them into performance, engagement, conversions and settings.
4. Add breakdowns. Break results down by ad, placement, age or other dimensions. Meta also offers an ad creative breakdown that shows results for each creative, with placement previews when you hover over the thumbnail. Meta says it's still rolling out, so you may not have it yet.
5. Save the report. Meta's export and sharing options work on saved reports.
6. Schedule it. Ads Reporting can email recurring reports to you and your team, for example every week.
7. Export or share. You can export a report as an .xlsx or .csv file, or share it as a link. People outside your business can view a shared link but can't edit the report, and you can set the link to expire.

Meta's maximum reporting window is 37 months back from the date of your request, so year-over-year comparisons are possible straight from Ads Manager.

When you outgrow this, often because you want ad thumbnails next to the numbers or data from several ad accounts in one place, a creative reporting tool can help. We compared two of them in Atria vs. Motion.

Weekly vs. Monthly Reports

Most accounts need both, and they do different jobs.

Compare months to the same month last year when you can. Meta results move a lot with the calendar. In our Black Friday data, ROAS across consumer brands was 82% higher on Black Friday 2025 than in October and 27% lower in the second week of December. A month-over-month report in late Q4 can look like a crisis when it's just the season.

What to Compare Your Numbers To

A number on its own doesn't tell you much. Compare each metric to your own account's median first, then to outside benchmarks.

From our data on large US Meta accounts:

• Link CTR: the median account had a 1.00% link CTR.
• Hook rate: the median video ad had a 20.9% hook rate, and the median hold rate was 4.6%.
• CPM: across $35M in US spend from June to August 2026, the median CPM was $18.73.
• Frequency: the median monthly frequency in the same data was 4.6.

For more, see our Meta Ads Statistics hub.

One warning: don't pick winning ads on CTR or hook rate alone. In our CTR data, the quarter of ads with the highest CTR paid more for impressions in the median brand and ended up with the same cost per purchase. Use the top-of-funnel numbers to explain why an ad is winning or losing, and cost per purchase to decide.

Common Reporting Mistakes

• Mixing attribution settings. Meta's help center says conversion metrics won't populate at the campaign or summary level if it includes more than one attribution setting. Pick one setting and use it everywhere. Our post on Meta attribution explains the options.
• Adding up ROAS from every platform. More than one platform can claim the same sale. Use MER for the total.
• Too many columns. If the report needs a legend, it's too long. Cut anything that doesn't change a decision.
• Judging new ads too early. Meta says metrics can show up after a short delay when an ad has just started running. Give new ads time to spend before you call them.
• Ignoring fatigue. In our data, only 34% of each account's top 10 ads were still in its top 10 two months later. A report that only shows totals will miss the slide until it's already happened.
• No next steps. A report that ends with a table is a data dump. End with what you'll do.

How We Use Reports at Biddyco

We're a creative agency for Meta ads, so the section of the report we care about most is the creative one: which ads are carrying the spend, which are fading, and what to make next. That's where the next batch of UGC, motion, static and hybrid ads comes from.

Our US-based senior team works across 100+ accounts and $20M+ in monthly spend. New files land every 2 to 4 weeks, and we aim for one round of feedback.

If your reports keep saying the ads are tired, talk to us.

FAQ

What should be included in a Facebook ads report?

Spend, purchases or leads, cost per purchase, ROAS and MER for the business view. CPM, frequency, link CTR and conversion rate to explain changes. Top ads by spend, new ads and fading ads for creative. And two or three next steps.

How do I create a report in Meta Ads Manager?

Open the Reports dropdown in Ads Manager and create a custom report or start from a template in Meta Ads Reporting. Add your metrics and breakdowns, save it, then export it as .xlsx or .csv, share it as a link or schedule it to be emailed.

Can I schedule Facebook ads reports to be emailed automatically?

Yes. Meta Ads Reporting lets you schedule recurring reports and have them emailed to you and your colleagues, for example every week.

How often should I report on Facebook ads?

Weekly for the team running the account, to catch problems and move budget. Monthly for leadership, to judge results against targets and the same month last year.

What is the most important metric in a Facebook ads report?

Cost per purchase or lead, judged against what you can afford to pay. ROAS is the same idea expressed as revenue per dollar. Everything else in the report helps explain why that number moved.

Why don't my Meta report numbers match Shopify or Google Analytics?

Each tool counts sales its own way. Meta counts purchases within your attribution window after someone clicked or viewed your ad, and other tools use their own rules. That's why it helps to track MER, which uses your own sales numbers.