How to Create Facebook Ad Reports

Building a Facebook Ads report often feels like a necessary but tedious chore, something you knock out on a Monday morning only for it to be outdated by Tuesday. The good news is that it doesn't have to be a painful process of downloading CSVs and wrestling with pivot tables. This guide will walk you through creating effective Facebook Ads reports that actually help you make smarter decisions, optimize your campaigns, and prove your marketing ROI.

Before You Build: What to Include in a Facebook Ad Report

A great report tells a story, a bad one is just a data dump. Before you even open Ads Manager, you need to know what questions you're trying to answer. Are you trying to figure out which creative is performing best? Understand which audience is converting? Or simply prove to your boss that the marketing budget isn't being set on fire?

Your goals will determine your metrics. Instead of tracking dozens of vanity metrics, focus on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your campaign objectives. We can break these down by the marketing funnel.

Key Metrics for Top-of-Funnel (Awareness & Reach)

If your goal is brand awareness, you're trying to get your message in front of as many relevant people as possible. Your key metrics will be:

• Impressions: The total number of times your ad was shown.
• Reach: The number of unique people who saw your ad.
• Frequency: The average number of times each person saw your ad (Impressions / Reach). High frequency can lead to ad fatigue.
• Cost Per 1,000 Impressions (CPM): How much you're paying to get your ad seen 1,000 times. This is a good measure of ad-serving efficiency.

Key Metrics for Middle-of-Funnel (Engagement & Traffic)

Here, you want to see if your ads are compelling enough to get people to interact or visit your website. Look at:

• Link Clicks: The number of clicks on links within your ad that led to destinations on or off Facebook.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of times people saw your ad and performed a link click (Link Clicks / Impressions). It's a key indicator of how compelling your ad creative and copy are.
• Cost Per Click (CPC): The average cost for each link click. This helps you understand how efficiently you're driving traffic.
• Engagement: The total number of actions (likes, comments, shares, etc.) people took on your ads.

Key Metrics for Bottom-of-Funnel (Conversions)

This is where the money is made. These metrics show whether your ads are driving valuable business outcomes, like sales or leads. This is also where things traditionally get messy, trying to connect ad spend to actual revenue.

• Conversions: The number of actions taken on your website as a result of your ad (e.g., Purchases, Leads, Add to Carts). Requires the Meta Pixel to be set up correctly.
• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) / Cost Per Result: How much you paid, on average, for each conversion. If you're selling a $50 product and your CPA is $75, you have a problem.
• Return On Ad Spend (ROAS): This is the holy grail for most advertisers. It measures the total revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. For example, a ROAS of 4x means you made $4 for every $1 you spent.
• Conversion Value: The total value of the conversions tracked by your pixel. A campaign could have a low number of conversions but a high conversion value if it's driving high-ticket sales.

Now that you know what to look for, let's explore how to build the report.

Method 1: The Quick-and-Dirty Report in Facebook Ads Manager

This is the fastest way to get a snapshot of your performance without leaving the platform. It's perfect for daily check-ins or quick answers.

The main limitation is that you're stuck within the Facebook ecosystem. You can't easily compare your Facebook performance against your Google Ads campaigns or see how many Facebook-driven leads eventually became closed deals in your CRM.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Log in to Meta Ads Manager and go to the "Campaigns," "Ad Sets," or "Ads" tab depending on the level of detail you need.
2. On the right side of the screen, find the "Columns" dropdown. The default is usually set to "Performance."
3. Click the dropdown and select "Customize Columns...".
4. A popup window will appear with a searchable list of every metric imaginable. Start checking the boxes for the KPIs you identified earlier (e.g., ROAS, Link CTR, Amount Spent, CPM).
5. On the right side of the popup, you can drag and drop your selected columns to change their order. I recommend putting the most important metrics (like ROAS and CPA) on the far left.
6. Once you're happy with your custom view, click the checkbox at the bottom that says "Save as a preset" and give it a memorable name, like "Weekly KPI Report."
7. Click "Apply." Now you can access this custom column view anytime from the "Columns" dropdown without having to rebuild it.
8. To share it, click the "Reports" button (with the little chart icon) and select "Export Table Data." You can then export the current view as a .csv or .xlsx file.

Pros: Fast, easy, and requires no additional tools.

Cons: A bit clunky, has no visualization capabilities, and requires a manual export every time you need to share a report.

Method 2: The Classic (and Manual) Spreadsheet Report

This is the tried-and-true method for marketers everywhere. By exporting your data to Google Sheets or Excel, you get total control over formatting, calculations, and visualizations. You're entering the land of VLOOKUP and the weekly reporting cycle: download CSVs on Monday, wrangle data to create charts, and answer follow-up questions for the rest of the week.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. In Ads Manager, set the date range and columns you want using the process from Method 1.
2. From there, click "Reports" > "Export Table Data".
3. Choose either .csv or .xlsx depending on your preferred spreadsheet software.
4. Import your data and begin the 'real' work: cleaning your data by removing unwanted columns, renaming headers, and ensuring formats are correct.
5. Build your visualizations. This can include creating line charts or bar charts to plot spend, pie charts to track trends, or pivot tables to summarize data.
6. Create your summary: add a top-level summary to highlight key metrics like Total Amount Spent, Total ROAS, and Average CTR. This is what most stakeholders will look at.

Pros: Highly customizable, you have complete control over every chart, table, and analysis.

Cons: It's time-consuming and manual. Your report is outdated the moment you export it. It's not live and doesn't reflect real-time data.

Method 3: An Automated Dashboard in Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio)

Now we are getting a bit fancier. Looker Studio is Google's free BI and visualization tool that gives you the ability to pull data from a variety of sources, including Facebook, automate updates, and create shareable visualizations. However, you'll need to learn the tool's interface. Additionally, since Facebook is not a native Google product, you'll need a third-party data connector, which often has a monthly subscription fee.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Open Looker Studio and click "Blank Report."
2. Then, go to "Add data" and search for "Facebook Ads." You'll need to find a Facebook Ads Meta connector, such as Partner or Supermetrics, and authorize your Meta Ads account. You will most likely need to start a free trial if you don't already have one.
3. Now, after connecting, you have a data source in your blank report. You can start building your charts and tables by dragging and dropping metrics onto your charts.
4. Add filters to your entire report, such as dropdowns for date range and campaign name. This allows viewers to interact with the report.
5. Style and brand it! Change your colors and logo, and style fonts to match your brand.

Pros: Automated and real-time, it's shareable. Highly visual and interactive, much easier for anybody to understand quickly.

Cons: There's a learning curve to mastering an entirely new BI tool. It requires connectors that can add up in cost.

Making Your Reports Actually Useful

Regardless of which method you choose, here are a few steps to take your report from just a 'data report' to a truly valuable 'insight report':

• Give Context: Don't just share charts or numbers. Write a narrative that highlights your key takeaways, trends, and next actions you plan to take.
• Segment Your Data: Break down your data instead of just presenting it as a whole. How are my video ads performing vs. static image ads? Which placements are working best?
• Track Trends Over Time: Analyzing reports over periods allows you to spot trends, understand seasonality, and gain deeper insights.

Final Thoughts

Creating Facebook Ads reports shouldn't be a painful process. Whether you use the built-in Ads Manager tools, or more advanced methods, the goal should always be to gather data, surface insights, and act upon them to make smarter campaign decisions.

We built Graphed because we're tired of spending hours every week doing manual data wrangling. Instead of learning complex BI tools, log in to our platform to connect your data sources (like your Facebook Ads account, Shopify, and Google Analytics) and get real-time dashboards in seconds. No more CSV exports - just crisp, clear insights that give you your day back.