What to include in a monthly PPC and ad report for clients

Start from the client's goal, not from the platform

Ad platforms report dozens of metrics: impressions, reach, CPM, click-through rate, cost per result. A client pays for leads, sales or bookings. A good report starts with the goal that was agreed, for example a number of qualified leads at a target cost, and every other number in it either explains that result or supports a decision.

Agree the goal and the definitions before the first report: what counts as a lead, what counts as qualified, and which source of truth wins when the ad platform and the client's records disagree.

What to include

• Summary: three to five sentences on results against the goal, the main reason, and the one decision you recommend.
• Spend and pacing: spend against the monthly budget, per platform or account, and whether the budget was under- or overspent.
• Results: leads or conversions, cost per lead or per acquisition, and the change against last month and the goal.
• Lead quality: how many leads were qualified, reached a meeting or became a sale, from the client's CRM or feedback. This is where the real cost per lead is found.
• Breakdown by campaign: which campaigns and ad sets carried the results and which only spent.
• Creatives: the best and weakest ads, with a short note on why, and signs of fatigue such as rising frequency.
• Audience and placement notes: age, country, device or placement only where they changed a decision.
• Tests and learnings: what was tested, the result, and whether it was conclusive.
• Issues: tracking gaps, rejected ads, account or payment problems, form or website errors.
• Next month: the plan, the budget proposal and what you need from the client.

Add a short notes section on data limits: the reporting period, time zone, currency, the attribution setting the platform uses and the fact that platform numbers can change for a few days after the period ends.

How to build the report step by step

1. Fix the reporting period and pull the data a few days after month end, so late conversions are included.
2. Export spend and results per account and campaign for the period and the previous month.
3. Get lead outcomes from the client's CRM or sales team: qualified, meeting, sale, and ideally revenue.
4. Calculate cost per lead, cost per qualified lead and cost per sale per campaign.
5. Compare with the goal and last month, and write down the two or three reasons that explain most of the change.
6. Pick the best and weakest creatives and note what you learned from them.
7. List issues and what was done about them.
8. Write the summary last, in plain language, with one recommended decision.
9. Send the report on the same day each month and book a short call to discuss it.

Worked example (illustrative numbers)

A client spent 3,000 EUR on lead ads in a month and received 150 leads, so the cost per lead is 20 EUR. The client's sales team marked 60 leads as qualified and closed 12 sales: 50 EUR per qualified lead and 250 EUR per sale.

• Campaign A: 1,800 EUR spend, 110 leads, cost per lead 16.36 EUR, 30 qualified, so 60 EUR per qualified lead.
• Campaign B: 1,200 EUR spend, 40 leads, cost per lead 30 EUR, 30 qualified, so 40 EUR per qualified lead.

Judged by cost per lead, campaign A looks almost twice as good. Judged by qualified leads, campaign B is a third cheaper. The summary would say: results met the goal of 50 qualified leads, campaign B brings better leads, and we recommend moving 400 EUR of next month's budget from A to B and testing a qualifying question in A's form.

How it works in OrgLines

OrgLines puts the ad data next to what happened to the leads. The Meta ad accounts of your clients are connected directly, lead-form submissions arrive in the Lead Center, and each campaign's leads can be routed to the workspace of the right client. The campaign page shows how much a campaign spent, how many leads it brought and at what price, and because spend is combined with each lead's outcome, you can compare campaigns by qualified leads and sales rather than by clicks.

For the report itself there is an account comparison, a funnel built from real Meta actions and pivot tables by campaign, platform, placement, age, gender, country, device and time. A pivot configuration can be saved as a template and scheduled to be sent automatically to the Telegram connected to the workspace. Amounts from accounts in different currencies are shown as they are, not converted, so state the currency in your report. Clients can also get access by role to the sections that concern them.

Common mistakes

• Reporting platform metrics without connecting them to the client's goal.
• Using cost per lead alone and ignoring lead quality.
• Changing the metrics or the layout every month, so nothing can be compared.
• Pulling data on the first day of the month, before late conversions arrive.
• Hiding problems such as tracking errors instead of naming them with a fix.
• Ending without a recommendation or a clear ask to the client.
• Mixing currencies or time zones without saying so.

Checklist

• The goal and the lead definitions are written at the top.
• Spend is shown against budget.
• Cost per lead and cost per qualified lead are both there.
• Lead outcomes come from the client's records, not only the platform.
• Every chart supports a decision or can be removed.
• Issues and tests are listed with results.
• Next month's plan and budget proposal are included.
• Period, currency and attribution setting are stated.

Try it free in OrgLines