Ten clients, two ad platforms each, one report a month: that is twenty exports, a spreadsheet per client and a lot of copying and pasting. For a small agency it can easily take a day or more at the start of every month. Here is what the report should contain, how often to send it, and the ways to stop building it by hand.
What a good monthly report contains
Clients rarely read a twelve-tab spreadsheet. They read the first paragraph, look for the number they care about and check whether you did anything. Build the report around that.
| Section | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| The headline | One or two sentences: what was spent, what it produced, and whether that beat the goal. |
| Spend against budget | Spend per platform against the agreed monthly budget. Under or over, and why. |
| Results against the goal | The result the client pays for (enquiries, sales, bookings, calls) and cost per result. Not clicks or click-through rate. |
| Trend | This month against last month, and against the same month last year once you have it. |
| What we changed and why | The main changes, each with its reason. This is the part that shows the fee is earned. |
| What worked, what did not | Honest on both. Clients trust a report that admits a test failed. |
| What’s next | The plan for next month, and any decisions you need from the client. |
| Caveats | Tracking gaps, attribution differences, platform figures that disagree with the client’s own records. |
Two principles make it readable:
- Lead with the goal, not the platform. “We got 38 enquiries at £27 each against a target of £30” beats a page of impressions.
- Keep the main report to one page. Put the detail in an appendix or a dashboard for the client who wants it. Most will not.
Cadence: what to send and when
| Rhythm | Purpose | Format |
|---|---|---|
| As it happens | Problems: tracking broken, spend spiking, a campaign disapproved | A short alert |
| Weekly (optional) | Launches, bigger budgets, nervous clients | Three lines by email |
| Monthly | Results, changes, next steps | The report above |
| Quarterly | Strategy, budget, what to try next | A call with a short deck or document |
Send the monthly report on a fixed day, early in the month. Clients notice consistency more than design. A plain report every month on the 2nd builds more trust than a beautiful one that arrives on the 11th.
Keep a change log all month
The slowest part of reporting is not the numbers. It is remembering what you changed and why. Keep a running log per client: date, what changed, why, and what you expect. A shared document works. So does a note in your project tool. At month end, “what we changed and why” is already written.
The same goes for numbers from outside the ad platforms. If a client can tell you which enquiries became paying customers, even as a monthly count, ask for it on a fixed day. Cost per customer is a far stronger number to report than cost per lead, and it is the one clients care about most.
The automation options
There are four broad routes, and many agencies mix them.
Spreadsheets
Free and flexible. Also manual, easy to break with one bad paste, and they still leave you to write the commentary. Fine for two clients, painful for ten.
Looker Studio
Google’s free dashboard tool has a native Google Ads connector. With a manager (MCC) account, one data source can report on up to 50 client accounts. Meta, Microsoft and most other platforms need partner connectors, which are made by third parties and are typically paid. You build the template once and reuse it, but setup takes time and someone still writes the words.
Reporting tools
Dedicated reporting software pulls several platforms into branded dashboards and scheduled PDFs. Pricing is typically a monthly fee that grows with the number of clients or data sources. They save the export-and-paste work well. Most still leave the commentary, the part clients actually read, to you.
AI ad managers
The newest option. An AI ad manager runs or watches the campaigns, logs every change it makes, and writes the report from the same data, including the reasons behind each change. Check any tool’s reports against the platforms for the first month or two before you send them unedited.
| Route | Cost | Setup | Writes the commentary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheets | Free | Low, then manual every month | No |
| Looker Studio | Free, plus any paid connectors | Medium: build the template once | No |
| Reporting tools | Monthly, typically scales with clients | Low to medium | Usually not |
| AI ad managers | Monthly, varies by tool | Low: connect accounts, set goals | Yes, from its own change log |
A reporting routine that fits in a morning
- One template for every client. Same sections, same order, so clients know where to look and your team can write them quickly.
- Data lands on the 1st. Whichever tool you use, have the numbers ready without anyone exporting anything.
- Fifteen to twenty minutes per client. Read the numbers, check them against the change log, write or edit the headline and the next steps.
- Send by the second or third working day. Same day each month.
- Collect the decisions. Anything that needs the client’s yes goes in “what’s next” with the numbers, so the reply can be one word.
Ten clients at twenty minutes each is a little over three hours. The time saved on spreadsheets goes back into improving the accounts.
How AdsEye handles it
AdsEye puts every brand’s goals, budgets and reports in one place: up to ten brands at £20 each per month. For each brand, Max, the AI ads specialist, works the campaigns against the client’s goal each morning and keeps spend on pace hourly. On the 1st he sends the report in plain English, by email and in the workspace: cost, results against the goal, what he changed and why, and what’s next. Bigger decisions wait for a yes, with the reasons and numbers attached.
Read-only client logins and reports under your own agency’s name are live in every workspace, included in the price: see how they look. Google Ads and Meta connect today from each client’s own accounts. Results vary by account, and no tool can guarantee them.
