written by
Landon Bennett

Facebook Ads Manager Reporting 101

Account Management Ad Ops Ad Tech 5 min read

Over 7 million advertisers are actively using Facebook. On average, they spend about $200 to $800 per month running their campaigns. But how much of that translates to actual value? Conversion is one of the trickiest things to get right when running a Facebook ad campaign. However, figuring it out does not start with hiring a massive marketing team or professional to handle the painful process. The first step is in understanding Facebook Ads Manager Reporting.

What is Facebook Ads Manager?

Facebook Ads Manager is an online platform where you can go and review data from your Facebook ad campaigns.

You can measure the performance of every ad campaign you are running and create or edit an ad.

This platform is presented as a dashboard containing columns and other structures that relay different information. You also get many filters that allow you to see only the most recent data or even compare results from two different periods.

This form of filtering allows you to see how your ad performance has changed over time.

Ads Reporting in Facebook

Facebook Ads Manager Reporting is an integrated feature within Facebook Ads Manager. Ads reporting allows you to create, export, customize, schedule, and share reports on your ad performance. This is based on a set of parameters you choose.

This information allows you to manage your ad campaigns and create recurring emailed reports. You can also create custom reports from scratch, using filters, sorting, breakdowns, and other advanced features to get tailored reports for your campaigns.

A good example is if you want to get weekly reports about the performance of a particular ad targeted at a specific group of people. You can customize the audience these reports should be based on and the ad metrics of interest.

You can then have them emailed to you or your colleagues weekly. This provides an excellent tool for automating ad operations within your business.

Tools You Get from Facebook Ads Manager Reporting

There are three classes of reports you get from Facebook Ads Manager Reporting.

Audience Insights

This tool aggregates information on your target audience’s demographics, activity, location, and more for you to understand them better.

For instance, you may be interested to know the kind of people that have liked your Facebook page. To do this, you can go to the “People Connected to” column then select your Facebook page. Audience Insights will show you their favorite pages, demographics, geography, plus more.

You can then reach this audience by clicking the “Design Ad” button.

Pixels

Facebook Pixel lets you use a few lines of code to improve your Facebook ads based on the activities your audience takes on your website.

This tool allows you to analyze conversions, optimize your ads for conversion, and remarket your website to previous visitors. You can also add specified actions.

Finally, you add these lines of code to your website's header.

Facebook Pixel can be found in the “Pixels” selection under the “Assets” option in the Facebook Ads menu.

Power Editor

Power Editor allows you to curate a large number of ads at once and have total control over how they’re served. This option is found under the “Create and Manage” option in the Facebook Ads menu.

Working with Stats Filters

Stats filters let you get the most important data for your Facebook ads reporting. This feature blends with Facebook’s massive capability to show a wealth of data and customize its presentation on the Reporting Table.

Columns and breakdown are the two primary ways the Reporting Table is personalized.

Columns

Facebook Ads Manager Reporting comes with several presets that you can choose to help you quickly discover the data you need. These presets include:

  • Performance –provides data such as results, reach, the amount spent, costs, and more.
  • Engagement – shows data on reactions, people taking action, shares, comments, and more
  • Delivery – shows the frequency, reach, impressions, CPM, and more.
  • App engagement – shows the number of mobile app actions, mobile app installs, cost per mobile app install, and more.
  • Video engagement – shows the impressions, cost per 3s video views, 3s video views, and more.
  • Carousel engagement - reports the frequency, reach, impressions, clicks, and more.
  • Performance and clicks – shows the reach, result, cost, and more.
  • Messenger engagement – shows data on messaging replies, link clicks, blocked messaging conversations, and more.
  • Cross-device – reports on mobile app installs, website actions, conversion value, and more.
  • Offline conversions – reports on purchase, purchase conversion value, cost per purchase, and more.

What if none of these presets meet your requirements?

You can edit the default ones or create new ones from scratch by selecting “Customize columns” from the Columns: drop-down menu. You can also sort the data by clicking on the title of each column.

Breakdown

The breakdown is the more advanced way of viewing the Reporting Table. As the name suggests, this filter further breaks down the data to provide additional information into your Facebook ads.

You sort this information in three ways:

  • Obtainment – this can be age, location, or platform.
  • Taking Action – includes the conversion device, video view type, or destination.
  • Time – this can be days, weeks, or months.

For each area, you can choose one sorting criterion. For instance, you can view the results of your ads split by age groups, weeks, and devices.

Export, Save, and Share Facebook Ads Reports

This is perhaps one of the most crucial features of Facebook Ads Manager Reporting. With ads reporting, you can export, share, or save the data you want once you’ve located it.

For exporting, Ads Reporting allows you to download the data in Excel or CSV format. On the other hand, if a third-party has access to your Ad account, you can share a link to the data view with them.

The save button lets you save data views quickly, which you can come back to later using reports. Alternatively, you can provide an email address that Facebook will send the report to daily, weekly, or monthly.

This can be automated to generate ad screenshots for the final report.

Facebook ad screenshots

Mobile Apps for Those on The Move

Facebook has a Facebook Ads Manager app for Android and iOS users. These apps make it possible to manage your Facebook ads on the go. You can create ads, receive notifications about ad performance, manage campaigns, and view ad stats.

Blend Facebook Ad Manager Reporting with Your Full Ad Operations

Facebook Ads Manager Reporting is a great tool to monitor how well your Facebook ads are performing and what you can do to improve conversion. But don’t let the process end at this point.

Entrust the process to professionals or platforms who will automate the generation of relevant reports and ad screenshots for your Facebook Ad account and other campaigns you run on different platforms. This way, you’ll be indeed headed to ad success.

Ad Ops