Ad manager: 7 metrics that every agency should track weekly

Learn why to monitor the ad manager weekly and which metrics are essential for paid media dashboards

The ad manager is one of the main tools for tracking the performance of campaigns on platforms such as Meta Ads and Google Ads.

After all, it is through this that managers and agencies monitor results, identify optimization opportunities, and make decisions that can improve the return on investment in paid media.

However, monitoring these data only at very spaced intervals can turn small problems into significant losses.

Therefore, creating a weekly analysis routine allows for quick correction of deviations, adjustment of ongoing campaigns, and maintaining a more efficient operation.

So, throughout this article, you will discover why this monitoring is so important, what are the 7 metrics that deserve more attention, and how to automate this process to save time and deliver more complete reports to clients. Let’s go.

Executive Summary

• Monitoring campaigns weekly in the ad manager allows for problem correction before they compromise a large part of the budget.
• CPM, CTR, CPA, ROAS, frequency, connect rate, and cost per qualified lead are among the most relevant metrics for evaluating campaigns.
• However, no metric should be analyzed in isolation. Context is essential for interpreting the results.
• Weekly reports help agencies justify decisions and demonstrate the evolution of campaigns.
• Automating reports reduces operational work and frees up more time for strategic analysis.

Why to monitor the ad manager weekly

In practice, monitoring the ad manager only at longer intervals can allow problems to go unnoticed long enough to compromise the results.

This is because paid media campaigns constantly change.

For example, audience behavior, auction competition, creative performance, and even external factors can alter performance in just a few days.

Thus, when a campaign remains off course for an entire week, part of the investment may be wasted before the problem is even identified.

Furthermore, there is an optimization window that should not be wasted.

While the campaign is still running, it is possible to adjust audiences, creatives, targeting, and bid strategies.

However, once the entire budget is consumed, these opportunities cease to exist, and the investment becomes an irrecoverable cost.

This is precisely why many agencies adopt weekly monitoring as a standard

After all, this interval usually gathers enough data to identify trends, evaluate the main campaign metrics, and make adjustments before small deviations turn into bigger problems.

7 metrics that every agency should monitor weekly in the ad manager

Undoubtedly, there are dozens of indicators available in the Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads. However, not all carry the same weight in decision-making.

For example, some metrics show if the ads are reaching the right audience, while others help understand if the creatives remain relevant or if the investment is yielding financial returns.

With that in mind, we have gathered below the 7 main indicators that deserve constant monitoring and how to interpret them correctly. Follow along.

1. CPM

To start, CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) measures how much the advertiser pays for an ad to be displayed a thousand times.

This is why it is often one of the first indicators analyzed to understand auction competitiveness and the cost of campaign distribution.

When CPM suddenly increases, it may indicate higher auction competition, changes in targeting, or even a drop in ad relevance.

On the other hand, when it remains stable, it facilitates cost prediction and contributes to more efficient paid media management.

2. CTR

After understanding the cost to display ads, it is important to assess whether they actually pique the audience’s interest.

This is precisely the role of CTR (Click Through Rate), which measures the percentage of people who clicked on the ad after seeing it.

Generally, a high CTR indicates that the combination of creative, message, offer, and targeting is relevant to the audience.

However, when this percentage starts to decline, it is worth reviewing elements such as images, videos, text, and even the selected audience to identify potential optimization opportunities.

3. CPA

Although CTR shows the audience’s interest in ads, CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) reveals how much was actually invested to generate a conversion, such as a purchase, registration, or another defined campaign goal.

Due to its direct link to business results, this is often one of the most closely monitored campaign metrics by managers in the ad manager.

After all, it allows evaluating whether the cost of acquiring customers remains compatible with the company’s margin and if the campaign remains financially viable.

4. ROAS

After analyzing the cost to generate conversions, it’s time to understand if this investment is really bringing financial returns.

For this, one of the most used metrics is ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), which shows how much the campaign earned for each dollar spent on ads..

For example, if a campaign generated 20,000 reais in sales after a 5,000 reais investment, the ROAS would be 4. This means that each dollar spent returned four dollars in revenue.

Still, this indicator should not be analyzed in isolation.

For a more accurate evaluation of ad performance, it is also important to consider factors such as profit margin, average ticket, and other financial indicators.

5. Frequency

Another important metric to monitor is frequency, which indicates how many times, on average, each person viewed the same ad.

With this, the indicator helps to understand whether the campaign still sparks interest or if the audience is already saturated.

Additionally, when frequency continuously increases, there is a higher chance of experiencing what’s called creative fatigue.

Thus, people tend to ignore the ads, which reduces engagement and increases campaign costs.

Therefore, monitoring this metric facilitates identifying the ideal time to refresh the ads, test new creatives, or expand the audience.

6. Connect rate or click-to-action rate

Besides analyzing the ad’s performance, it’s also important to understand what happens after the click. After all, not every user who accesses the page performs the expected action.

This is precisely the objective of the connect rate, an indicator that measures how many users effectively performed an important action, such as filling out a form, starting a conversation, or advancing to a funnel stage.

But even if the calculation may vary according to the campaign’s objective, this metric from the ad manager helps identify possible bottlenecks on the landing page, site loading, or user experience after the click.

7. Cost per qualified lead

Finally, it’s important to remember that generating a large volume of leads doesn’t always mean generating more business opportunities.

Thus, many agencies also monitor the cost per qualified lead, considering only the contacts that truly meet the company’s defined criteria.

By bringing media analysis closer to commercial results, this metric helps evaluate the quality of conversions and avoids decisions based solely on the volume of leads generated.

Tips for creating weekly reports for paid media agencies

Furthermore, we know that the quality of a report doesn’t depend only on the metrics presented.

After all, the way data is organized also influences the client’s understanding and facilitates decision-making, as we will see in the following tips.

What should be considered in the structure of the report

To start, a good practice is to divide the ad manager report into well-defined sections. A good example is to

1. Start with an executive summary highlighting the main results of the week.
2. Then present general indicators such as investment, reach, impressions, conversions, and revenue.
3. Then delve deeper into the analysis of the most relevant metrics, explaining the factors that influenced the results and what optimizations were made.

Finally, include recommendations for the next period, indicating which actions will be prioritized and which tests will be conducted.

How to present the 7 metrics clearly to the client

Not all clients are familiar with the technical concepts of paid media. Therefore, more important than displaying numbers is to explain what they represent for the business..

Thus, instead of just stating that the CPA increased or the CTR decreased, it is essential to contextualize the reason for this change and what actions will be taken to correct the scenario.

For example, comparisons with previous weeks, evolution charts, and strategic comments make paid traffic reports much more useful and easier to interpret.

Frequency, format, and delivery channel of the report

For most operations, a weekly delivery is usually sufficient to track trends and make adjustments without generating excessive information.

But it is also important to standardize the format of reports.

After all, when all clients receive data organized in the same way, reading becomes faster, and comparison between periods becomes simpler.

Additionally, making analyses available in online dashboards facilitates access to information whenever necessary without relying on the manual sending of files.

How to automate weekly monitoring of the ad manager without manual spreadsheets

Finally, after defining which metrics to monitor and how to present them to the client, the next step is to make this process more efficient.

Because as the number of managed accounts increases, manually consolidating information between the Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, and other platforms becomes a time-consuming task prone to errors.

In this scenario, automation makes all the difference as it gathers data from different sources into a single environment and facilitates

• comparison between periods,
• alert configuration,
• and monitoring of key indicators, eliminating the need to update spreadsheets weekly.

Along with this, specialized tools can cross-reference information that the native ad manager does not always present in an integrated manner, providing a more complete view of campaign performance.

For example, Reportei simplifies this process by connecting paid media platforms in unified dashboards and automatic reports.

Thus, agencies can track key metrics, share results with clients in a few clicks, and spend more time optimizing campaigns than consolidating data.

In practice, this makes paid media management quicker, more organized, and strategic, allowing decisions to be based on centralized and always updated information.

Therefore, if you want to centralize Meta Ads, Google Ads, and other platform data in complete dashboards and automatic reports, try Reportei’s free trial and discover how to conduct more precise analyses in your projects.

FAQ: Frequently asked questions about ad manager metrics

After understanding which metrics to analyze in the ad manager, it’s natural for questions to arise about the process and interpretation of the results.

Thus, we have gathered some of the most common questions below to help.