A weekly Meta ads report should connect the results to the decisions made that week. Include what the account produced, what launched or changed, the reason for those moves, what remains uncertain and what the team needs next.

Spend and purchases are available in the dashboard. The report adds the context you cannot get from those columns: why a budget moved, why an ad was paused and what would change the current plan.

The five jobs of a weekly report

1. What the account showed. Spend, orders, and cost per purchase against your breakeven number, with last week beside it so a change reads as a change. Named at the level where it happened, the campaign, the ad set, or the ad. "The account was down" is useless. "The testing campaign's CPA rose $6 over the weekend" is something you can actually think about.

2. What launched or changed. Every new ad that went live, every budget that moved, every ad that got cut. If nothing launched, the report says why nothing launched.

3. Why I did it. The reasoning behind each move, in plain language. This sits on its own line, separate from the results, and I will explain why below.

4. What remains uncertain. Name the unresolved question, such as whether a new ad has enough purchases to judge or whether a CPA increase followed a creative, auction or site change.

5. What the team needs next. Name the creative, approval or offer decision, its owner and the date it is needed.

The report is a window into the whole engagement, and if you are not sure what that engagement should even include, start with what a Meta ads media buyer actually does all week.

A full weekly update you can copy

This is an illustrative report for a made-up store.

Week of Aug 18 to 24.

Numbers: Spend $8,400, versus $7,900 last week. We recorded 212 orders at $39.62 CPA against our $45 target. Store revenue and contribution need a separate check before assessing overall profit.

Launched: UGC Unboxing v2 went live Tuesday in the testing campaign. It has spent $610 at about $34 CPA. Review the additional purchases and conversion lag on Sunday before increasing its allocation.

Cut: Founder Story static reached our agreed $290 test loss limit with no recorded orders. Tracking and conversion lag were checked before pausing it. A replacement is queued in the same campaign.

Watching: CPA drifted up Friday through Sunday. It looks like the holiday auction rather than creative fatigue, but I am not confident yet, so I am not touching budgets before Wednesday.

Unknown: Whether Unboxing v2's edge survives the weekend.

Need from you: The two new videos by Thursday so we can launch the planned comparison next week.

What each line is doing

The spend line anchors this week to last week, so nothing floats without context.

The CPA is judged against your $45 line, the number that falls out of your own margins, never against an industry benchmark. If you and your buyer have not agreed on that number, that is the first conversation to have.

The launch line names the ad, its delivery and the evidence available. If other ads received little spend, report them as underfunded rather than concluding that they failed to convert.

The cut line records the loss limit and the action taken. If an ad stays live for further evidence, state when it will be reviewed and how much more it may spend.

Separate the reason for a decision from its observed outcome. A sensible decision can still lose money, and a profitable result does not prove every assumption behind it was right.

The unknown line gives the reader a question to follow up next week. It also prevents a provisional explanation from becoming an accepted fact through repetition.

Check your last report against these questions

1. What did we spend and what did we get back, against the cost per purchase we agreed is breakeven?
2. What launched this week, and into which campaign?
3. What got cut, and what replaced it?
4. What is the buyer unsure about right now?
5. What do they need from me?

Ask for missing context before judging the work. When comparing providers, request several consecutive reports so you can see whether unresolved questions receive an answer the following week. Use them alongside the working interview when hiring.

Which metrics belong in a weekly report?

Include spend, orders, revenue and cost per purchase against the agreed target, with a comparable prior period. Add store revenue, marketing spend and contribution where they affect the budget decision. Investigate unexplained differences between store and platform data; the ROAS and MER guide explains the definitions.

Everything else, the CTRs, CPMs, and hook rates, lives in the buyer's working notes. A metric earns a place in your report the week it explains a decision, and only that week.