Before you start
- Campaign Manager access with custom column presets built (see linkedin-ads-dashboard)
- Offline conversion uploads flowing from CRM (HubSpot/Salesforce native or weekly CSV)
- Defined stakeholder list with role-specific expectations
- Looker Studio or equivalent for stakeholder-facing dashboards (Campaign Manager alone is insufficient)
- Calendar discipline - reporting cadences that drift become reporting cadences that get ignored
The playbook
7 steps
Define the three reporting cadences
Daily (5 min, owner = media buyer): spot-check for spend anomalies and delivery breaks. Weekly (30 min, owner = marketing manager): review CTR/CPL trends, creative performance, audience insights, queue optimization decisions. Monthly (60-90 min, owner = marketing lead): stakeholder report with pipeline contribution, CPSQL, next-period actions. Each cadence has a different audience, format, and decision scope.
Expected outcome
Three cadences defined with named owners; calendar reminders set.
Build the daily ops view inside Campaign Manager
Daily view doesn't need to leave Campaign Manager. Set: Campaign level + Last 7 days + Compare to previous 7 + 'Daily ops' column preset (Spend, CTR, CPC, Conversions, Cost per Conversion, CPL). The daily check is 5 minutes max - if everything's green, you close the tab. If something's red, you investigate. Don't try to make this a comprehensive review - that's the weekly cadence's job.
Expected outcome
Daily ops view bookmarked; takes <5 min to scan; owner runs it every business morning.
Build the weekly review template
Weekly review is 30 minutes. Template: (1) Spend vs budget pace (are we on track for the month). (2) Top 3 and bottom 3 campaigns by CPL/CPSQL. (3) Creative variants by engagement (which ones earning impressions). (4) Audience segment breakdown (Job Function, Seniority - which converting). (5) 3 optimization decisions for next week, with rationale. Template lives in Notion/Confluence/Google Doc - one new entry per week, building a searchable archive of decisions.
TipWeekly review should produce 3 decisions, not 30. If you're queuing 30 optimizations, you're confusing 'things to maybe try' with 'things we're doing'. Pick the highest-leverage 3.Expected outcome
Weekly review template lives in shared doc; new entry created every Monday; archive of decisions accumulates.
Build the monthly stakeholder report
Monthly is 60-90 minutes of work + 30-minute stakeholder review meeting. Built in Looker Studio (live dashboard) + PowerPoint/PDF (narrative wrapper for the meeting). Six-section structure: exec summary, spend allocation, performance + trend, audience insights, creative insights, next-period actions. Lead with pipeline contribution and CPSQL; CPL is supporting context only. Distribute same day of month, same time, every month.
Expected outcome
Monthly stakeholder report distributed on consistent cadence; archived for quarterly trend review.
Pipe Campaign Manager data into Looker Studio
Campaign Manager has a native Looker Studio connector. Authorize the connector with your LinkedIn account, select the ad accounts, refresh schedule daily. Build a Looker Studio dashboard mirroring your monthly report sections - stakeholders who want live access can hit Looker; the monthly PDF/PowerPoint is for the formal review meeting. Add filters for date range and campaign to make it usable beyond the headline view.
Expected outcome
Looker Studio dashboard live, refreshing daily from Campaign Manager; stakeholders have direct access link.
Set up automated alerts for anomalies
Don't rely on daily check to catch spend spikes or delivery breaks. Set up Campaign Manager scheduled reports for: spend over $X/day per campaign, CPL increase >50% week-over-week, delivery <70% of budget for 2+ days. Email alerts trigger off these. Catches issues between daily checks; reduces fire drills.
Expected outcome
Anomaly alerts firing to Slack/email; fewer surprise incidents between daily checks.
Run a quarterly retrospective
Every quarter, review the archive of monthly reports. Looking for: 3-month trend on CPSQL, format-level performance shifts, audience-level shifts, recommendations that worked vs didn't. The retrospective informs the next quarter's strategy - which formats to scale, which to retire, which audiences to expand. Without this, monthly reports get optimized for the month and miss the long arc.
Expected outcome
Quarterly retrospective doc produced; strategy adjustments for next quarter informed by 3-month trend data.
Shuttergen
Reporting works better when there's something to report on.
Weekly reports get thin when creative volume is low - same 2 ads, same audience, no insights. Shuttergen generates 8-12 thought-leader-style variants per campaign so weekly creative-performance sections have real data to discuss.
Pitfalls
What goes wrong
Trying to do all reporting at one cadence
Daily, weekly, and monthly need different reports because they serve different decisions. Daily for ops, weekly for tactics, monthly for strategy. One report can't do all three.
Weekly reviews that turn into 90-minute meetings
Weekly should be 30 minutes producing 3 decisions. 90-minute weeklies mean you're confusing data review with strategy work - strategy belongs in the monthly cadence.
Monthly reports without a meeting
Sending a PDF and hoping stakeholders read it doesn't work. Schedule a 30-minute monthly review meeting - the meeting forces stakeholders to engage with the data, and your recommendations get discussed instead of skimmed.
No quarterly retrospective
Without quarterly review, monthly reports optimize for the month and miss the long arc. Format-level performance shifts, audience trends, and strategy questions need a 90-day lens to surface.
Inconsistent reporting cadence
Reports that arrive on random days get ignored. Pick a fixed day-of-month and stick to it. Reliability builds the stakeholder habit of opening the report.
Limits
When this playbook won't work
- Accounts without offline conversion uploads - the monthly stakeholder report's CPSQL section breaks down
- Single-person marketing teams who can't sustain three cadences - collapse to weekly + monthly only
- Accounts with fewer than 2-3 campaigns - the comparison sections have nothing to compare against
Why most LinkedIn reporting workflows fall apart
Cadence drift. Teams start with weekly reports, drift to bi-weekly, drift to monthly, drift to 'when someone asks'. Each drift loses stakeholder trust. The fix is calendar discipline - block the reporting time, treat it as undroppable as a board meeting.
Wrong report at wrong cadence. A 60-minute strategic review every week burns out the marketing team and produces shallow strategy. A 5-minute spend check every month misses a 2-week CPL spike. Match the cadence to what decision you're trying to inform.
No owner, so no follow-through. Reports that aren't owned by a specific person get skipped during busy weeks. Assign a single owner per cadence - media buyer for daily, marketing manager for weekly, marketing lead for monthly. Backup owner for vacation coverage.
Reporting works better when there's something to report on. Weekly reports get thin when creative volume is low - same 2 ads, same audience, no insights. Shuttergen generates 8-12 thought-leader-style variants per campaign so weekly creative-performance sections have real data to discuss.
The three-cadence reporting model in detail
Daily (5 min, media buyer): Open Campaign Manager, scan the Last-7-days view with daily-ops column preset. Look for anomalies - spend spikes, delivery breaks, CPL jumps. Green = close tab. Red = investigate or escalate. Don't try to optimize during daily check; queue findings for weekly review.
Weekly (30 min, marketing manager): Open the weekly template doc. Pull data from Campaign Manager for the prior week. Note spend pace, top/bottom campaigns, creative performance, audience trends. Queue 3 optimization decisions for the week. Decisions execute Tuesday-Thursday so the weekend doesn't sit on stale config.
Monthly (60-90 min, marketing lead): Build the stakeholder report in Looker Studio + PowerPoint. Lead with pipeline contribution and CPSQL. Distribute on fixed day of month. 30-minute stakeholder review meeting same week. 3-5 next-period actions agreed in the meeting.
Quarterly (90 min, marketing lead + leadership): Retrospective on 3 months of monthly reports. Format trends, audience trends, strategy questions. Informs next quarter's strategy and budget reallocation.
Internal: linkedin-ads-report, linkedin-ads-dashboard, linkedin-ads-performance-dashboard.
FAQ
Frequently asked
How often should I run LinkedIn ads reports?
Who should own LinkedIn reporting on a team?
What goes in a weekly LinkedIn ad review?
What's the difference between a LinkedIn dashboard and a LinkedIn report?
Should I use Looker Studio or Campaign Manager for reporting?
How long should it take to build a monthly LinkedIn ad report?
How do I prevent reporting cadence from drifting?
Related
Keep reading
Resource
Linkedin ads report
Stakeholder report structure.
Resource
Linkedin ads dashboard
Dashboard the reports run on top of.
Resource
Linkedin ads performance dashboard
Performance-focused dashboard.
Resource
Linkedin ads api
API to power custom reporting pipes.
Resource
Hubspot linkedin ads integration
Pipe CRM data back for CPSQL reporting.
Reporting works better when there's something to report on.
Weekly reports get thin when creative volume is low - same 2 ads, same audience, no insights. Shuttergen generates 8-12 thought-leader-style variants per campaign so weekly creative-performance sections have real data to discuss.