# Ad Spend Tracker Template: Free Excel Download

> A free ad spend tracker template for Meta Ads in Excel: paste daily spend from an Ads Manager export, then see plan against actual by campaign.

Author: The DashOps Team  |  Published: 2026-11-06  |  Updated: 2026-11-11  |  Topic: Performance Marketing

[Download the ad spend tracker template](/downloads/meta-ads-spend-plan-and-tracker.xlsx): a free Excel workbook that puts your Meta Ads plan beside what was really spent, by campaign and by week. You type your plan, paste one Ads Manager export broken down by day, and the Plan against actual tab shows the difference.

There is no signup and no connection to anything, and nothing you paste leaves the file. That also means it never updates itself: for fresh numbers, you export again and paste again.

![banner-2400x1260-httpsdashopsioresourcesad-spend-tracker-template](https://pub-ae7c0247bc134935855f21b665422e27.r2.dev/posts/1794411969750-f3474db568cd.jpg)

## What the workbook holds

It opens on a How to use tab with the export steps. These are the working tabs:

| Tab | What you do there | What you read there |
|---|---|---|
| Media plan | Type each campaign's flight dates, your own cost per result and a budget for each of 13 weeks | Total, Share of total, Results goal, Daily budget and Budget needed |
| Plan against actual | Nothing, it reads the Media plan and your export | Planned, Actual in those dates, Difference and Share of plan spent by campaign, then Planned, Actual and Difference by week |
| Daily spend tracker | Pick a campaign and type a Daily budget | Spend, Over or under and Spend so far for each day, and a Week check |
| Daily report | Pick a campaign and a result type | Spend, Results and Cost per result for each day, and what changed since the day before |
| Black Friday plan | Type daily budgets for up to six campaigns around the sale | Day total, Left of total budget and Actual spend |
| Year plan | Type a base budget for each month and your sale periods | Each month's total and its share of the year |
| Budget table for a proposal | Type budgets, fees and the client's own cost per result | Two tables to paste into a proposal |

Two more tabs sit behind those. Paste your export is where the export goes. Columns finds each column by its name, so your export can have its columns in any order.

Every cost figure is yours. The file holds no suggested split and no outside cost figure, so a Results goal is only as good as the cost per result you type from your own past campaigns.

## Build your plan first

1. Open the file. If Excel opens it in Protected View, click Enable Editing, because Protected View is read only and the yellow cells will not take your typing.
2. On Media plan, type a Plan name and a Plan start. The Week 1 to Week 13 headings take their dates from Plan start.
3. Type one row per campaign, using the exact name from Ads Manager. Plan against actual finds a campaign by its exact name, so a shortened name reads as no spend at all.
4. Type Flight start, Flight end, Your own cost per result and a budget under each week the campaign runs.
5. If you have a fixed amount to spend, type it in Total budget, then type the results each campaign needs in Results wanted. Left to split shows what remains.

That is enough to use the plan on its own. Media plan, Year plan and Budget table for a proposal read nothing from an export.

## Get an export with days in it

The tracking tabs need one row per day, and a default export does not give you that. The three default exports from the Campaigns tab that were read while building this file each held one block of dates and no days. So set the breakdown before you export:

1. In Ads Manager, open the ad account and stay on the Campaigns tab. That tab gives the Campaign name column this file reads.
2. Pick dates that cover your plan's flight dates.
3. Open Columns, then Customize columns, and tick at least Amount spent and Results. The How to use tab has the full list.
4. Open Breakdown, then By time, and choose Day.
5. Open Reports, select Export table data, choose CSV and click Export.
6. Open the CSV in Excel and copy everything, including the top row.
7. In the workbook, open Paste your export, select everything, press Delete, click cell A1 and paste.
8. Read the line at the top of the tab you want. It says Ready, or it names what is missing.

The menu words can differ in your Ads Manager, and Meta keeps its own version of [the export steps](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/205067636197240). The Day setting has only been checked on a real export from the Ads tab, so on the Campaigns tab step 8 is how you confirm it worked. For where the export button sits, the file formats and why an export can disagree with what you saw, see [exporting data from Meta Ads Manager](/resources/exporting-data-from-meta-ads-manager).

Do not hunt for a Day column in the file, because there is none. On each row, Reporting starts and Reporting ends both hold that one day.

If you skip the breakdown, here is what happens. Daily spend tracker and Daily report stay empty, Plan against actual shows your plan with no spend beside it, and the line at the top of each reads: "This export is not broken down by day, so this tab stays empty." Black Friday plan keeps your budgets and leaves Actual spend empty. An export with no Campaign name column, such as one from the Ads tab, gets an instruction to export from the Campaigns tab, and no numbers.

## Read plan against actual

For example, a made up plan for Acme Apparel might read like this after a paste, with the date columns and Share of plan spent left out:

| Campaign | Planned | Actual in those dates | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acme Apparel prospecting | 3000 | 3240 | 240 |
| Acme Apparel retargeting | 1500 | 1180 | -320 |
| Acme Apparel sale | 2000 | 0 | -2000 |

Difference = Actual - Planned, so a positive number means over plan.

Prospecting is over. Look at what the extra money bought, then either keep it and rewrite the plan or lower the budget in Ads Manager.

Retargeting is under. Check whether it ran out of people to reach or was paused, because the unspent money can move to a campaign that can use it.

The sale campaign shows 0. If that campaign really ran, the name on the plan does not match Ads Manager. Fix the name on Media plan and the row fills on the spot, with no new export.

Below the campaign rows, a By week table sets each week's plan against the spend of your plan's campaigns. Its last row is Spend not in your plan: money spent during the plan's weeks on anything the plan does not list. A campaign someone launched without telling you lands there, and so does a renamed one, so read that row first when the totals feel wrong.

A campaign row counts only spend inside its own flight dates, so a campaign that kept running past Flight end looks on plan. The By week table still counts that spend.

Planned here means what you wrote down, which is a different number from the budget set in Ads Manager. If those terms blur, read [spend, budget and amount spent in Meta Ads](/resources/spend-vs-budget-amount-spent-meta-ads).

## Where the file stops

- Media plan holds 15 campaigns and 13 weeks. For a longer plan, start a second copy.
- The day tables hold 92 days. If your export runs longer they show the latest 92 and say so, unless you type a First day.
- The paste tab holds 10,000 rows. Past that, the line at the top asks for a shorter period.
- The Week check on Daily spend tracker wants one campaign at a time, because a budget belongs to an ad set or a campaign. If each ad set has its own budget, type their total.
- On Daily report, Results and Cost per result need the Results and Result indicator columns, and a line near the top names either one if it is missing. Both were blank on every real export read while building this file, so those two figures have only been run on made up rows. Compare one day with Ads Manager on your first paste.
- The workbook has no charts. It is tables you can read and print.

This workbook stands alone and is not a DashOps export. On [Growth and Enterprise](/pricing), spend pacing in DashOps compares this month's spend with one monthly budget you set. A plan by campaign and by week stays in this file.

If you want a spend and ROAS report rather than a budget check, [this guide to a Meta Ads report template for Excel](/resources/meta-ads-report-template-excel) walks through building one.

## Frequently asked questions

### Why are the day tabs empty after I paste my export?

Your export is probably not broken down by day. A default export from the Campaigns tab holds no days, so Daily spend tracker and Daily report stay empty, Plan against actual shows your plan with no spend beside it, and the line at the top of each tab says so. In Ads Manager, open Breakdown, then By time, choose Day and export again.

### Does the tracker update by itself?

No. The file has no connection to Ads Manager or to anything else, so it only knows what you paste. To refresh it, export again, clear the Paste your export tab and paste the new file. Your plan stays where you typed it, because it lives on its own tab.

### Which Ads Manager tab should I export from?

The Campaigns tab, because this workbook reads the Campaign name column. An export with no Campaign name column, such as the one read from the Ads tab while building this file, gets an instruction to export from the Campaigns tab and no numbers.

### Will the template open in Google Sheets?

It was built and tested in Excel and has not been tested in Google Sheets, so this page cannot promise how it behaves there. Use Excel if you want it to work the way this page describes.

### Can I track several ad accounts in one file?

Keep one copy of the file for each ad account. The paste tab holds one export at a time, and each plan is tied to the campaign names in that export, so separate copies keep two accounts from mixing.

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Full page: https://dashops.io/resources/ad-spend-tracker-template