The formula, the data sources, the pitfalls — and how to keep ad spend current across platforms without rebuilding it every week.
State whether spend is gross, net of platform fees, or net of agency markup — and in which currency.
ad spend pulls from multiple platforms, each with its own definition and refresh lag. The moment you finish the report it's out of date — so it gets rebuilt next week. The fix is to automate the inputs and the write-back, not just the chart on top.
Illustrative. Meta reports $10,000 at UTC; your sheet buckets by local time and shows $9,400 for 'the same day'. Pick one reporting timezone and the daily spend series stops disagreeing across tools.
Currency conversion and timezone bucketing make the same day's spend disagree across tools. Fix one reporting timezone and FX source.
Opera pulls the inputs across AppsFlyer and your ad platforms, applies your ad spend definition, reconciles the sources, and appends the result to your existing report — append-only, formulas preserved — then schedules it and posts a summary.
"Refresh the ad spend report with this week's numbers by channel, and flag anything off target."
Skip automation while the ad spend definition is still being argued about, while the report's structure changes weekly, or for one-off analyses. Automation pays on stable, recurring reports — lock the definition first, then put it on a schedule.
Opera is built to touch production reports and live ad accounts without breaking anything:
See this running on your own reports.A 45-minute workflow audit maps your current process and shows exactly what Opera automates — step by step.
Estimate the hours and fully-loaded labor cost your team spends on recurring reports — and what Opera gives back.