So you’ve launched your carefully planned ad campaign. Now the real work begins. 

You want to spend your budget wisely, of course. Optimising your campaign and getting the return on investment, you need to measure performance by tracking the Facebook ad metrics that matter.

Is there a right way to measure paid ads performance? How do you know which metrics to review? 

Campaign objective and ad type will determine which metrics you should focus on. While there’s no single metric that can guide all decision making related to creative, spending, and audience targeting strategies, it’s important to choose a set of complementary metrics that align with the specific goals of your campaign.

Let’s look at the metrics that can be applied to the majority of campaign objectives.

1. Total Amount Spent

Making sure you don’t blow your budget is important! Keeping an eye on how much you’ve spent over the course of a campaign ensures you’re staying within your budget. This is a good way to assess and adjust your investment in a particular ad or shift your spending priority to higher-performing ads (Facebook can do this for you - it’s called campaign budget optimisation (CBO), which uses machine learning to reallocate advertisers’ budgets in real-time, based on how each ad within a campaign is performing.)  

2. Frequency

This refers to the number of times each person sees your ad (impressions divided by reach). When a user sees the same ad multiple times, the ad tends to stand out and become memorable. This can be particularly effective in branding campaigns.

But beware: too many repeat views can lead to creative fatigue. Once you hit a frequency of 3, it’s time to consider a creative refresh. From there, as higher frequencies inflate costs, your ad may no longer be profitable.  

3. CPC and CTR

Cost per click (CPC) and click-through rate (CTR), or the percentage of times users see an ad and click through to an opt-in page, sales page, product page, etc, are closely related. The higher the CTR, the lower the CPC = winning! Facebook rewards advertisers for running ads that are more relevant to their audiences.

4. Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)

CPM is handy to review if you’ve advertised on Facebook in the past - it provides context for current campaigns. Is your CPM in line with what you’re accustomed to seeing? Keep in mind that CPM can vary day by day, and higher-demand audiences will cost more.

5. Video Views to 75%

This metric doesn’t include passive newsfeed views and accidental clicks. Only viewers with a genuine interest in your message will go this far. It’s a good idea to compare this number with total video views so you’ll know the percentage of people who have seen the video and actually engaged with it.

6. Cost Per Action (CPA) 

Cost per action (CPA) is the average cost of a user taking the next step in response to an ad - liking a Facebook page, opting in for a download, clicking through to complete a purchase or watching a video, etc.

7. ROI and ROAS

The bottom line - companies invest in Facebook ads to grow their business. The key question for any ad campaign and the true measure of its success is how well it’s advancing a customer acquisition strategy by generating leads or revenues.

Return on investment (ROI) and return on advertising spend (ROAS) are similar, but both are worth tracking. ROI measures profits generated by an ad versus its cost; ROAS measures gross revenue resulting from every advertising dollar spent. 

Now let’s take a look at the metrics you should not focus on.

Likes

If your campaign is designed to drive user action, vanity metrics such as likes and shares alone won’t tell you whether you’re getting your money’s worth.

In saying that, vanity metrics can be useful for brand awareness campaigns.  

Reach

Reach refers to the number of people who see an ad at least once. If you focus on reach, you’ll most likely need to make a huge investment to see a return; a single view rarely converts.

Clicks

The number of clicks an ad receives can be misleading. Most users will click to expand ad text rather than clicking through to a website landing page. Unfortunately, Facebook lumps both types of clicks together, obscuring the true impact of the ad.

Relevance Score

This is the score Facebook assigns to determine the average cost and likelihood of ad placement. Many advertisers watch these scores closely and base decisions on them, but lower-scoring ads have been known to outperform ads with higher scores. Relevance scores also don’t provide any insights advertisers can use to improve their ads or fine-tune their campaigns.

Video Views

The total number of video views isn’t the best indicator of user interest, as a view can be as short as 3 seconds. Videos that autoplay in news feeds (and thus passively viewed as users slowly scroll) are included in the tally as well.

Knowing the right metrics and how to interpret them is crucial. So is the ability to adapt quickly and scale your efforts easily. Even though Facebook can shift spending for you through CBO, it’s up to you to optimise your creative and adjust your targeting strategies as needed.

If you need help to set up your Facebook Pixel, Business Manager platform or manage your Facebook ad campaigns, we can help! Contact us to discuss your goals.