Facebook advertising can be a very effective way to reach out to potential customers and grow your business. For one, Facebook boasts nearly 3 billion active users per month. That’s a lot of potential customers you could be reaching with your ads!
But before you start pumping out Facebook ads left and right, you need to make sure you’re using the right metrics to gauge their effectiveness. After all, if you don’t measure your results, how will you know if your ads are actually working or if your ROI justifies your ad spend?
However, it can also be easy to get caught up in all of the different metrics and data that Facebook provides. Like Google Analytics metrics, not all of them will be relevant to every business or campaign. Tracking the wrong metrics can also lead to bad decision-making about your Facebook ads.
To help you navigate the world of Facebook advertising metrics, we’ve put together this complete guide. We’ll cover everything from what Facebook ads analytics is, how to pull data from your Facebook Ads Manager account, plus list the most critical ad metrics and KPIs you should be tracking.
What is Facebook ads analytics?
Facebook ads analytics breaks down the data behind your Facebook advertising efforts.
This data can come from a variety of sources, including your Facebook Ads Manager account, Google Analytics, and even third-party tools.
Examples of data that would fall under the umbrella of Facebook ads analytics can include:
- How many people saw your Facebook ad
- Where these people came from (geographically)
- What age group or gender they belong to
- How long have they viewed your ad
- Whether they clicked on your ad or not
- How many clicks your ad got
- What device were they using
- What time of day they saw your ad
- How much you spent on your ad campaign
- And more
Essentially, if there’s data to be gleaned about your Facebook ad campaign, it can fall under the category of Facebook ads analytics.
The other half of analytics is extracting insights from your Facebook ad campaign data. This is where you take a step back and look at the bigger picture to see what your data is trying to tell you. We'll tackle that later on, but right now, let's talk about how to gather that data first.
How to get data from Facebook ads
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is all about making its platform as easy as possible to use. This includes their advertising platform, which comes with something called the Facebook Ads Manager.
What is Facebook Ads Manager?
Facebook Ads Manager is a tool that allows businesses to create, manage, and track their Facebook advertising campaigns. With Ads Manager, you can set budgets, schedule ads, and track the performance of all your paid social campaigns on Facebook.
Not only that, but you can also use Ads Manager to track your ad campaigns on other platforms within the Facebook ecosystem, including Instagram and Messenger. You can even use Ads Manager to run ads on the Audience Network, which is Facebook’s network of partner apps and websites.
The benefits of using Ads Manager are many, but some of the most notable ones include the following:
- The ability to create both simple and complex ad campaigns
- Detailed tracking and reporting features
- The ability to optimize your ad campaigns for better results
- Staying compliant with Facebook’s advertising policies
- Integration with other tools, such as Google Analytics
In addition, Facebook Ads Manager also offers several tools to help simplify the ads creation process, including its built-in Ads Reporting analysis tool.
This works by automatically analyzing your ad campaigns and giving you insights and recommendations on how to improve them. For example, Ads Reporting can tell you things like which ad is performing the best, what time of day is most effective for your ads, and more.
Tracking Facebook Ad performance using Google Analytics
Aside from the Facebook ad tracker, another great way to track your Facebook ad performance is by using Google Analytics.
As a quick refresher, Google Analytics (GA) is a free web analytics tool that helps you track, analyze, and report your website traffic. It’s one of the most popular web analytics tools on the market and is used by millions of businesses, large and small.
It has also transitioned from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, which is Google's next-generation analytics platform that uses machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technology. If you haven't switched over yet, here's our complete guide to migrating to GA4.
Going back to our topic, you can use Google Analytics to track the performance of your Facebook ad campaigns. This approach offers several advantages, such as:
- The ability to track all your advertising campaigns in one place
- More data points and insights than what's available in Ads Manager
- Integration with other marketing tools, such as Google Ads
To get started tracking your Facebook ad campaigns in Google Analytics, you'll need to create a trackable link for each of your ads.
This can be done using Google's URL Builder tool, which allows you to add custom parameters to your URL. These parameters will then be tracked by GA and appear in your reports.
Once you have your trackable links, you'll need to add them to your Facebook ads. To do this, simply edit the URL in the "Website" field of your ad and replace it with your trackable link.
And that's it! Now, when someone clicks on your ad, GA will track their activity, and you'll be able to see detailed reports on your ad campaign's performance.
You'll also be able to use GA's powerful analytics tools, such as segments and goals, to further analyze your data and get even more insights into your Facebook ad campaigns.
Streamlining the process with Reporting Ninja's Facebook Ads reporting tool
Using Google Analytics to track your Facebook ad performance is a double-edged sword. While you get access to various powerful features, the process of setting everything up and generating reports can be time-consuming and frustrating, especially if you're not familiar with GA.
This is where Reporting Ninja's Facebook Ads reporting tool can be incredibly helpful for novice and veteran paid social advertisers alike.
With our tool, you can automatically generate detailed reports on your Facebook ad campaigns using beautiful templates that are customizable and easy to understand.
Plus, our tool integrates with both GA and Facebook Insights, so you can easily pull in all your data without having to manually export anything.
Aside from Facebook ads reporting and monitoring features, you can also track conversions, filter your data depending on the campaign you're working on, and schedule reports to be sent to your inbox or your clients on a regular basis.
Before you can do that, however, you need to determine which Facebook ad metrics actually matter to your business.
Essential Facebook ad metrics to track
When it comes to Facebook advertising, there are a lot of different metrics that you can track in order to gauge the success of your campaign.
However, some Facebook ad metrics are more crucial than others and can have a significant impact on the overall performance of your ads.
Here are some of the most important ones to keep an eye on:
1. Cost per click (CPC)
Cost per click is exactly what it sounds like — it's the amount that you pay for each click on your ad. So, to calculate your Facebook ad CPC, simply divide your total ad spend by the number of clicks that you received.
Monitoring your CPC rate is essential because it allows you to assess how efficiently your Facebook ads are performing in terms of generating clicks.
A high CPC indicates that your ads are not generating many clicks relative to the amount of money you're spending on them. On the other hand, a low CPC rate could mean that your Facebook ads are performing well and generating a lot of clicks at a relatively low cost.
You can use CPC data to refine your Facebook ad targeting, such as trying new placements or targeting different demographics.
For most, if not all lead or conversion-focused campaigns it's good to track cost per link click and link click-through rate as this tracks when someone lands on the website rather than just engages with the ads. It's also better to compare the link clicks when analysing & comparing different channels' performance i.e Google ads.
2. Clickthrough rate (CTR)
To understand the clickthrough rate metric, you need to understand the difference between clicks and impressions first.
Clicks are the number of times people have clicked on your ad. Impressions, on the other hand, are the number of times that your Facebook ad has been shown to your target audience.
Based on that, your Facebook ad CTR exclusively measures the number of clicks that your ad receives.
Regardless of what your business or ad goal is, you need to constantly track your CTR in order to determine how effective your ads are in driving people to take action.
If they're not clicking on your ads, then there's something wrong: this could be anything from your ad copy to the graphics, location targeting, or even something as simple as the CTA (call to action) button you choose for your Facebook ads.
A low CTR can also result in a higher CPC because Facebook will see your ads as being less relevant to your target audience. As a result, they'll charge you more per click in order to reach your target audience.
Either way, CTR is an important metric to track because it can help you optimize your ad campaigns and make them more effective.
3. Conversion rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of people who see your ad and take the action you've asked them to take, like clicking on your link or watching a video. The type of conversion you're tracking will depend on the goals of your Facebook ad campaign. In Facebook ads manager, they use result rate - the percentage of results you received out of all the views of your adverts
For instance, if your goal is to get your Facebook audience to sign up for your email newsletter, then you would track the number of people who click on your ad and sign up for your newsletter as conversions. Likewise, if you want them to message you on Facebook, then you would track the number of people who click on your ad and message you.
You can then use conversion rate data to make informed decisions about the best time of day or week for running ads, which types of audiences respond best to each type of content (like video vs. text), and more.
4. Cost per conversion
This is called cost per result in Facebook ads manager. The cost per conversion metric tells you how much it costs to get someone to convert or take your desired action, which can be used to determine whether or not your current Facebook ad campaign is profitable.
The metric is calculated by dividing your total Facebook ad spend by the number of conversions that occurred in the campaign.
In order to optimize your campaigns, you'll want to pay attention to how this metric changes over time, as well as how it compares with other campaigns on Facebook.
For example, if this number goes up and stays up, you may want to consider changing your targeting or ad copy, or focusing more heavily on increasing traffic instead of conversions.
On the other hand, if the number drops significantly over time, then you know that you're doing something right!
5. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
If you're running Facebook ads, you should be tracking your return on ad spend (ROAS). ROAS is the ratio of money spent compared to sales or leads generated. It's a great way to measure whether your ads are generating enough revenue to justify their cost.
Let's say you've set up an ad that costs $10 and generates $40 in sales. That gives you a 4x ROAS! However, if your ad costs $10 but generates only $5 in sales, your ROAS is only 2x — and maybe not worth the investment.
To calculate your ROAS, get your total profits from your Facebook ads and divide that by your total cost of advertising.
6. Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
This metric tells you how much your ad costs per 1,000 impressions (or views).
It gives you a sense of how expensive or cheap your ads are compared to other advertisers' ads. The lower this number, the cheaper your ads are compared to other advertisers.
If you're paying too much for an impression, then you need to optimize your bid or stop showing those ads altogether and start re-optimizing your Facebook ad strategy.
7. Ad frequency
Ad frequency is a metric that measures how many times a user has seen your ad over a certain period of time.
It can help you determine how frequently you should be running ads, which will help you achieve a balance between spending and performance.
This metric will also show you how often your audience has seen specific ads, so you can make sure they don't get tired of seeing the same thing over and over again.
8. Amount spent
The amount spent metric is a number that shows how much money you've spent on your Facebook ads over a given period of time.
All paid social advertisers track this because it tells you how much money you're spending on each individual ad set. If you have multiple ad sets running at once, it can also help you determine which ones are costing more than others and adjust accordingly.
If one ad set has been performing well, but another has not, then it might be worth adjusting the budget for the underperforming ad set or even shutting down that particular campaign altogether if other metrics show that it's not working.
As a brand, you should be tracking your spent metric on a regular basis to ensure that your advertising budget is being spent wisely and that you're actually staying within budget.
9. Ad impressions
Ad impressions are the number of times your Facebook ad has been displayed presented.
This is a critical metric to monitor, as it's the easiest way to know how many people have seen your ad. If you want to make sure your ads are being seen by as many people as possible, keep an eye on this number.
Ad impressions can be reported in two different ways: by page impressions and by post impressions. Facebook will tell you how many times your ad was displayed on each page and when it was displayed on each post — so you'll know exactly how many people have seen your ad across both platforms.
10. Relevance score
A relevance score is a metric that measures how well your ad is matched to its target audience.
It's a number between 1 and 10, with 10 being the most relevant. The higher your relevance score, the more likely people are to see your ad and engage with it.
A high relevance score means that you're targeting the right people with your ad, and a low relevance score means that you're not.
If you have a low relevance score, you should consider changing your target audience or the content of your ad.
11. Geo-location
This useful Facebook ad metric breaks down your audience by location, so you can see which countries, states, or cities your ad is reaching. This metric is especially important if you're running ads to promote products or services that are only available in certain locations.
By knowing which locations your ad is reaching, you can make sure that you're not wasting money on impressions that will never convert into customers.
12. Audience engagement
Finally, the audience engagement combines several metrics to show you how engaged your audience is with your ad. Some types of engagement it measures are:
- How many people shared your Facebook ad
- How many people liked your Facebook ad
- What kind of reactions your ad got and how many
- How many comments your Facebook ad received
- How many people saw your ad versus how many people clicked on it
This granular look at engagement can give you a lot of insight into how effective your ad strategy is. It also reveals valuable insights about your campaign, plus opportunities to improve it.
For instance, if you see that people are sharing and commenting on your ad but not clicking through to your website, you might want to change the call-to-action on your ad to lead them there.
The next steps for your Facebook ads
Once you have all that data from your Facebook ad campaign, you need to distill it into reports you can share with your team or your clients.
Reporting Ninja's Facebook ads reporting software simplify the entire process by allowing you to create beautiful, interactive reports that are easy to understand and share. It also includes other helpful tools to help you monitor, track, and present your Facebook ad data.
You can try it for free today.
