10 Facebook metrics you really need to understand

Facebook ads are an amazing way to reach new customers, retarget those who have already engaged with your business or even win back previous customers with a new product/service or special offer, but they can also be super confusing when you first get started, says Tenai Seymour, founder of Ads Haus, 

There are over 30 metrics that Facebook provides to advertisers, but which ones are the most meaningful and what do they really mean?

I’ve been immersed in Facebook advertising for a long time, and there are 10 metrics a business owner needs to consider to determine how well their ads are working.

Ideally, you’d only have to look at 2 or 3 numbers to know if you were getting great value for money from Facebook ads. But you can’t really narrow it down that far without losing important information.

There are only 10 metrics that matter

1. The Attribution Window – this is a measure of the time it takes from a user seeing or clicking on ad to actually buying something from you. It is important to understand your product/service and the buying decision making time – the higher the price point the longer people need to make the decision to buy. This also means that not all of the data will be shown in ads manager – if the action is taken outside the attribution window, it won’t be tracked in ads manager – use other means to obtain more transparency such as google analytics.”
2. Frequency – ad frequency tells you how often a user is being exposed to an ad. This can help you better tailor your campaigns because if frequency is high and performance is falling, you know it’s time to try a different ad. Showing people the same ad too many times without the desired action being taken can have a negative effect on your brand.
3. Reach – this tells you how many people in total are able to see the ads you’re purchasing. It doesn’t tell you anything about whether they took any action based on your ad. Paid reach refers to ads and organic reach refers to any content of yours that’s seen as people scroll through their feed. Not surprisingly, organic reach is usually much lower than paid reach.”
4. Amount spent – this is the total amount that you’re spending on an ad based on the estimated budget. It stops you from spending more than you can afford to.
5. Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) – an impression is any time that a user is shown an ad on their screen (it is assumed that the ad has been seen at this point even if it hasn’t). This is often known as Cost Per Mile (CPM) in marketing circles.
6. Cost per click –  Having your ads seen is nice and all, but the real objective of ads is for people to take action. The first action is a click (to wherever you’ve asked people to click to). This is a good measure for determining the value of your Facebook ad campaign. Not every click is going to result in a sale, but each click is a positive step for brand building and awareness, which over time, should lead to more sales.
7. Cost per result – You can define what your preferred outcome for an ad will be in the ad manager and with Facebook Pixel installed. “It’s easy to make this outcome a sales conversion on your website. Facebook can then tell you how much you’re spending on each conversion. That’s super handy.
8. Click-through rate – the click-through rate is a measure of how many users are clicking through to your website from the links in your ads.
9. Result rate – this is a measure that compares the number of results you have achieved with an ad to the total number of times that people have seen your ads. It takes a bit of trial and error to make this number meaningful within your business. You need to construct a baseline to compare to.
10. Relevance Score (Ad Relevance) – Facebook also assesses your ad for relevance to your audience based on the quality of the ad, the engagement rate it achieves and the conversions it is expected to deliver when compared to similar ads delivered to the same audience. This can help you see how your ads are measuring up against the competition, just don’t take it too seriously.

Facebook’s ad metrics can be very useful when it comes to measuring the success of your campaigns and these 10 metrics are awesome.

It is important not to forget to pay attention to the basics too. Ad metrics won’t help you target the right people or locations, that’s on you. And you should always be AB testing your ads and seeking to improve,

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