OverviewAt Facebook, we believe that businesses are better in a connected world. Ads and sponsored stories are some of the best ways for businesses to connect to and engage with their audiences. But in order for businesses of all sizes to reach their business objectives with their ads, they need to be able to monitor, analyze and optimize their ads against specific advertising goals.
We’ve recently made significant improvements to Ads Manager to help businesses more clearly see how their campaigns performed against their advertising goals and what they got for the money they spent.
This guide will help you understand how to use Ads Manager to monitor and optimized your campaigns to meet your advertising goals.
Table of ContentsWhat’s New ............................................................................................................................ 2
Getting Started ..................................................................................................................... 4
Understanding the Performance of Your Campaigns, Ads and Sponsored Stories ........................................................................................... 6
What’s New?Our last major update to Ads Manager introduced actions metrics that measure a more robust set of actions people take after seeing your ads. For example: Page Likes, Post Likes, App Installs, Link Clicks and Offer Claims.
All actions were rolled-up as a total actions column in the campaign summary. As a result, you couldn’t easily evaluate your performance against key advertising goals, or calculate your return on investment.
We’ve made several changes to the Ads Manager campaign summary to make it clearer how your campaign performed against your advertising goal and what you got for the money you spent.
Focusing on advertising goals and return on investmentFirst, we are prominently showing the most relevant actions for your advertising goal. For example, if you use the ad create tool and select your advertising goal as “Get More Page Likes” we will show “Page Likes” prominently in both the campaign and ad metrics.
We are also adding a total spent column so you can see how much you spent on each ad. Your ad’s cost per action is calculated in a new column so you can quickly see what you are getting for your investment. Well designed and targeted ads will encourage more people to take an action and the more actions you get for your budget, the lower your cost per action will be.
If you don’t select an advertising goal in the ad create tool, or you are creating ads from Power Editor or the API, we will show the actions we track by default or the actions set through conversion specs in Power Editor or the API.
If your ads are set up to track specific conversions on a website off of Facebook, we will prominently show “Conversions” in both the campaign and ad metrics and will calculate your “Cost per Conversion” in a new column. If you set a value in your tracking pixel, we will also calculate your Conversion Value in a new column, which is a sum of the value of all your conversions for that ad.
Simplifying reach metricsWe removed social reach from the campaign summary to simplify your analysis. Your campaign reach can now be more easily compared to your potential reach so you can get a sense of how many people your campaign reached versus how many people your campaign is targeting. Social reach can still be accessed through the Advertising Performance report.
Better analyze completed campaignsLastly, we’re making it easier for you to see the overall performance of completed campaigns by showing you data from the last 28 days your campaign was active.
Getting StartedType https://facebook.com/ads/manage into your browser. You will be able to see all of your current ad accounts, their status, and how much you have spent in all your ad accounts.
Clicking on an account will bring you to a list of all the campaigns in that account. From here, you can:
• Pause, delete, or reactivate campaigns
• Track start and end dates
• View your total budget, see how much of it remains and how much you have spent as a total or broken out by date
• See notifications when campaigns are created, rejected or approved by Facebook
Change the date range for the results you want to see, view active or deleted campaigns, or click on “Full Report” to see a full advertising performance report, summarized by campaign.
Once you click on a campaign, you’ll see information about its performance. From there you can pause, delete or activate ads in that campaign.
Click on any ad in your campaign to see individual performance metrics for it.
Understanding the Performance of Your Campaigns, Ads and Sponsored StoriesAds Manager was designed to provide real-time metrics that enable you to quickly understand how people are responding to your ads and sponsored stories. Here are some key concepts you should understand to measure your ads:
ActionsWe focus on the actions that will help you achieve your campaign’s advertising goals. These can include Page Likes, Post Engagement, Page Engagement, App Installs, App Engagement, Mobile App Installs, Link Clicks (for offsite ads), Offer Claims, Event Responses and Conversions. Please refer to the glossary at the end of this guide for definitions for each action.
Actions are measured when they’re taken by people within 24 hours of seeing or 28 days after clicking on your ad or sponsored story. If you want to measure your actions by a shorter attribution window, access the Actions by Impression Time Report.
Review the graph at the top of any campaign summary to see how key actions are trending over time. Drill down to the ad level to see which of your ads are generating your key actions.
Conversion ValueThis metric will only show when you are tracking conversions from your ad on your website and if you are passing a value parameter with your tracking pixel. Conversion value is a sum of the value of all your conversions for your ad.
ReachReach is how many unique people your campaign has reached compared to how many it could reach. If you find you’re not reaching enough of your targeted audience, consider changing your bids, budgets, duration, creative or even your targeting criteria.
• Ad Reach: The number of unique people who saw your ad. This is different from impressions, which includes people who see your ads multiple times.
• Campaign Reach: The number of unique people who saw your campaign.
• Potential Reach: The approximate number of people your ads or sponsored stories can reach, based on your targeting.
FrequencyThe average number of times each person saw your campaign’s ads or sponsored stories. You cannot cap frequency at this time.
ClicksThe number of unique clicks on your ads that are billable to you.
Click-Through RateThe number of times people have clicked on ads in your campaign, divided by the number of times they were shown on Facebook during the dates selected.
Total SpentThe amount you’ve spent on your campaign during the dates selected.
Ad level reporting shows your bid and price for each ad or sponsored story. You’ll also see a “Total Spent” column and a calculation of your “Cost per Action” for each ad. You can click on any ad to see a preview of how it will look on Facebook and a summary of your targeting. There’s also a graph of your performance with a menu that lets you see trends about clicks, click-through rate, impressions, and actions. Use this information to track whether your ads and sponsored stories are becoming more effective over time, or whether you need to make changes to keep your messaging fresh.
ReportsThe Reports tab gives you access to four reports that give you in-depth performance and demographic information about your accounts, campaigns and ads: Advertising Performance, Responder Demographics, Actions by Impression Time, and Inline Interactions. Use these reports to understand at a granular level what messaging is most effective.
You can view these reports summarized at the account, campaign, or ad level. You can also see data aggregated by the month, week, day or a custom timeframe by specifying a date range. Choose whether you want your performance information displayed in a webpage or in .csv formats.
If you choose to display your report as a webpage, click the column headers in any report to sort by that metric. You can also schedule reports and export them to a .csv file to use the performance data in other applications.
To get started, navigate to facebook.com/ads/manage and click on the Reports tab on the left column.
Advertising PerformanceThe Advertising Performance report includes statistics like impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), the amount you’ve spent and actions so that you can see how cost-effective your campaigns, ads and sponsored stories are.
You can also use the Advertising Performance report to get an in-depth understanding of how your accounts, campaigns and ads are performing against each other so that you can focus your spending on the ones that achieve your business goals at the lowest cost.
Responder DemographicsResponder Demographics shows who’s responding to your ads broken out by country, region, gender and age ranges. Use this information to confirm that your ads and sponsored stories are interesting to your desired audience and find information that can help you optimize your targeting criteria and content.
For example, the following report shows that women aged 45-54 are far more likely to engage with our recent Facebook Marketing Solutions campaign than men aged 18-24. Depending on our business goals, this suggests that we should either consider spending more on this audience for similar campaigns in the future so that we can maximize our return on advertising spend, or change our messaging to appeal more to young men.
Actions by Impression TimeThe “Actions by Impression Time” report shows the number of actions organized by the impression time of your ad. An action is attributed to an ad or sponsored story based on the length of time between when a person sees or clicks on the ad and the action (0 to 24 hours, 1 to 7 days, or 7 to 28 days). It now also includes a break down of your conversions. Use this report to understand how people engage with your ads over time.
In the example below, you can see that both our Facebook Marketing Solutions and FBV ads increased credit spend in the app. However, we may have more confidence in the Facebook Marketing Solutions ad’s ability to increase credit spending because more people took immediate action on the ad.
Inline InteractionsThe “Inline Interactions” report will help you understand immediate engagement on ads and sponsored stories. It includes metrics like impressions, clicks, and detailed actions such as likes, photo views, and video plays that happened directly on your ads.
You can use this information to understand which of your campaigns or ads get people to take an action, so you can create other similar ads that encourage people to engage.
The Total Interactions column in this report does not include actions taken on the photo viewer or video.
Best PracticesFocus on creating one advertising goal for each campaign to get the most useful metrics in the campaign summary. If you have multiple ads with different advertising goals in the same campaign, each ad will have a different Cost per Action. For example, one ad may show you Cost per Page Likes and another ad may show you Cost per Page Engagement so it will be difficult to compare. Or if you have an ad that has multiple advertising goals, Cost per Action will be based on all your actions.
Compare how different ads with the same goal perform against each other in your campaign summary to see which ads are doing the most to help you achieve your business objectives. For example, an app developer would compare the cost per app install of their ads to understand what ad performs better for their goal, and then make appropriate optimization decisions.
Monitor your reach to keep track of the performance of your campaigns or ads. For example, a regional retailer could watch the Ad Reach, Campaign Reach and Potential Reach metrics and know whether they are reaching enough people to meet their business goals, or whether they should increase their budgets, bids, or expand their targeting criteria.
Watch your campaign’s graph to see whether they inspire an increasing number of actions over time, or whether they have reached their peak effectiveness. For example, a consumer packaged goods advertiser marketing an evergreen product such as soap would want their campaign’s graph to climb up and to the right. When the graph levels off, they should take that as an opportunity to recapture their audience’s attention with a new message.
Check the Responder Demographics report to confirm that your campaigns are interesting to your target audience. For instance, a cellular phone carrier who wants to target specific geographic regions should check the Responder Demographics report to make sure that people in those areas are taking actions based on its ads.
Use the Actions by Impression Time report to understand how people interact with your ads over time. Since you have visibility into multiple attribution windows for each ad, you can understand which ads drive immediate action and which ads drive latent action. Using this information, you can more accurately assess the value of each ad.
Glossary for Ads Manager and Full ReportActions: For ads and sponsored stories pointing to Pages: the number of times people liked your Page, liked posts on your Page, commented, @ mentioned, checked into your place, tagged your brand in a photo, shared your Page posts, redeemed your offer, clicked on the Page post link, viewed the Page post photo, or viewed the Page post video within 24 hours of seeing your ad or sponsored story, or within 28 days of clicking on it. For ads and sponsored stories pointing to apps: the number of times people installed, used, or spent credits in your app within 24 hours of seeing your ad or sponsored story, or within 28 days of clicking on it. For events: the number of times people RSVPed within 24 hours of seeing your ad or sponsored story, or within 28 days of clicking on it.
Ad: A marketing message in the voice of the brand. It can appear in the right-hand side of every Facebook page
App Engagement: The number of App Installs, App Uses, or Credit Spends for your app within 24 hours of viewing an ad or sponsored story, or within 28 days after clicking on it
App Installs: The number of times your app was installed within 24 hours of viewing an ad or sponsored story, or within 28 days after clicking on it
App Uses: The number of times your app was used for a minimum of 4 minutes in the last 14 days, or at least twice by the same person with one of those times occurring in the past 14 days
Bid: The maximum amount you’ve indicated you’re willing to pay for each click (CPC) or per 1000 impressions (CPM)
Clicks: The number of clicks your ads have received. If you’re advertising a Page, Event, or app, Clicks also include Page likes, event RSVPs, or app installs directly from the ad
Conversions: The number of times your conversion tracking pixel was triggered for your ad within 24 hours of viewing an ad or sponsored story, or within 28 days after clicking on it
Cost per action: Cost per action is the average amount that you’re paying for each action people take on your ads. What you pay is influenced by who you’re targeting and how many other advertisers are competing to show their ads to your audience. Well designed ads will encourage more people to take an action, and the more actions you get for your budget, the lower your cost per action will be.
CPC: The average cost per click, calculated as the amount spent divided by the number of clicks received
CPM: The average cost per thousand impressions, calculated as the amount spent divided by the thousands of impressions received
Credit Spends: The number of times Facebook Credits were spent in your app
CTR: Click-through rate, or the number of clicks your ad received divided by the number of times it was shown on the site
Event Responses: The number of times people RSVPed within 24 hours of seeing your ad or sponsored story, or within 28 days of clicking on it
Frequency: The average number of times each person saw your ads
Impressions: The number of times your ads have been shown on the site
Link Clicks: The number of clicks on links on your ad or on your page within 24 hours of someone viewing or within 28 days after clicking on your ad
Offer Claims: The number of times your Facebook offers were claimed within 24 hours of someone viewing your ad or sponsored story or within 28 days after clicking on it
Page Engagement: The total number of the following actions on your page or page posts: Post Like, Post Comment, Post Share, Offer Claim, Vote, Follow, Link Click, Photo View, Video Play, Page Like, Check-in, Post Mention, or Tab View within 24 hours of someone viewing your ad or sponsored story or within 28 days after clicking on it
Page Likes: The total number of Page Likes you received within 24 hours of someone viewing or within 28 days after clicking on your ad
Post Engagement: The total number of the following actions on your page posts: Post Like, Post Comment, Post Share, Offer Claim, Vote, Follow, Link Click, Photo View, or Video Play within 24 hours of someone viewing your ad or sponsored story or within 28 days after clicking on it
Price: The average amount you’re paying per click (CPC) or 1000 impressions (CPM)
Potential Reach: The approximate number of people your ads or sponsored stories can reach, based on your targeting criteria
Reach: The number of individual people who saw this ad during the dates selected. This is different than impressions, which includes people seeing your ad multiple times
Social Clicks: Clicks on ads that were shown with the names of the viewer’s friends who liked your Page, RSVPed to your event, or used your app. If you’re not advertising a Page, event, or app, you won’t see social data
Social Impressions: Impressions that were shown with the names of the viewer’s friends who liked your Page, RSVPed to your event, or used your app. If you’re not advertising a Page, event, or app, you won’t see social data
Social Reach: People who saw your ad with the names of their friends who liked your Page, RSVPed to your event, or used your app. If you’re not advertising a Page, event, or app, your ad won’t have social reach
Social %: The percentage of impressions where your ad was shown with the names of the viewer’s friends who liked your Page, RSVPed to your event, or used your app. If you’re not advertising a Page, event, or app, you won’t see social data
Spent: The amount you spent during the selected time period
Sponsored Story: Marketing message that comes from a Page post, or stories about a friend interacting with a brand through actions such as check-ins, app use, or Page likes. The core message is controlled by the advertiser, but sponsored stories will also show social context, such as people interacting with what’s being promoted to their friends. Sponsored stories can appear on the right hand side of Facebook or in the news feed on the web or mobile.
