Important Facebook Ad Metrics to Track
Facebook ads are amongst the most powerful marketing tools available to you. With Facebook boasting 2.11 billion daily active users globally, it’s one of the strongest platforms for marketing your products and services.
Like any type of digital ad, you can’t “set it and forget it” and expect to make a positive return. Instead, you’ve got to monitor and optimise to ensure they’re reaching your target audience and encouraging them to act.
Today, we’ll discuss the most important Facebook ad metrics to track so that you know where to concentrate your efforts.
What are Facebook ad metrics?
Facebook ad metrics are different ways of measuring the performance of your ad campaigns. They’re quantitative measures that let you measure different aspects of your ads. In terms of Facebook marketing, they’re your most effective data sources for tracking whether your ads are achieving their goals.
Technically, there are hundreds of metrics, but not all of them will be relevant to you. It’s critical to focus on which metrics matter most to your business if you’re going to maximise your ROI.
Why is it important to track Facebook ad metrics?
Tracking and analysing ad metrics provide your most accurate overview of how your ads are performing in key areas. They tell you if:
- Your ads are being shown to your target audience.
- How your target audience responds to your ads.
- Whether they’re engaging with your ads.
- Whether your ads are profitable.
Regularly tracking ad metrics provides a benchmark for determining whether your ad spending leads to a positive result. They also let you track their performance over time as you tweak and change your ads.
The most important Facebook ad metrics to track
According to the latest numbers, all UK businesses have a potential Facebook ad reach of nearly two billion users. In other words, you’re certain to find your target audience, but it’s the metrics that tell you whether your marketing campaign is achieving its goals.
Regardless of the business you’re running, there are five core metrics that should feature as part of every campaign.
1. Frequency
Frequency measures how often the average user will see your ad. If someone sees your ad once, this would be a frequency of one. However, just because a target audience sees an ad multiple times isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Some people need to see your ad multiple times before they’ll interact with it. However, if your frequency is too high and your engagement is low, the ad isn’t resonating with that audience. It could be that the targeting is wrong, or the ad simply isn’t interesting enough to interact with.
2. Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
The CPC metric focuses on how much you get charged when someone clicks on your ad. That’s because Facebook doesn’t charge you to show your ad, but you’re charged each time someone clicks it.
Ideally, you want the lowest CPC possible because if you’ve got a low CPC, you can show your ads to more people. It’s also key to your ROI because if you’re selling a low-ticket product with a high CPC, advertising is probably costing you more than it’s bringing in.
What a good CPC is often depends on your industry. For example, if you’re selling a product worth thousands of dollars, it’s perfectly fine to have an above-average CPC because the value of your product is so much higher.
For example, if you’ve got a CPC of $1 on an ad marketing a product worth $10,000, that’s pretty good if your conversion rate is high enough. On the other hand, a $1 CPC on a $50 product means you should probably terminate that ad immediately.
3. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Your facebook ads CTR is the ratio measuring how many people see your ad against how many people click.
For example, if you’ve got a CTR of 1%, it means only one person out of 100 clicks on your ad. A poor CTR indicates that your ad isn’t compelling enough to encourage action or you’re marketing to the wrong people.
4. Conversion Rate
Your conversion rate measures how many people click on your ad and perform a desired action. What counts as a conversion depends entirely on the purpose of your campaign.
Examples of conversions could include:
- Signing up for your email list.
- Visiting your website.
- Liking your page.
- Buying a product.
- Filling out a contact form.
- Scheduling a free consultation.
Note that what’s considered a good conversion rate depends on your industry.
5. Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)
ROAS is essentially just a fancy way of saying ROI. What’s the financial return on your Facebook advertising strategy?
It compares how much you’re spending on Facebook ads with how much your marketing campaign is generating for your business. A lower ROAS indicates that you’re probably overspending on your advertising for the results you’re getting.
Like the other metrics above, a cause of a low ROAS could be a targeting issue, a creative problem, or even a structural issue with your business’s products and services. It might even have nothing to do with your Facebook advertising approach but your website and its landing pages.
What is the most important metric in Facebook ads?
No single metric stands out from all the others because every metric has its place in creating engaging marketing campaigns. If you absolutely have to choose, you would say ROAS is the most important metric because it denotes whether you’re gaining a profit through your ads.
However, we can go through each metric to uncover problems during the optimisation process. Here’s where the value in each of the five metrics lies:
- Frequency – Is my ad resonating with my target audience?
- CPC – Am I targeting the right audience?
- CTR – Is my ad engaging enough to cut through the noise and encourage action?
- Conversion Rate – Does the place a visitor lands fulfil the promise of the ad?
- ROAS – Have I created a viable Facebook advertising campaign?
As you can see, every one of these metrics has its place in the funnel. Remember, there are multiple steps between someone seeing your ad and then converting. It means seeing your ad, engaging with your ad, visiting your landing page, and then actually taking action, which then links all the way through to an eventual purchase.
Nailing Facebook ads is tricky, and there are no guarantees of success, but getting it right propels your business into its next growth phase. Hiring a professional Facebook ad marketing agency enhances your chances of success while enabling you to focus on your core business functions.
To learn more about getting started with Facebook ads, contact Tao Digital Marketing today.