Explore what stats you should focus on to be able to optimise your Facebook ads.
There are so many metrics inside ads manager, it can be difficult to know which ones are most important. Click through rate? Cost per click? Cost per 1000 impressions? Reach? Cost per lead? ROAS? All of which are important indicators as to how well your campaign is performing. However they don’t all need to be considered when deciding on whether to make changes to your Facebook Ads campaign.
I’m Jess Brookes, Facebook Ads Strategist and online marketer. I’ve worked with 100s of clients across different niches, and 1000s of students to teach them how to get better results with their (and their clients’) Facebook and Instagram Ads. One thing that always surprises me is that even seasoned ads pros don’t know what to look at when it comes to deciding whether their ads are ‘working’ or not. When I’m coaching ads managers (or any business owners for that matter), I always start with the end in mind.
So the Facebook ads stats and metrics that are most important to you depends on the goal of the campaign.
Your goal = Conversions
- If your goal of your Facebook ads is to get downloads to your lead magnet, the most important stat is cost per result – this is likely to be a ‘Lead’ depending on how your events are set up. You should have a benchmark already set for your business. What’s a lead worth to you and what typically do you see as the CPL (cost per lead) in your business? If your CPL is outside of the acceptable range, that’s when you would need to look at other indicators as to what’s going on. My usual routine goes like this:
- Conversion rate of the page – are people (who are clicking your ad) opting in above 30%? If not, there’s a mismatch between the ad and landing page, an issue with the page itself (e.g. responsiveness or tech error), or your lead magnet is not compelling enough for people to sign up for.
- Link Click-Through-Rate (Link CTR) – is this above or near to 1%? If not, your ad copy or creative is not resonating with the audience, there’s not a clear call to action, or the targeting options aren’t right for the ad. Your Facebook CPC will also be an indicator as to whether the CTR is falling below par – this varies from 0.1p to over £10 depending on a multitude of factors, so it’s essential that you get comfortable with knowing what’s ‘good’ for your own business.
- Frequency – if your ad has been seen by the same people several times (and your frequency is more than 4), it could indirectly make your CPL more expensive. You’ll continue to be charged for the impressions to those people who aren’t taking action, so it’s time for new creative or new audience.
- Cost per 1000 impression (CPM) – this will vary depending on a number of factors such as niche, audience size, business, season etc., but will give a good indicator when compared to your other (successful) campaigns whether an increase in CPM is causing a knock-on effect with your CPL.
Don’t get too hung up on stats other than what is a direct correlation to your main objective. As shown above, they can help diagnose increased Facebook ad costs, but your main focus should be that your spend per action is within what you’re willing to pay.
On a recent Facebook Ads Optimisation call with a client, we were able to diagnose an increasing cost per lead by looking at the breakdown by week. As the costs increased, so did frequency and Link CTR. Hardly surprising when the same audience keeps seeing the same ad over and over. It was clear that this audience was a good fit for the offer, so we simply introduced some new ad creatives with a slightly different message, as well as some reel-style ads as a pattern interrupt (this client had not used them before). Within a day, we saw the CPL come back down and now this ads client also has a rinse-and-repeat strategy for addressing increasing CPLs. Within the space of 30 minutes, we were able to get results that most Facebook Ads Agencies had previously failed to do.
Want to diagnose your Facebook ads performance?
There are limited Facebook Ads Optimisation calls available to book where we’ll diagnose and explore ways to improve your ads results. 9 times out of 10, the creative, hook and messaging is my first point of call when making recommendations, but there will almost always be untapped opportunities within your targeting or campaign set-up, and the after-the-click activity. Get an expert pay of eyes on your campaigns today.
Download the FREE Facebook Ads Optimisation checklist to discover what you need to get the best results from your ads: