Once you start running a Facebook campaign, how do you even know that it’s working? What are the signs of success and what are the false positives you shouldn’t pay too much heed to?

We’ve previously discussed the question “does Facebook advertising even work?” but in this post we want to dig deeper into how to know if your Facebook ad is doing well – and how to measure your results in a reliable way.

Let’s dive into it.

How to know if your Facebook ad is doing well

How do you know if your Facebook ad is doing well if you’re not tracking the results? Before you launch your first Facebook campaign, make sure you’ve set up conversion tracking so you can monitor your results.  

Conversion tracking allows you to give Facebook the right context around your goals so it can show your ad to the right people. For example, once you’ve defined a custom audience using tracked conversions, Facebook can use the data to identify other Facebook users who are likely to convert.

Without monitoring the right metrics, you won’t be able to see the impact of your ad campaigns. When you track your results in the right way, you can figure out what’s working and how you can make improvements moving forward.

Three of the best tools for monitoring Facebook ads results are:

• The Ads Reporting feature in your Facebook Ads Manager dashboard
• Meta Pixel – a snippet of code that allows you to track visitor activity on your website
• Google analytics on your website

Now that you’ve got all that data at your fingertips, what do you do with it? Not all metrics are equal – it’s crucial to understand which metrics are worth looking at so you don’t get distracted when tracking your results.

The most important metrics depends on what your goals are

The first step to know if your Facebook ad is doing well is to clearly define your goals. Once you know what you are hoping to achieve with the ad, you can figure out what metrics are worth looking at.

The best metrics for monitoring success will change based on what you are trying to achieve – it's never really a one size fits all situation.

• If you are looking at getting sales, then conversion campaigns are good. You should keep an eye out for Return On Ad Spend (ROAS), website purchase value and cost per sale metrics.
• If you are looking at getting enquiries, then lead generation, messenger or website conversion campaigns are good. Keep an eye on your total spend, amount of enquiries and cost per enquiry.
• If you are running a traffic campaign or trying to generate clicks, keep an eye on your click-through rates and average session duration from that traffic source.
• If you are running a reach campaign, keep an eye on your cost per thousand impressions and frequency.

Watch out for vanity metrics

While some metrics are really useful, others are what digital marketers like to call “vanity metrics”. They might look good on paper, but they don’t actually tell you anything useful about your campaign – or worse, they might cover up real issues with your campaign.

For example, engagement metrics such as likes, comments and shares can lead you astray if your goal is more sales or enquiry based, rather than social growth. 

So it’s not just about knowing what metrics are out there – it’s crucial that you monitor and pay attention to the ones that are truly important to your campaign and your goals. If you’re not sure how to do that, speak with the team at Dilate.

6 Facebook Ads metrics to measure success

If you’re wondering how to know if your Facebook ad is doing well, here are 6 useful Facebook ads metrics to track.

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