The Ultimate Guide To Facebook Ads Reporting
It shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that marketers consider Facebook an important and powerful marketing tool. With around 2.9 billion active users on the platform, anyone can leverage Facebook’s advertising feature to create targeted campaigns around users’ behaviours, interests, locations, gender, and more.
This tool can be used to create and manage paid campaigns and gather enormous amounts of data to help you analyse and report on campaign performance. This is important because when you are running paid campaigns, data should always be at the centre of decision-making!
Analysing your data effectively will help you understand what is working and how you can further optimise your campaigns to deliver better results.
In this guide, we will explore how you can effectively report on your Facebook Ads performance. This includes highlighting the 5 key metrics you should track, understanding the different ways you can visualise your performance and the importance of leveraging a reporting tool like Databox to automate campaign tracking.
Why Track Facebook Ads Data?
When you are running Facebook Ads campaigns, you probably have a diverse set of goals. From increasing website traffic to boosting signups, without tracking, there is no way of knowing what is working and what is not.
Regularly tracking your Facebook Ads data will allow you to gain a comprehensive overview of your performance, helping you better understand the success of your actions. Here are a couple of other reasons to track Facebook Ads data:
Eliminates wasted ad spend
When running paid campaigns, you must keep a close eye on your ad spend. This is because you want to ensure you are allocating your budget to the campaigns that are contributing to the bottom line. Failing to do so will lead to costly mistakes and wasted resources.[nbsp_tc]
As an example, you might realise that one of your campaigns is underperforming. By identifying this, you can pause that specific campaign and allocate your budget accordingly to scale conversions.
Boost Conversions
Tracking your Facebook Ads data will help you better understand how your audience is engaging with your ads. The more data you collect, the better you will become at creating messaging and offers that better serve your audience. This means that the more relevant and personalised your campaigns are, the more likely you will be to generate better results.[nbsp_tc]
5 Facebook Ads Metrics You Should Be Tracking
Learning what metrics to track and understanding what they are trying to tell you will help you launch a truly powerful campaign.Let’s take a look at the 5 metrics you should be tracking and how you can interpret them:[nbsp_tc]
1. Return On Ad Spend[nbsp_tc]
Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) is a metric used to measure the amount of revenue you have generated from your paid campaigns. To calculate this, you can divide your conversion revenue by the advertising cost.
Understanding the profitability of your campaigns will help guide future strategies by highlighting the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. As an example, when examining individual ads, you notice there are a few ads that are outperforming the others. Aligning your marketing strategies along these lines will help you maximise future profit by scaling ROAS.
2. Frequency
Given the nature of Facebook Ads, it’s common for users to feel overwhelmed by the number of ads they see on their feed. Because of this, ad fatigue is becoming more and more common.
Frequency will help you measure the average number of times a user sees your ad. This metric can be used to help you better understand if your target audience is experiencing ad fatigue or ad blindness.
An increase in frequency and a drop in conversions could be an early sign of ad fatigue. In this case, you may want to review your ad creatives and targeting or even consider pausing your campaigns.
3. Impressions
Impressions are a common metric used by marketers to monitor brand awareness. It measures the number of times your ad was visible to a user. The higher the impressions, the more likely you are to generate conversions. A high number of impressions is also a good indication that your ad is well-optimised for your audience.[nbsp_tc]
Impressions can also be tracked against reach better to understand the ‘stickiness’ of your ad copy. When your impressions are higher than your reach, this is an indication that users are looking at your ad multiple times.
4. Click-Through Rate
Click-through rate is the number of link clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad was shown (impressions). In other words, it helps better understand how much traffic your ads are driving to the specified landing page.
A decrease in CTR will indicate your ad is not relevant or compelling enough for your audience. In this case, you should consider reviewing your ad copy and creatives. The more relevant your ads are to your audience, the higher your CTR will be.
5. Cost Per Click
Cost per click (CPC) will highlight the amount of money you spend for each link click. Marketers use this metric to determine the performance and efficiency of their ads. There are various factors that can affect your CPC; some of these include ad quality, targeting, ad placement, and more.
You should aim to keep CPC as low as possible because an increase in CPC will directly impact your ROAS. If you notice your CPC has increased, you can pull a few levers to lower this metric.
The most common way companies choose to visualise and share their Facebook Ads performance is by using reports or dashboards.
Contrary to what many people may think, reports and dashboards are not the same thing. A dashboard is used to answer one central question. This means that at any given time, you could access your dashboard to see how a specific aspect of your campaign is performing. While a report will provide you with a lot more detailed information about your campaigns, allowing you to add more context and share insights about your data.
Choosing to create a report over a dashboard will depend on your specific needs. Let’s take a look at this in more detail:
Need #1: Real-Time Data Monitoring
Regularly tracking your data is an important part of running a successful Facebook Ads campaign. This is because you are able to make immediate improvements to help maximise performance.
If you are looking for real-time data monitoring, you should focus on creating a dashboard. Dashboards are a great way to monitor the performance of ‘active’ campaigns and can be used to help identify emerging trends on a daily basis.
Need #2: Team Visibility
Nothing is more inefficient than a team that is not aware of the performance of their paid campaigns. If your focus is to improve transparency, you should be creating a dashboard.
This is because a dashboard will allow you to display the performance of your most important KPIs in an easy-to-understand way. Team members are then able to keep a close eye on trends and are therefore able to make data monitoring a more regular part of their routine.[nbsp_tc]
]Need #3: In-depth Performance Analysis
Lastly, if you are looking to dig deeper into your data to understand better how your campaigns are progressing and outline future improvements, you should focus on creating a report.
A report will allow you to review data for ‘completed’ campaigns to understand your historical performance better. By doing this, you will get a comprehensive view of the key changes month over month, leading to more data-driven insights and improvements to future strategies.
Databox provides various sharing options to help you and your team improve visibility into campaign performance and ultimately improve decision-making. The dashboards are optimised to fit any screen or device, meaning you can access your dashboard from anywhere.[nbsp_tc] The sharing options include[nbsp_tc]
Sharable Link: Access Databox dashboards using a link (no need to be a Databox user).
Automated Sends: Automatically send screenshots of your dashboards at regular intervals to specified emails.
Stream To TV: Visualise your dashboard on a smart TV.
Dashboard Embed: Embed your dashboard into any tool or webpage.
Start Reporting On Your Facebook Ads Performance
Monitoring your Facebook Ads performance is essential to running a successful campaign and growing ROAS. Depending on your specific need and goals, creating a report or a dashboard will facilitate your ability to visualise your performance, spot trends, and make adjustments to future strategies.
To take your analytics to the next level, consider implementing Databox into your organization to add a layer of automated performance tracking. Its advanced features will allow you to stay up to date on your campaigns and put data at the centre of decision-making.
While Facebook offers a reporting solution through Meta Ads Reporting, there are a few limitations in the functionality of the tool that might hinder your ability to automate campaign tracking. Fortunately, that can be improved by introducing a third party like Databox to speed up your processes, streamlines performance, and offer comprehensive data analytics.[nbsp_tc]
Let’s take a look at each of these limitations in a little more detail and explore the value Databox can bring to your organisation:
Limitation #1: Limited Visualisation Types
Many people believe that the data visualisation you choose is just as important as the data itself. This is because data visualizations help summarise large amounts of data into easy-to-understand graphical formats. Whether a bar chart or a pie chart, the visualization you choose should depend upon the dimensions and metrics you are looking to track and what you are trying to convey from them.
Meta Ads Reporting provides very limited visualisation types, which may affect the end user's interpretation of the data. Currently, you can display your data in three different ways: a bar chart, a line chart, and a table.
Databox offers 10+ different visualisation types. Each has its own capabilities to enhance your ability to track campaign performance.[nbsp_tc]
Limitation #2: Goal Setting
Every Facebook Ads campaign should be created around a goal. Being able to visualise and track your progress toward that goal is what will help you reach your business objectives.
Facebook Ads allows you to define an objective for your campaign; however, it is limited in its ability to define goal values and visualise your progress against current performance.
Using the Goals feature in Databox, you can create a goal for any metric and define daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goal values. Once you have set this up, you can include a goal line in your charts or visualise your progress in your dashboard using a progress bar or gauge chart.
Limitation #3: Performance Alerts
Performance Alerts allow you to automatically and proactively monitor your performance. This is important because it provides you with real-time information on emerging trends or discrepancies in your data.
Currently, Meta Ads Reporting does not offer this crucial functionality. But, by implementing Databox into your organization, you can easily create and receive Alerts.[nbsp_tc]
In Databox, you can define a set of conditions you would like to be alerted for, and when those conditions are met, you will receive notifications on your phone, Apple Watch, or via email. As an example, if your goal is to increase the leads by 20 within 30 days, you can create an Alert to notify you if the number of new leads is below this threshold.
Limitation #4: Customisation Options
It’s important to prioritise the visual component of your dashboard or reports, especially if are sharing this data with clients and stakeholders.
With Meta Ads Reporting, you are limited in your ability to customise the look and feel of your dashboards. While Databox offers more advanced customisation options, including dashboard and chart themes, visual settings, and white labelling.
Limitation #5: Limited Sharing Options
Sharing your data will facilitate your ability to track campaigns and improve your visibility into ad performance. Therefore, it’s important to consider the sharing options available to you.
Meta Ads Reporting allows you to share your dashboard using a shareable link. But, in order for others to view the data, they would need to have a Facebook Ads account.
Databox provides various sharing options to help you and your team improve visibility into campaign performance and ultimately improve decision-making. The dashboards are optimised to fit any screen or device, meaning you can access your dashboard from anywhere.[nbsp_tc] The sharing options include:
Sharable Link: Access Databox dashboards using a link (no need to be a Databox user).
Automated Sends: Automatically send screenshots of your dashboards, at regular time intervals, to specified emails
Stream To TV: Visualise your dashboard on a smart TV.
Dashboard Embed: Embed your dashboard into any tool or webpage.
Start Reporting On Your Facebook Ads Performance
Monitoring your Facebook Ads performance is an essential part of running a successful campaign and growing ROAS. Depending on your specific need and goals, creating a report or a dashboard will facilitate your ability to visualise your performance, spot trends, and make adjustments to future strategies.
To take your analytics to the next level, consider implementing Databox into your organization to add a layer of automated performance tracking. Its advanced features will allow you to stay up to date on your campaigns and put data at the centre of decision-making.