When it comes to using Facebook Ads, there are a handful of Key Performance Indicators or KPIs to keep track of and to use in your analysis of success. While there are several that are important across various campaign types, let’s go beyond those to explore which would be the most important to utilize across five campaign objectives so that you can truly understand how your campaigns, ad sets, and ads are performing.
Read on to learn about the KPIs that you should refer to across Engagement, App Installs, Video Views, Lead Generation, and Conversion Campaigns.
The Key Players Of KPIs
When it comes to just about any campaign type, there will be a few metrics that will apply universally and provide you with helpful performance insights. Use these in addition to some of the campaign objective specific ones we will cover below to get a wider performance overview. Even if you are running an upper-funnel campaign, such as an engagement campaign, you may still want to look at some of these metrics in case any conversions come through.
- Impressions
- Link Clicks
- Click Thru Rate (CTR)
- Cost per Click (CPC)
- Cost per Mille (or cost/1,000 impressions, CPM)
- Frequency
- Conversions
- Cost per Conversion (or Acquisition, CPA)
- Conversion Rate (CVR)
If you’re not looking at these when running reports as they relate to your individual campaigns and diagnosing the holistic account performance, you will want to as they will give you insights into what is working, what is not, and where you can optimize your efforts going forward.
Engagement Campaign KPIs
If your campaign objective is engagement, there are several metrics you will want to view and analyze to determine the success of your campaigns, ad sets, and ads. With Facebook, you will want to either use Facebook’s pre-populated engagement report that includes:
- Post Reactions
- Post Comments
- Post Saves
- Post Shares
- Page Likes
- Link Clicks
- Cost per Link Click
These metrics will cover all the currently available engagement specific metrics that Facebook has to offer, however, if you would like additional metrics to view alongside these, you can always add others through the custom report option under Columns.
App Installs Campaign KPIs
The beauty of App Installs campaigns is that you drive more than just app installs. You can set up a variety of campaign optimization goals, such as app events to drive installs, registrations, trials, in-app purchases, and more.
While the KPIs should be more tailored to your specific campaign and optimization goals, Facebook has a pre-set App Engagement report you can pull that will have some of the following columns to help you understand the total of acquired app installs, the cost per install, and similar engagement metrics that we aforementioned that also apply here, such as post reactions, comments, saves, and shares.
If you have an app that you want people to install, you may want to set up additional events and columns in your reports for the following, especially if you can offer a free trial in order to entice more people to install, use the trial, and then register or pay for in-app purchases:
- Mobile App Installs
- Cost per Mobile App Install
- Trials Started
- Cost per Trial
- Registration Completions
- Cost per Registration
Video Views Campaign KPIs
Video campaigns are an excellent way to quickly and effectively show your product or service, leave less room to the imagination and instead get people to take action, can better manage expectations, andare an incredible method of telling your brand story. With video, there are a number of KPIs you will want to assess when it comes to video ad performance, such as the various percentages that your video was viewed. This can be very insightful into showing you where users may be dropping off, thus allowing you to take note and create shorter or revised videos for optimization using these learnings. Here are some metrics you will want to pay extra attention to in Facebook’s Video Engagement report or your own custom video reporting:
- ThruPlays
- Cost per ThruPlay
- Reach
- Video Plays at 25%
- 50%
- 75%
- 95%
- 100%
- (Total) Video Plays
Video ads come along with a wider variety of metrics and the two that often get mixed up are ThruPlays and Video Plays. Facebook defines ThruPlays as the “number of times your video is played to completion, or for at least 15 seconds,” whereas Video Plays are the “number of times your video starts to play and is counted for each impression of a video and excludes replays”.
Lead Generation Campaign KPIs
When it comes to lead generation campaigns, there are two methods that we’ve used to drive leads. The most common is the Lead Generation campaign objective where users don’t have to leave Facebook to complete the lead generation form as it’s built into the ad itself to obtain their contact information in exchange for information or assets for a brand’s products or services.
There currently isn’t a pre-set Facebook report for Leads but you can just view the regular pre-set performance report as it will tell you the results and their cost per result in this campaign type.
- Results
- Cost per Result
Another way we approach lead generation campaigns is to use a website traffic campaign objective and send users off of Facebook to complete a lead generation form on a landing page. These campaigns tend to get fewer leads than a lead gen specific campaign and at a slightly higher cost, however, the lead quality is greater since these users are interested enough to leave Facebook to learn more and complete the form on your website. For these campaigns, we set up custom events for Leads and then refer to the following KPIs, in addition to some of the aforementioned reporting KPI key players:
- Leads
- Cost per Lead (CPL)
Conversions Campaign KPIs
If you’re running conversion campaigns to drive sales or other lower funnel specific conversions, the KPI key players will certainly come into play here in providing you helpful data to assess campaign performance. In addition to conversions, here are some other important metrics you will want to refer to with this campaign type:
- Cost per Conversion (or acquisition, CPA)
- Conversion Rate (CVR)
- Conversion Value
- Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)
Put Your Metrics In Motion
Facebook is an incredibly powerful tool for expanding your reach and visibility while simultaneously being effective at driving the bottom line. Test out a variety of these campaign objectives as they relate to your business and the goals you have in mind for the various audiences across your funnel. With each campaign, look at the KPIs and use them for your benefit in gaining insight and providing you with a guide as to where and how you can further optimize your campaigns to find success.
BIO:
As someone who lives for connecting people, making the connection between consumers and brands is what Akvile DeFazio, President of AKvertise, a social media advertising agency, does best. As a conversion-driven marketer, she is passionate about helping businesses expand their online visibility and reach their goals. Akvile specializes in working with ecommerce brands, mobile apps, events, and services.