Focusing on the Right Metrics for a Facebook Advertisement

For many organizations, using Facebook advertisements can be an effective tool to cultivate a valuable audience that’s increasingly difficult to reach with “normal” or organic content. Aside from preparing a financial plan and determining a proper target demographic, organizations may inadvertently neglect the initial intent of an advertisement. Are you trying to spread a message, receive donations, or something else? It is not necessarily about choosing the “right” metrics, rather, it is about focusing on what you want the outcome to be.

According to SproutSocial, it is pertinent to reflect on the three primary categories of metrics when monitoring an advertisement. From there, you will know whether or not your ad was successful.

The first category is “Reach.” Reach is a measurement of how many people saw your ad. The key metric of reach is the impression. An impression is counted as any time your ad is served to a website — not necessarily how many times it was seen.

The second category is “Engagement.” Engagement refers to whether a user interacts with your ad. For standard, display ad units, this is a click, but some ads like videos or expandables have more potential for engagement.

Finally, the third category is “Conversion.” A conversion measures each time a user engages with your ad and completes a desired action, like a sign-up or donation.

If you’re hoping to spread a message, reach is the metric for you. If you need to increase engagement, use videos, or expandables to get your message across. If you want people to sign a petition, you’ll want to focus on conversions. It all comes down to the intent of your post or ad, and adjusting the copy, graphic, or medium (photo vs. animation vs. video) to align to your focused outcome.

In the end, it is important to work backwards and focus on the outcome first. Then, review the analytics and adjust your campaign accordingly.