Marketers in inbound sales are continuously looking to generate leads, and it is crucial to be able to accurately measure the success of such endeavors using actual data. A previous article discussed using Facebook Ads for a lead generation campaign and described the remarkable number of “drill down” options of descriptors that can be layered and filtered, allowing a marketer to precisely structure the desired target audience for a Campaign Ad Set. Similarly, Facebook offers an extensive range of metrics that are available to a marketer to evaluate a Campaign, Ad Set or Ad.

Facebook Ad Metrics

Facebook reports a number of primary categories of metrics, all of which have detailed, custom drill down options:

▪ Performance – custom metrics include results, reach, frequency and impressions
▪ Engagement – custom metrics include Page likes, Page engagement and post engagement
▪ Videos – custom metrics include video views and average percent of video viewed
▪ Website – custom metrics include website actions (all), checkouts, payment details, purchases and adds to cart
▪ Apps – custom metrics include app installs, app engagement, credit spends, mobile app actions and cost per app engagement
▪ Events – custom metrics include event responses and cost per event response
▪ Clicks – custom metrics include clicks, unique clicks, CTR (click-through rate) and CPC (cost per click)
▪ Settings – custom metrics include start date, end date, ad set name, ad ID, delivery, bid and objective

The listing above shows the wide range of reportable options although clearly not all would be applicable or relevant to every Campaign or Ad Set, whether for lead generation or some other objective. Some that are useful in evaluating a lead generation campaign are discussed below.

Actions Taken/Conversions

The advertiser first defines a “Campaign Objective,” how an advertiser wants people to react when they see the ad. A particularly useful objective for lead generation is to increase website conversions, having the user link to the company’s website and take some specific action such as the user providing contact information and email address in exchange for some offer on a gated landing page. The conversions are tracked by inserting a conversion pixel on the destination landing page. Since the goal of the campaign is a viewer’s conversion, a basic metric of evaluating the success of the Campaign is the number of conversions – in the example, the number of viewers clicking on the ad, visiting the website and then providing their contact information.

Cost per Conversion

Cost and cost effectiveness is always a consideration in advertising campaign. Although an advertiser sets an overall budget for the Campaign or Ad Set in the bid, this reflects a total figure. A more direct tool for evaluating an ad’s lead generation success is the Cost per Conversion metric, which shows exactly what each conversion costs. This metric can be applied to Ad Sets or individual Ads, which can then be compared against each other to see which are converting at higher rates and at a better cost. The advertiser can also adjust the bidding strategy or targeting criteria to try to achieve a better Cost per Conversion.

Reach

The Reach is the amount of people that your ad is being served to, that is the number of unique users the ad has reached. The Reach depends on the ad’s performance, its objective, the size and activity of the targeted audience, and the budget.

Frequency

The Frequency is the average number of times your ad has been served to each person within its respective Reach, that is how often users see the same ad. Stated another way, Frequency is the number of Impressions (the number of times the ad was displayed) divided by the Reach. The ideal scenario would be where viewers see the ad once and convert – a Frequency of one. A high Frequency number means that the ad is being shown over and over to the same people who do not convert, indicating that the ad is either not effective or stale. This metric is important for advertisers to monitor as ads mature.

Relevance Score

The Relevance Score reflects Facebook’s perception of how relevant an ad is to its audience, that is whether the ads’ demographic target considers the message relevant and thus engages with it. Facebook understandably prefers to display an ad relevant to a specific user, not for example, a retirement community ad to a demographic of 13 -18 year old teenagers. The score reflects a number of different Facebook metrics, such as Engagement, Clicks, Conversions and Click-Through Rate.
The score is based on a ranking of 1 to 10 and effects how much the ad is shown, the priority given to it and significantly, the cost. The higher the Relevance Score, the lower the bid cost.

The numerous and detailed Facebook metrics provide a wide range of information for advertisers to use in evaluating the success of an ad campaign. Conversions and Cost per Conversion are obviously most important, in that these reflect the end goal of a Campaign and what is being spent to achieve it on a per individual basis. Reach and Frequency metrics are valuable in monitoring performance on an over time. The Relevancy Score metric helps in determining how well constructed the advertising is for its target audience. The variety of the available metrics provides advertisers the ability to evaluate the performance of the advertising by measuring viewers’ responses from many different vantage points.