How to Create a Facebook Ad: Step 3 (Measuring and Reports)
This post is the third of a five-step process to set up, measure, and manage your Facebook ads.
Last week, we went over how to set up bidding and finalize your ad. Today, we’re going to talk about measuring and reporting.
Dashboard
At the base level, Facebook provides some statistics on the dashboard.
- Status: Is the ad running or paused?
- Last updated: I think this one’s pretty self explanatory
- Bid: How much you are bidding to have your ad show up.
- Type: Cost per Click (CPC)? or Cost per Impression (CPM)?
- Clicks: How many clicks on your ad have there been?
- Impressions: Number of times your ad has showed up
- CTR (%): Clicks/Impressions – the percentage of clicks out of impressions (views)
- Avg. CPC: The average you actually pay per click.
- Avg. CPM: The average you actually pay per impression.
Reports
Facebook offers a number of reports; I find them simpler and far easier to use than AdWords reporting. Here’s a break down of what you’ll get with each one:
- Advertising Performance: Much of the same information you get through the dashboard (Impressions, clicks, CTR, money spent), but this may be a nicer way to keep track of these statistics over time.
- Responder Demographics: See who is clicking on your ads – are you targeting the right demographic? Get stats like age range, gender, and region.
- Responder Profiles: Like demographics, you can get a little more information about those who click or see your ads. This report includes books, movies, music, TV shows, and other interests.
- Conversions by Conversion Time: How soon a conversion was made (0-24 hours, 1-7 days, 8-28 days) between conversion event and actual conversion.
- Conversions by Impression Time: How long (0-24 hours, 1-7 days, 8-28 days) it took between an impression (seeing the ad) and conversion.
That’s it for Facebook reports, next time we’ll talk about measuring your conversions.