Facebook Ads Metrics: What Matters and What Doesn't

In the mysterious world of Facebook Ads, deciphering which metrics hold true significance and which ones are merely vanity can be a daunting task for beginners.

Understanding metrics is the key to optimizing your ad campaigns for success.

I like to go divide the metrics into three categories of Facebook Ads metrics:

Facebook shows default metrics which mislead beginners into thinking that their campaigns are performing when they are just burning money.

Let me show you how I look at ad metrics and take you through my setup.

If you never set up custom metrics such as Hook Rate, let me show you how can you do it.

Open the Columns dropdown menu in Ads Manager and select Customize Columns.

In the pop-up window, click Create Custom Metric.

A new window pops up (yes, another one) where you can setup the above metrics using the formulas I mentioned. 

Take a look at the image below and see I how set up the Video Hook Rate metric.

Let’s dive in then.

(The order of metrics is in no particular priority order! You should only use metrics that are relevant to your business goals. I continually update this post.)

Some of these metrics can be found in the Ads Manager's Performance Metrics category.

Others need to be created manually as a custom metric.

As the name indicates it shows the performance of your ad campaigns. When I set up ad campaigns these are settings I prioritize the campaign columns by.

The ultimate goal of any advertising campaign is to drive conversions, whether it's making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, downloading an app or completing a lead form.

This is the most important metric as you can optimize your ad campaigns based on the conversion you desire. If you want to get purchases optimize your campaigns for purchases, and not for Link Clicks.

There are standard conversions offered by Facebook, such Sales, Complete Registrations, Downloads, which would suffice for any marketer to get started.

There are also custom conversions, which can be set up by you, but for starters the standard conversion events are more than enough. 

The average cost you pay to acquire a customer.

A lower CPA indicates more efficient advertising spend.

This metric has variations, such as Cost per Registration, Cost per Lead, Cost per Download which depends on the main conversions you are measuring and aiming for.

Back in the day (2014-2020) marketers were obsessed with this metric as it indicated efficiency.

However, this metric does not take into consideration Conversion Value, or Average Order Value (AOV), nor Lifetime Value (LTV) which makes it less important, but still it could be a Key Performance Indicator (KPI).

Example 1: An e-commerce store's conversion cost (CPC) might cost $100 which seems high, but if the AOV (average order value) is $400 then you have a 4x return on that single conversion.

It really depends on the products you are selling.

Example 2: An app user costs $50 to sign-up for a subscription that costs $10/month. One might think your are crazy and that you are losing $40 on each conversion.

What is not accounted for is the LTV of the subscriber. If a subscriber stays for 5 months your are at break even. If a subscriber generally stays for 12 months then you are making $70 per subscriber.

The total value generated from conversions attributed to your ads. It helps measure the return on your advertising investment.

This value can be dynamically set up for an e-commerce store and Facebook will take the value of the cart directly from the store.

Or it can be set up manually by you in case of a newsletter sign-up or app download. The important here is that you know the LTV or the AOV.

It is the ratio of Conversion Value (Revenue) / Conversions (No. of orders).

Lifetime Value or CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value) is calculated differently for e-commerce, service or SaaS. This is very important metric for any business, and also a great metric to look at when it comes to marketing budget. If you calculate LTV another metric needs to be accounted for as LTV makes sense even more, that is metric is CAC (Cost per customer).

CAC = Total Ad Expenses/No. of new customers

A good LTV/CAC ratio should be at least 3:1. 

Let me give you an example for en e-commerce store.

Example:

LTV = AOV x  Frequency of purchase/year x Lifespan.

Let's see an LTV for a customer whose AOV is $30, buys from your store 5 times per year and stays loyal to you for 2 years.

Your CAC is $100. That's how much you spend to acquire a new customer, based on the above formula.

LTV = $30(AOV) x 5 (frequency/year) x 2 (years) = $300

LTV/CAC =  3:1 ratio

It means if you bring on a new customer for less than $100 then, you triple your initial cost.

Higher ratio, the better. Generally, 4:1 ratio means it's a healthy business model and can scale. 

Read more about LTV here: DAS #18 - ROAS, Scaling, and Lifetime Value: Mastering Micro-Budget Facebook Ads for Small Businesses.

The ratio of revenue generated to the cost of advertising.

ROAS helps determine the profitability of your campaigns. In the new era of paid ads this can be the ultimate metric.

It's easy for marketers and business owners to understand it. It’s a default metrics in Meta Ads manager, however this is the formula for it:

Formula: Purchase Conversion Value ÷ Amount Spent (Revenue ÷ Ad Spend)

Type: Numerical

For example: You spend X on ads and you get 2X. You spend $10 on Facebook Ads and you get $20 revenue. Basically, you get $2 for every $1 you invest in ads.

Important: ROI ≠ ROAS

Do not mistake ROI with ROAS! I see a lot of business owners include investment costs such as raw material costs, product acquisition cost and other fixed costs.

It's not Return On Investments!

ROAS shows AD COSTS to Revenue Generated via ads, that's why it's called Return On Ad Spend.

ROAS depends on a couple variables, like price of the product and AOV.

If you do not have product-market fit, price is too low, AOV is low then it's hard to get a positive ROAS (1<). 

Facebook Ads offer ROAS based conversions for advertisers. It's not available on all ad accounts, as you need quite a bit of data to have this performance goal.

Facebook allows you to aim for Maximize value of Conversions rather the Maximize number of Conversions, and optionally add a ROAS goal.

If you have this option on your ad account, you should definitely test it.

You can set this up at the Ad Set level where you choose the conversion goal.

Open the dropdown list select Maximize value of Conversions.

Under Conversion Event a new field with ROAS will appear.

See image below for reference:

Here is why this metrics still could be a bad indicator: DAS #10 - Why Facebook Ads ROAS is a Misleading Metric.

The ROAS where you make zero profit and zero loss, revenue exactly covers your product costs (COGS) and your ad spend.

Formula: Breakeven ROAS = 1 ÷ Gross Profit Margin, where Gross Profit Margin = (Revenue - COGS) ÷ Revenue.

Type: Numeric

This "Gross Profit Margin" is a percentage, not the same as the Gross Profit Margin per Conversion (GPM) dollar amount below, don't mix the two up.

Anything above your bROAS is real profit. Anything below it means you're paying Meta for the privilege of losing money on every sale. A 3x ROAS can be a big win for one account and exactly break-even for another, it depends entirely on your margin.

Read more about bROAS here: DAS #124 - Breakeven ROAS: The Only Metric That Drives Profit.

Gross Profit after ad costs

It gives you gross profit you’re keeping after ad spend, not just what you earned, unlike ROAS.

The formula: (Revenue - Ad Spend) ÷ Ad Spend

Type: Numeric

You can Calculate Net POAS, too, if you know COGS (Costs of Good Sold). This is extremely accurate if you advertise single products, offers or services.

Formula: (Revenue - Ad Spend-COGS) ÷ Ad Spend

Type: Numeric

Read more about POAS here: DAS #68 - POAS vs. ROAS: The Meta Ads Metric That Actually Drives Growth.

Formula: Average Order Value (AOV) - Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

This metric tells you how much profit you're making per order after ad costs.

Example:
AOV = $50
CPA = $20 → GPM = $30 (before other costs)

This will help you see if it even makes sense to buy ads for that specific product/service, or you need you rethink your offer.

Formula: Total Revenue from Ads - Total Ad Spend

If GPM tells you how profitable each order is, TPV tells you how profitable your entire campaign is.

Example:
Revenue from Meta Ads = $1000
Ad Spend = $250 → TPV = $750

This helps you answer:

Read more about GPM and PAAC in DAS #59 - 2 Metrics That Reveal If Your Meta Ads Are Failing.

These metrics can be found in the Performance & Delivery categories in the Facebook Ads Manager.

Some of these metrics are not defaults settings in Ads manager, so you need to create them.

Don't worry I got you covered on how to calculate and set these up below. 

These metrics will help you figure out what might be a problem if the main metrics do not add up and you need to further investigate a campaign. 

The percentage of users who clicked on your ad after seeing it. A higher CTR indicates better ad engagement.

If CTR is low, it could mean that your ad is of poor quality or that you are not targeting the right audience.

The percentage of users who clicked on your ad's link a.k.a. CTA button (Call to Action) after seeing it.

A higher CTRL indicates better ad engagement.

The cost per 1000 impressions. It helps you evaluate the efficiency of your ad spend.

The average cost you pay for each click on your ad.

CPC used to be crucial for understanding the cost-effectiveness of your campaigns, however this metric fell down the pecking order when more important metrics became available to marketers, such as conversion value and ROAS.

The number of clicks on links within your ad. It measures the effectiveness of your call-to-action.

Basically it indicates if your ad creative and copy are making users stop and click on your ad.

But be careful, Meta counts every click (share, like, click on image) so for measuring clicks to your website you should focus on Outbound Clicks.

Outbound Clicks are clicks on links leading to external domains, essentially clicks that redirect you to a domain other than facebook[.]com.

This one is more relevant for marketers who want to get traffic to their websites.

You can find this and all related metrics in the Ads Manager’s Custom Metrics, as shown below:

Read more about Outbound Clicks here: DAS #88 - Facebook’s Click Attribution Is a Scam.

The average number of times each person saw your ad. Monitoring frequency helps prevent ad fatigue.

Read more about Frequency and ad fatigue here: DAS #81 - How to Fix Ad Fatigue in Meta Ads.

Calculated as follows: 3-second video views/impressions x 100%.

This gives you a percentage which should be at least 20%.

This means every 2 user out of 10 whom your video was shown, has stopped and watched the first 3 seconds of your video. 

If it's below you should test more hooks as you cannot stop the scroll and get the attention of the users. 

Formula: 15-second video views/3-second video views x 100%.

It should be around 30% or more. It determines if you can hold the attention of users who viewed the first 3 seconds of your video.

Read more about hook rate and hold rate benchmarks here: DAS #82 - Which Facebook Ads Metrics Actually Matter.

These metrics give you and impression of the quality of your actuals ads.

If your important metrics do not add up, you should look at useful metrics and decide if your ads are quality or not.

These metrics can be found in the Delivery & Engagement category in the Ads Maanger.

These metrics bring little to nothing when it comes to performance marketing. Usually, business owners fall into this trap of monitoring these metrics as these are the most visible ones.

However, they need to understand that these metrics only matter to their ego and have almost nothing to do with the performance of paid ad campaigns.

The total number of times your ad is displayed. While impressions indicate reach, they don't necessarily correlate with engagement or conversions.

The number of unique users who saw your ad. While reach is important for brand awareness, it doesn't guarantee action.

The number of likes your ad receives. While likes can signify audience interest, they may not translate into meaningful actions.

The number of users who follow your page. While followers indicate brand loyalty, they don't necessarily equate to revenue.

The number of times your video ad was viewed. While views are indicative of engagement, they may not lead to conversions.

Read more about why views are a vanity metric here: DAS #90 - 10 Million Views or 100 Conversions?.

The number users who engage with your ad. It includes the post views, image opens, reading, shares, clicking the "see more" link in texts and probably even more actions.

However, vanity metrics can be useful! For example, you can create custom audiences for re-marketing purposes.

You can create an audience that viewed 90% of a certain video, create an audience from users that engaged with your ads or pages and target them with a special offer.

For me, this is how the metrics columns look after I customize it in Ads Manager.

I always save the setup for each ad account.

If you have multiple goals for the ad account, e.g. purchases and newsletter signup, then create separate Custom Columns for each goal.

Example 1: E-commerce store Facebook Ads Metrics Setup

Conversions | CPA | Conversions Value | ROAS | Initiated Checkouts | ATC | Spend | CPC | CTR | CPM | Frequency | Reach

Example 2: Registrations Facebook Ads Metrics Setup

Registrations | Cost per Registration | Registration Value | Spend | CPC | CTR | CPM | Frequency | Reach

For more details on how to set up Ad Columns read DAS #28 - How to Set Up Meta Ads Columns for Quick Insights & Instant Clarity.

Remember, it's not just about the numbers on the surface (likes, shares, comments, views) but about the actions they inspire and the value they bring to your business goals.

If you understand the distinctions between Important Metrics, Useful Metrics, and Vanity Metrics you can focus your efforts on tracking and optimizing the metrics that truly matter for your Facebook Ads campaigns.

This list of metrics is always kept up to date, I add new ones as they become relevant. Last updated: July 8, 2026.