Want to be able to quickly check how effective your paid ads are at a glance? Say hello to key performance indicators – commonly referred to as KPIs!
If you don’t keep track of your KPIs, you could end up running ads that are underperforming and by doing so, you’re basically just pouring money down the drain.
Well, it’s not actually as dramatic as that! But why settle for sub-par when you could instead have killer ads that are well optimised and lead to loads of conversions?
Being able to view KPIs will give you the chance to do just that. You’ll have to act on the data, but knowing whether you’re on the right track or not is a big first step in the right direction.
Of course, some KPIs will be more or less important depending on what ad type you’re running. So, let’s give you some useful information on KPIs for Facebook Ads – now known as Meta Ads.
What are KPIs?
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are not limited to Meta. They’re just statistics that help you measure the success of, well anything really!
We all use metrics to measure our success. How many t-shirts have I sold today? How much am I within my budget this week? How many calories did I burn on my run? And so on.
KPIs are just your most important metrics that are then applied to your strategy and any long-term/short-term goals that you have.
As digital marketers, we use KPIs to check whether our ads are working as intended according to their campaign type. For example, if a campaign is for lead generation, then one of the most important KPIs to focus on is cost per conversion as this is the amount that you will be paying for every successful lead.
Fortunately, Meta provides this data within the Meta Ads dashboard which makes analysing whether or not your adverts are performing adequately easy enough. It’s the actions that you take to improve your KPIs by making the best ads possible that will be the hard part.
KPIs to pay attention to
For information on what KPIs you should be paying attention to with Meta Ads, let’s hear from the resident Paid Media Manager at Blaze Media, JP, for some insight:
‘KPIs are dependent on your business type and what campaign you’re running.
If you are an e-commerce business then you should still focus on cost per conversion but also keep an eye on website purchase return on ad spend (ROAS). This shows the return your campaign has from a macro level but also has micro-level information on specific ad groups and individual ads themselves.
Once cost per conversion and website purchase ROAS is at a suitable level, then you can start working on your click through rate (CTR) and cost per link click (CPC) by experimenting with better creatives.
However, remember the importance of cost per conversion. Even if one ad has more ideal CTR and CPC values, if another ad has better cost per conversion then that’s the one that should be used.
P.S., Facebook is known for having tracking issues so take their data with a pinch of salt. To workaround their tracking faults, add third party tracking to your campaigns, install UTM parameters into your individual ads, and track using Google Analytics as well.’Josh Pierce – Paid Media Manager
‘KPIs are dependent on your business type and what campaign you’re running.
If you are an e-commerce business then you should still focus on cost per conversion but also keep an eye on website purchase return on ad spend (ROAS). This shows the return your campaign has from a macro level but also has micro-level information on specific ad groups and individual ads themselves.
Once cost per conversion and website purchase ROAS is at a suitable level, then you can start working on your click through rate (CTR) and cost per link click (CPC) by experimenting with better creatives.
However, remember the importance of cost per conversion. Even if one ad has more ideal CTR and CPC values, if another ad has better cost per conversion then that’s the one that should be used.
P.S., Facebook is known for having tracking issues so take their data with a pinch of salt. To workaround their tracking faults, add third party tracking to your campaigns, install UTM parameters into your individual ads, and track using Google Analytics as well.’
Should you care about engagement?
It’s easy to say that you should only focus on monetary metrics when running ads, yet it’s a little bit more complex than that.
Sure, heaps of comments and likes on your adverts wouldn’t be anything to shout about if your goal was to make conversions. Yet there’s a reason that campaigns can also be optimised for reach!
Building brand awareness is important if you want to be a leader in your industry. To help do this you can boost your ads to as many people as possible, and starting discussions on important topics in your industry through engagement.
Just make sure you know what your goals are before creating adverts and then you’ll be able to optimise your ads for these specific goals.
Leave the data to data-experts!
At Blaze Media, we love data. Nothing brings us more joy than being able to supply our clients with a report filled with positive KPIs that we’ve worked hard to achieve.
If you have a business and want to run ads to boost your conversions, make more money, or become a bigger name in your industry, then we can help you do just that. And with the help of tangible KPIs, we’ll be able to show you exactly how we’re doing it along the way.
Get in touch now for a conversation with our paid media team and we can give you an insight into how we can help your business succeed.