These Facebook Ad Metrics Are Going Away. Are You Prepared?

These Facebook Ad Metrics Are Going Away. Are You Prepared?

Facebook is removing metrics they consider “redundant, outdated, not actionable, or infrequently used.” What are these metrics and are you going to miss them? Actions (as an aggregate metric) Back in the day, the only thing you could do to a Facebook ad was like, share, comment on, or click it. The Actions metric helped you track these results as an aggregate. If you still want to calculate the cost per action, Facebook suggests you formulate your own composite metric “Actions” that makes sense for your business. Mobile App Actions Conversions Value If you want to gain similar insights, assign a value to a specific action rather than to actions as a whole. Social Reach and Social Impressions These two metrics can be replaced by Reach and Impressions. So, while it’s an interesting metric, it isn’t actionable. A metric that is being removed because it’s “infrequently used” means that it was useful to some people, but not to a large enough percentage of Page managers to warrant keeping it in the lineup. First, you have to know what a Canvas is (“a full-screen ad experience” on mobile). Page Tab Views and Cost per Page Tab View Facebook’s reasoning for removing this metric is unclear, saying only that there are other recommended metrics to substitute in reporting and that it isn’t indicative of campaign success.

The Insider Secrets to Find Your Best Facebook Retargeting Strategy [Podcast]
Google expanding YouTube Director onsite video ad service to more than 170 cities
3 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Ads

After the July 2018 release of the Graph API, some Facebook ad metrics will leave our reports forever.

Facebook is removing metrics they consider “redundant, outdated, not actionable, or infrequently used.” What are these metrics and are you going to miss them?

I’ve talked with many business owners and marketing managers, and a large percentage rarely look past high-level metrics.

However, some of us obsessively track specific metrics that align with certain business goals. I once helped a university that cared about increasing reach in Brazil during a two-week period, so I reported on impressions from users based in Brazil– you don’t get much more specific than that. How will these changes affect us? What’s leaving and why? Let’s find out.

Which Metrics Is Facebook Getting Rid of?

To make things a bit easier, I’ve split the metrics into four groups based on key characteristics.

  • The redundant metrics
  • The not actionable metrics
  • Infrequently used and/or outdated metrics
  • Hard to track metrics

Removing Redundancy

Redundant metrics aren’t disappearing completely, they are just moving to a different place. If you use these metrics don’t worry, Facebook will still let you get the info you need.

1. Amount Spent Today

To get this metric after the update, use the date selector to select “today” as the date and then use “amount spent” to see your spend.

2. Button Clicks

This metric will be reported on elsewhere—so you won’t miss it.

3. Positive Feedback and Negative Feedback

The Positive Feedback metric shows you how many people are expected to interact with your ad. Negative Feedback indicates how many people will hide your ads.

However, both of these metrics are estimates. The data isn’t straightforward and the algorithm for estimation isn’t clear.

Metrics That Aren’t Actionable

Any metric you track should help you tangibly improve ad performance. If it doesn’t, the metric isn’t actionable.

To make this easier, Facebook is getting rid of these metrics because they aren’t useful for iterating campaign efforts toward success.

1. Actions (as an aggregate metric)

Back in the day, the only thing you could do to a Facebook ad was like, share, comment on, or click it. The Actions metric helped you track these results as an aggregate.

These days, you can do a lot more with an ad and an aggregate number of all user actions doesn’t make sense anymore. It doesn’t help you gain any actionable insights, so Facebook is retiring it.

If you still want to calculate the cost per action, Facebook suggests you formulate your own composite metric “Actions” that makes sense for your business. Thinking through what actions really matter to you is something you can do to…

COMMENTS

WORDPRESS: 0
DISQUS: 0