Facebook Ads provide ecommerce businesses an incredibly powerful platform to drive traffic, leads, and sales. However, effectively optimizing campaigns requires closely tracking the right performance metrics.

With over 800 metrics to choose from, it can be overwhelming to determine which are most vital. In this comprehensive guide, SellSpell has listed the 22 most critical Facebook Ads metrics for ecommerce brands to deeply understand, segmented by category.

For each metric, we will define what it measures, explain why it matters for performance, provide average industry benchmarks, and share tips to improve performance.

Let’s dive in!

Business Objective Metrics

These directly quantify achievement of your campaign goals – whether driving purchases, acquiring leads, or something else. Master these outcomes above all else.  

#1 Results

Definition: The number of times your configured campaign objective was achieved. For purchase campaigns, this would be sales made. For lead gen campaigns, this would be leads acquired.

Importance: Results summarize overall campaign efficacy towards your goals in one primary metric. Results should steadily increase in line with spend to justify budgets.

Benchmarks: Varies significantly by industry, audience size and competition level. Historical performance provides the best comparison base. Most campaigns see a “ramp up” period of days or weeks before results accelerate as Facebook’s algorithm optimizes.

Tips to improve:

• Break this main metric down across campaign, ad set and ad to identify top performers to allocate more budget towards
• Pull the worst performing targeting and creative periodically to maintain volume momentum
• Increase daily budget maximums gradually while results and ROAS are strong to capitalize on positive performance  

#2 Cost Per Result

Definition: Calculated by total spend divided by total results, defining how much you pay to achieve your campaign goal per action – like cost per purchase, cost per lead, etc. 

Importance: Cost Per Result enables you to directly compare return on investment across outcomes like purchases, signups, content views, etc. Lower Cost Per Result means greater profit at the same result volume.

Benchmarks: Varies significantly by industry, action type and competition level:

• Average Cost Per Website Purchase across industries: $55
• Average Cost Per Lead across industries: $42 
• Average Cost Per Link Click across industries: $1.41

Tips to Improve:

• Isolate highest Cost Per Result targets and creatives for removal or budget reduction
• Increase budgets for high-volume, low Cost Per Result areas  
• Refresh creatives and expand audiences to reduce effective CPM costs  

#3 Result Rate

Definition: The percentage of impressions that resulted in your campaign goal action. Calculate as: Results / Impressions x 100

Importance: High and rising result rates signal well-targeted, compelling creative and aligned offers driving strong conversions. Low or declining rates indicate poor relevance.

Benchmarks: Varies significantly by campaign goal and industry:

• Average website conversion rate from social traffic: 2.9%
• Average ad click-through rate across Facebook: 1.51%

Tips to Improve:

• Remove low performing targeting like interests and behaviors suppressing your result rate 
• Test multiple new creative variations to identify better performers  
• Ensure landing page seamlessly picks up ad messaging momentum

#4 Purchase ROAS

Definition: Measures return on ad spend purely from purchases: 

Purchase Revenue / Spend

Importance: Quantifies true campaign profitability. ROAS higher than 1x means positive return from spend. The higher the ROAS, the greater the return.

Benchmarks: Average ROAS by industry:

• Clothing: 2.56x
• Pet Supplies: 1.39x 
• Auto: 4.3x
• Health & Beauty: 1.71x

Tips to Improve:

• Spot high and low ROAS campaigns in the Facebook Ads reporting and shift budgets accordingly
• Remove unprofitable creative and audiences suppressing overall ROAS
• Increase budgets for high ROAS areas to capitalize on their performance

#5 Amount Spent

Definition: Your cumulative ad spend over defined time periods – day, week, month, quarter etc. 

Importance: Ensures you maintain budget pace to achieve volume goals while still optimizing to stay within defined limits across timelines.  

Benchmarks: None directly applicable – spend levels fully align to unique business goals and should be tuned accordingly. Most advertisers define both Daily and Lifetime campaign limits.

Tips to Improve:

• Observe trends for aggressive daily overspending and reduce max limits to regulate 
• Watch for high-performing campaigns slowing in spend before duration ends – increase limits
• Set alerts for sudden drops in spend indicating problems like disapprovals or errors  

Ad Performance Metrics

These metrics show how compelling your ads are to engage users and drive them to take action. Use them to build higher performing creativity.  

#6 Link Clicks

Definition: The number of clicks on the call-to-action link of your ads leading users off Facebook – typically to your product pages or deals.

Importance: The first step required towards downstream conversions and purchases. More link clicks likely signal creatives and messaging better resonating with your audience.

Benchmarks: Average Facebook Ad CTR across all industries is 1.63%. However, performance varies significantly by audience, placement type and campaign objective.

Tips to Improve Performance:

• Test a variety of ad formats including carousel, single image, and video
• Experiment with emotionally evocative creative styles
• Ensure clear, enticing link text and eye-catching buttons

#7 CTR

Definition: Click-through-rate, calculated as Clicks / Impressions. The percentage of impressions resulting in clicks.

Importance: Shows the overall appeal and relevance of creative in compelling clicks from users. 

Benchmarks: Average Facebook Ad CTR across all industries is 0.9%:

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Tips to Improve:

• Try refreshing creatives with new designs, images and copy  
• Ensure clear presentation of the incentivized action  
• Test video ads – CTR 2X higher than images

#8 CPC

Definition: Your average Cost Per Click paid to Facebook. Auction-based pricing means costs directly correlate to your placements competitiveness.

Importance: CPC contributes to your overall CPA. Lower CPC can allow increased volume at the same budget cap. But don’t solely optimize for CPC, also consider result rates.  

Benchmarks: Average Facebook CPC overall is $1.72 across industries. By objective:  

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Tips to Improve:

• Remove high volume but unprofitably high CPC placements like Instagram Stories  
• Restrict total placements to focus budget on most efficient areas  
• Run CBO campaigns optimized purely on conversions to let Facebook determine most efficient CPCs

Customer Engagement Metrics

Gauges how compelling your messaging and propositions are to motivate post-click actions towards conversions.

#9 Post Engagement

Definition: Like reactions, shares and comments on your ads without clicks. Measures general brands and offers interest.  

Importance: High engagement signals ads resonate better with audiences even if not resulting directly in clicks. Valuable for brand building beyond pure direct response.

Benchmarks: Engagement metrics have significant variance across audiences and placements. Benchmark your engagement rate to gauge resonance: 

Post Engagements / Impressions 

Tips to Improve:

• Test emotional creative styles like humor, warmth, and excitement  
• Share interesting or inspiring facts about products that audiences connect with
• Provide value upfront in ad copy rather than hard-selling

#10 Landing Page Engagement

Definition: Actions users take on your landing pages attributed to Facebook ads, like pageviews, video views, content downloads, subscriptions, etc.

Importance: More favorable post-click landing page engagement shows users remain interested in ads, improving likelihood of downstream conversions.

Benchmarks: Varies significantly by industry and landing page type. Historical averages provide the only solid comparison base to gauge improvements. 

Tips to Improve:

• Ensure clarity on your value proposition messaging carried through from ads
• Prominently feature secondary conversion options like downloads or loyalty signup

#11 Add to Carts

Definition: Users adding your products to their carts from landing page visits attributed to Facebook ads. Demonstrates high intent.  

Importance: More ads to cart indicate your ads and landing experience compellingly present the value of products, even if users don’t fully checkout yet.

Benchmarks: No definitive average across SMBs. Benchmark goal based on percentage of site users overall adding to cart, and work to exceed that percentage through engaged paid traffic segments.  

Tips to Improve Performance

• Create dedicated retargeting campaigns for users who previously added to cart
• Provide special discounts or exclusives for cart additions from paid clicks
• Use video ads to showcase desirability

#12 View Content

Definition: Total views of product images, videos, blogs and other page content from post-click landing page visits driven from Facebook ads.

Importance: Measures whether your ads and landing pages work cohesively to inform and compel users to continue engaging beyond initial click-through. More content views signal greater landing experience relevance to ads.  

Benchmarks: No definitive benchmarks – compare performance over previous time periods to gauge resonance of refreshed content. 

Tips to Improve Relevance:

• Curate products in ads to align tightly with specific content themes
• Prominently feature content engagement options matching ad messaging

Ad Delivery Metrics

How successfully Facebook displays your ads to reach your targeted audiences. Balance reach & frequency.

#13 Impressions

Definition: The total number of times your ads were shown on screen to users. Raw awareness measurement.

Importance: While high impressions without sufficient engagements and conversions won’t produce success, they remain the first step for ads to have any potential impact at all. More impressions mean greater reach.

Benchmarks: Historical performance provides the best impression benchmark context, as ideals vary by audience size, budget and campaign objectives across businesses.

Tips to Improve Volume:

• Raise campaign daily budgets as justified by returns to increase auction competitiveness  
• CreateProcessError Failed to write file C:\Users\CANOP~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tmpaddon The nested file system supported one open file at a time only lookalike audiences from high-converting direct engagement segments
• Experiment with IAB contextual targeting to access similar audiences open to your messaging

#14 Reach

Definition: The total number of unique users shown your ads over campaigns lifetimes. Impressions with users deduplicated. 

Importance: Ensures your ads extend messaging to new potential customers rather than simply showing more times to the same users. Wider reach improves the pool of possible converters.  

Benchmarks: As most ecommerce advertisers are still scaling to their total addressable audience sizes, historical performance provides the only solid reach benchmark context for improvement goals.

Tips to Expand Reach:

• Grow custom engaged and lookalike audiences based on recent high-value converters
• Test interest expansion for custom audiences showing strong performance
• Analyze CRM data for additional characteristics to model new lookalike audiences off

#15 Frequency

Definition: How often on average each unique reached user sees your ads, calculated as: Impressions / Reach

Importance: Ideal frequency balances visibility with oversaturation for ads to stick effectively in minds. Excessive repetitions may annoy users and suppress conversions.

Benchmarks: Optimal frequency varies based on audience sentiment, but maintain average between 2-4x for ideal recall while limiting fatigue.

Tips to Regulate Frequency:

• Restrict higher frequency placements like Stories and feed posts
• Cap frequency in campaign creation settings
• Increase minimum reach thresholds to temporarily reduce frequency

#16 Social Reach %

Definition: The percentage of total audience reached coming from broader interest and lookalike targeting pools rather than direct follower targeting.  

Importance: Quantifies access to expanded audience segments beyond just fans. Broader pools often convert comparably when tightly aligned to proven base segments.

Benchmarks: No definitive average, but monitor the trend to gauge how well custom and lookalike audience strategies scale reach while maintaining relevance reflected in downstream conversions. 

Tips to Improve %:

• Create lookalikes from recent engaged website visitors
• Develop additional interest pools based on proven high-converting topics
• Only run feed ads alongside social ads to avoid cutting social reach

Audience Metrics

Measure the sentiment, characteristics and behaviors of users engaging with your ads. Tailor messaging, offers and products accordingly.  

#17 Conversions by Age & Gender

Definition: Number of conversions driven, segmented across age groups and gender.

Importance: Determine what age groups and genders convert best from your ads to adjust targeting and tailor creative and offers accordingly for higher ROI.

Benchmarks: Varies significantly by products – historical performance provides the best conversion benchmarks. Monitor changes as you refine targeting.  

Tips to Improve Performance:

• Analyze website analytics segments to find where more intent users come from
• Poll recent converters directly on their sentiment towards messaging variations

#18 Conversions by Audience

Definition: Total conversions achieved segmented across defined customer audiences like fans, website visitors, searchers and lookalikes.  

Importance: See your groups demonstrating the highest potential to focus budget on what continues to work rather than spraying broadly.

Benchmarks: Historical performance – when benchmarked properly, custom audiences from your 1st party data often significantly outperform 3rd party audiences.

Tips for Optimization:

• Remove audiences consistently demonstrating low conversion rates
• Create additional lookalikes from your top performers

#19 Conversions by Time of Day & Day

Definition: When converting users are most active on Facebook, segmented by day partings and day of week.

Importance: Optimal times for ad display to align messaging when audiences are most receptive and interested.  

Benchmarks: Varies by business type – most ecommerce advertisers see the highest conversion windows between 12 PM – 10 PM, toward the end of lunch through evening.

Tips on Scheduling:

• Focus budget during ideal high-converting dayparts, limit non-work hours  
• Test performance across days when evaluating new strategies before fully expanding  

#20 Days to Convert

Definition: The average number of days between a user’s first ad impression and conversion event. 

Importance: Establishes user path length expectations for smarter campaign and budget management.

Benchmarks: Differs significantly by industry and funnel depth – leads may convert same-day, while considered purchases often take weeks. 

Tips on Pacing:

• Monitor changes in typical time-to-convert as you test new strategies
• Tie campaign duration settings to observed conversion windows
• Evaluate impression levels across windows to ensure sufficient exposure

#21 Recency

Definition: How recently converting users last engaged with your business through key events like purchases, content views, email etc. 

Importance: Identifies where conversions are coming from across new, actively engaged or re-engaged users.

Benchmarks: Varies based on typical purchase cycles for products – can expect more frequent buys for consumables than big ticket items.  

Tips on Monitoring Value:

• Tailor messaging for cold users to re-educate effectively
• Develop re-engagement offers for users with histories converting again

#22 Frequency at Conversion

Definition: The average number of times users saw your ads prior to the converting impression.  

Importance: Indicates ideal ad exposure cadence needed to repeatedly reach your audience to drive conversions.

Benchmarks: As with time-to-convert, frequency expectations differ by product consideration timelines. Higher frequency is likely needed for big ticket or complex products.

Tips on Managing Saturation:

• Increase minimum frequency caps to align with conversion benchmarks  
• Restrict lower-funnel broadcast campaigns suppressing sales-ready user frequency  

Wrap Up

In this Facebook ads metrics guide, we explored the 22 most critical Facebook advertising metrics for ecommerce brands across the categories of:

• Business Outcomes
• Ad Performance
• Customer Engagement
• Audience Metrics

Consistently analyzing performance through these lenses will enable informed optimizations that directly improve tangible business results.

Keep in mind that metrics always require “contextualization” to derive meaning – rather than assessing metrics purely in isolation. 

Evaluate trends in combination to properly diagnose the full picture performance issues and their underlying causes to address effectively.

Mastering both the individual metrics and their connectedness will lead to systematically improved returns on Facebook Ads throughout 2024 and beyond.

If you want us to do an audit of your FB ads campaigns and run them for you, get in touch with us now.