What Metrics Should You Track to Measure the Real Impact of Social Media Ads?

At OFA WebTek IT Services, we believe that actually running advertising through social media is just the first half – it’s the actual measuring of the results that will give it’s true worth. Too much attention is paid to the worthless metrics (like impressions) that have no connection to a business goal. In this article, we will help you figure out the metrics you have to monitor so your social media ad marketing is meaningful. 

 

Why Metrics Matter to Social Media Ads Marketing

When you spend money to buy social media ad marketing, you expect a return on your investment – leads, sales, and/or brand awareness. If you don’t have the proper metrics, you risk:

• Using the budget unwisely.
• Not understanding your audience and their behaviour.
• Not being able to prove ROI to your stakeholders. 

Tracking the proper metrics means you can take the data and begin to create strategies. 

 

Essential Metrics to Monitor

Here are the essential metrics we at OFA Webtek IT Services suggest keeping track of:

 

Metrics	What It Means	Why It’s Important
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)	Revenue generated divided by ad spend	This is the most immediate measure of how much you earn for every dollar you have spent.
Cost per Acquisition (CPA)	The cost to acquire one customer or conversion	It provides the ability to compare channels, and it is helpful for bid optimisation
Click-Through Rate (CTR)	(Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100	This clarifies the relevance of your ad copy and creative to your audience.
Conversion Rate	(Conversion ÷ Click) × 100	This indicates the effectiveness of your landing page or funnel
Cost per Click (CPC)	The amount paid for each click	Helpful, for budgeting purposes, and allows comparison of ad platform bids
Impression & Reach	Total ad views / unique views	Measures exposure and brand awareness
Engagement Rate	(Like + Comment + Shares) ÷ Impressions or Reach	Measures how captivating your ad is to your audience
Frequency	How many times has the ad been shown to the same person	High Frequency generally leads to fatigue or ad blindness
Attribution & Assisted Conversions	Shows which ad touchpoint led to the sale/conversion	This provides insights into multi-touch customer journeys

 

Advice for Analysing & Acting On The Data

• Don’t look at individual metrics in a vacuum. For example, if data shows a high CTR but a low conversion rate, it would indicate a potential issue after a user clicks on the ad (at the landing page, offer, etc).
• Segment by audience and creative. It is useful to run multiple versions of an ad and compare CPA, CTR and conversion rates to determine which ad version was a ‘winner’. 
• Look at the data over time. Trends are important; small decreases and increases over weeks will tell more than a sharp spike in data over a few days. 
• Use attribution models. For example, if using an impression-to-click-to-conversion method, your last-click conversion may be undervaluing earlier touchpoints along the journey. 
• Consider the industry benchmarks. Seeing if you are under-performing or over-performing against the industry standard is valuable. 

 

Common Traps to Undue

Only measuring impressions – this does not show value. 

Ignoring cost metrics – most people get caught up in vanity metrics.

Mixing macro and micro conversions – forgetting that a download should not be treated the same as a purchase. 

Not cleaning your data – to remove bot traffic, duplicate conversions, invalid clicks and accidental clicks. 

 

Conclusion

To accurately assess the impact of your social media ads, you should not be looking at likes and impressions in isolation. Consider performance indicators that matter to your business, such as: ROAS, CPA, conversion rates, and attribution paths, and then keep refining campaign efficiencies based on what you learn. At OFA Webtek IT Services, we develop marketing strategies, driven by data, to run social media ads and deliver tangible results. Now think about us running your ads, because we do not just run ads – we increase your growth – measuring smarter, and investing smarter.