Meta made an insane number of changes to advertising in 2024, but there is plenty that could be enhanced. This post focuses on specific ways that Meta could further improve the ads product in 2025.

Missing from this list are some of advertisers’ biggest complaints regarding support, ad review, and scams. Those are structural problems without an easy fix.

This list also avoids requests for features that clearly conflict with the current direction of the product. We know that the future of Meta advertising is less control and more automation. The focus here is on finding ways to make that automation better.

In most cases, these are very specific feature requests. I’m no programmer, so I won’t claim to know how easy or difficult it may be to pull them off. But they would improve the product for Meta advertisers.

Let’s get to the list (in no particular order)…

1. Expansion Breakdown

Meta introduced Advantage Detailed Targeting (then called Detailed Targeting Expansion) in 2021. This allowed Meta to expand your audience and reach people beyond the Detailed Targeting inputs if it would result in improved performance.

Many advertisers revolted. I was among this group initially. It was the beginning of our loss of control.

Advantage Detailed Targeting is now on by default and can’t be turned off when the performance goal is to maximize conversions, link clicks, or landing page views. Advantage Lookalike will expand your lookalike audience when maximizing conversions.

Of course, that assumes that you use original audiences. The default targeting approach is now Advantage+ Audience, which treats most of your inputs as suggestions.

While an algorithmic expansion of your audience is not perfect, it is our reality. In 2025, we can expect we’ll further lose targeting control, not gain it back. We need to accept and embrace this.

One way that Meta could improve confidence in audience expansion is by adding a breakdown to reporting. Provide two rows:

• Results from audience that was explicitly targeted from inputs
• Results from audience that was reached beyond targeting inputs

This added transparency can show advertisers how audience expansion is helping them. They may even see that the cost per result is better for the expanded audience. Or not, but this is a necessary breakdown.

Of course, this isn’t a new request. I’ve asked for it from the beginning of audience expansion, and I’ll keep on asking.

2. Audience Segments and Ad Scheduling Availability

Meta added two great new features to manual sales campaigns in 2024…

The addition of Audience Segments was transformative.

It’s because of Audience Segments that I was able to run several tests that changed my opinions about targeting. But, there’s one problem: This feature should be available for all campaign objectives, not just sales.

Another feature added to sales campaigns in 2024 was Ad Scheduling.

Scheduling normally happens on the ad set level, but this allows you to schedule ads individually. This way, you can have ads run within the same ad set based on your promotional schedule.

Once again, it’s a great feature, but it’s only available for sales campaigns. Why?

Both features were originally made available for Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns before rolling out to manual sales campaigns, too. Maybe this is the natural progression and we’ll eventually get access for other objectives.

If not, it feels like an unnecessary restriction. There’s nothing special about sales campaigns that would make these features unique to them. They’d be just as valuable when using any of the other campaign objectives.

Until then, I find creative ways to use the Sales objective even when I don’t optimize for a purchase so that I can get access to Audience Segments. That’s how valuable this feature is.

3. Enhancements to Audience Segments

Audience Segments are awesome. They provide important context to algorithmic targeting by breaking down results into three groups:

• Engaged Audience
• Existing Customers
• New Audience

This helps us see how budget and results are distributed between remarketing and prospecting groups. But it can be improved in three specific ways.

1. Add a layer. Right now, you cannot define Engaged Audience using Facebook Page, Instagram Account, and video view custom audiences.

You can certainly make the argument that these are lower quality than the other custom audiences used to define your Audience Segments. But they do make up your remarketing.

Meta could either add these custom audiences to Engaged Audience or create a new one (“In-App Audience”) to give us additional information about algorithmic remarketing.

2. System generated. Something else Meta could do to make Audience Segments accessible to all advertisers is to auto-generate them initially. Meta has the data to create these without our input.

• Engaged Audience: All pixel activity
• Existing Customers: All purchase events

Customer list custom audiences are more complicated since you may need to segment the purchases from non-purchases, but the pixel gives Meta the initial data to generate these segments for us.

Advertisers could then edit these audience segments as necessary, but an initial definition could help expose more advertisers to the value of this tool.

3. Auto update. It’s not 100% clear if this is an actual problem or if I experienced a bug, but if it’s a problem it needs to be fixed.

I stumbled on an issue where it appears that website custom audiences stop updating if they haven’t been used in targeting recently. This is problematic if Meta wants us to trust algorithmic targeting (not use remarketing audiences) while leveraging audience segments (which rely on those same audiences).

Even if website custom audiences stop updating from a lack of activity (nothing in Meta’s documentation suggests this), it would be a simple fix. Define “activity” to include use in audience segments.

4. Address Advantage+ Audience Weaknesses

I use Advantage+ Audience when optimizing for a purchase, but there is potential for issues with this feature for any other optimization. If Meta can get more of the action that you want by going beyond your suggestions, it will.

That shouldn’t be a problem when optimizing for purchases. If Meta can get you more purchases by ignoring your inputs, that’s a means to an end.

But it can be an issue when optimizing for link clicks, landing page views, ThruPlay, post engagement, and even leads. The issue isn’t that Meta can go beyond your suggestions of custom audiences, lookalike audiences, and detailed targeting. The problem is related to age and gender.

When using Advantage+ Audience, both age maximum and gender are audience suggestions. They are not included in Audience Controls, which act as a tight constraint.

Again, this shouldn’t be an issue when optimizing for purchases. Advertisers can restrict their audience unnecessarily, which drives up costs. You may think that your target audience is women between the ages of 25 and 44, but if a 45-year-old man buys your product (possibly for their partner), that’s a good thing.

But this becomes a problem when optimizing for any other type of action. Let’s assume that you serve female entrepreneurs and 99% of your customers are women. But if you optimize for link clicks, landing page views, or engagement of any kind, your ads will be shown to men. Why? Because they will perform the action that you said you want.

Meta doesn’t care that they won’t eventually buy from you because that’s not the focus of the performance goal you chose. Meta will ignore your audience suggestions of gender and age limit.

I’ve seen this become an issue for leads, too, though it isn’t always. Meta can dedicate a high percentage of my budget on people 55+ because it results in cheap leads. But I’ve also found them to be low quality.

The way around this is to use original audiences, where age maximum and gender are tight constraints. But, this shouldn’t be necessary. Meta could make them part of Audience Controls when using Advantage+ Audience, too — or at least make them available when optimizing for something other than purchases.

5. Address Quality Issues with Optimization

Truthfully, the solution above is a Band-Aid on a much bigger problem. That solution also conflicts with what I said at the top — it’s a request for more control. We’re not going to get that.

The lack of control isn’t the central problem here. The more pressing issue is Meta’s inability to sort out low and high-quality actions. If you optimize for link clicks or landing page views, Meta will do all it can to get as many of them for you as possible. The algorithm is unconcerned about whether they come from accidental clicks or from people who are likely to buy from you.

This is not a new problem (I’ve covered it often), but it is magnified with algorithmic targeting. By removing the guardrails of targeting restrictions, the quality of the actions you get are likely to decrease.

It’s a problem that has solutions, if Meta cares about them…

1. Allow ability to prioritize quality actions. This concept isn’t new to Meta advertising. We already have the option of “maximize number” or “maximize value” when optimizing for purchases.

We could also have options of “maximize number” or “maximize quality” of link clicks, landing page views, post engagement, video views, and more. For example, Meta could prioritize landing page views that resulted in more time spent, return visits, and conversions performed. Quality actions would cost more, but it’s a trade-off most advertisers would take.

2. Change Meta’s signals. Of course, Meta could just update their signals to begin with and prioritize quality actions.

3. Incremental conversions. We know that Incremental Conversions are in testing, and I don’t anticipate that this will apply to many of the actions discussed here. But you could make the argument that Meta could find a way to apply this or a similar concept to top of the funnel actions.

6. Organic Conversion Reporting

It baffles me that this isn’t a thing…

Ads Manager reports on all conversions performed by people you paid to reach. This is logical. But it doesn’t reflect the total impact of your ads.

What happens when someone you paid to reach shares your ad? Someone you did not pay to reach may buy from you. This person would not have converted without the existence of your ad, yet the ad won’t receive any credit.

I’m not suggesting that Meta lump organic in with paid conversions. That would be potentially misleading. But Meta could provide a breakdown of Paid vs. Organic to provide a more complete picture of your ad’s impact.

This could extend beyond Ads Manager, too. If Meta has your pixel and event data, there’s no reason why they couldn’t provide some basic conversion reporting with your organic insights. Instead, all we get is information like impressions and link clicks. Meta could surface the conversions, too.

Once again, this is not a new request. I’ll keep asking it.

7. Address Click Attribution Issue

I stumbled on a troubling discovery in late 2024 that forced me to question what I previously believed to be true: Click attribution doesn’t require a click on an outbound link.

There are two ways Meta can give credit to an ad for a conversion…

Click Attribution: Someone clicked on your ad and converted within seven days.

View Attribution: Someone viewed your ad, did not click, and converted within a day.

Up until very recently, I believed that click attribution required a click on a link to your website. It was logical. If they did not, that could be counted as a view-through conversion.

But since click attribution includes any click, reporting gets fuzzier. Advertisers already have trouble with conversion numbers matching up between Ads Manager and third-party sources. While UTM parameters can help when people click on outbound links, they are worthless for this case.

That’s why I’ve always lumped this type of conversion in with view-through attribution. Your ad may have contributed to the conversion, but the value isn’t as clear as when someone clicks an outbound link and converts.

It took me a decade to realize this, but these lower-quality click conversions are lumped into your click conversions. There’s no way to separate them.

I realize I’m way behind on this request since it’s not a new problem, but there are two things that Meta could do:

1. Move these conversions to view attribution. This solution squares with my initial interpretation of click attribution, so it’s my preference. I believe strongly that these should not be counted among click attributed conversions.

2. Create a separate attribution. This adds complexity, so it’s not ideal. But Meta could conceivably break this type of conversion off into it’s own group: “In-App Click.” That way we could see how many of our click conversions didn’t come from an outbound click. You could even turn it off at the ad set level.

8. A Better, Smarter Event Setup Tool

I can’t tell you exactly when Meta introduced the Event Setup Tool, but it’s been around for several years. It’s also been untouched by enhancements since it’s initial rollout.

It’s still buggy. It’s still painfully limited. But it also holds a ton of promise if Meta chose to focus some development on it.

Meta may need to start over to make this tool more useful, but it would be worth it. It could become the primary way advertisers set up and manage their pixel events.

Right now, Meta relies on third-party integrations for the vast majority of pixel and event management. This creates confusion for advertisers since there isn’t one clear way of managing it. It doesn’t need to be this way.

Meta could develop a smarter, more streamlined and integrated tool that detects events and helps you set them up easily. This also does not need to be limited to standard events — it could help you set up custom events as well.

The Event Setup Tool now is manual, slow, and limited. Instead, Meta could offer an auto-detection of events that you can approve. The technology for auto detection of events already exists.

I’m not a designer or programmer, so forgive me if my vision of how this would work isn’t crystal clear. But this is one of many examples where advertisers are forced to use third-party solutions when it shouldn’t be necessary.

9. Smarter Creative Enhancement By Placement

We’re headed in this direction, but we’re not there yet. It may be the most likely improvement on this list to become a reality.

Currently, advertisers are asked to provide three different versions of ad creative when uploading images and videos.

These different aspect ratios are used for different placements. Of course, this system is imperfect because the sizes Meta requests aren’t always consistent with what is recommended in official documentation.

It would be a whole lot easier if advertisers could upload a single creative that Meta adjusts automatically (and productively) for other placements. While you could approach this level of simplicity with a carefully created 9:16 image or video, this could apply to other dimensions as well.

Submit a square image and Meta uses AI to adjust and generate the background where necessary. This exists now, but it’s in testing and not applied in all situations.

Meta could simplify this by skipping the request for three versions. After submitting a single image or video, Meta then presents the versions that were generated using AI and smart cropping.

While most of my feature requests require new development, this feels more like better presenting and utilizing functionality that already exists.

Your Turn

What other features could Meta develop to improve the ad product in 2025?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post 9 Ways Meta Can Improve Advertising in 2025 appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

One of the challenges resulting from audience expansion and algorithmic targeting is the lack of visibility into who sees our ads. When the advertiser loses control over defining the target audience, how can we trust that our ads are shown to the right people?

Audience Segments can help.

Let’s take a closer look at this incredibly valuable tool…

What Are They?

When running Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, advertisers have very little impact on who sees their ads.

When using Advantage+ Audience, most targeting inputs are used as audience suggestions only.

Even when using original audiences, an advertiser’s targeting inputs are often expanded — either manually or automatically.

The resultant mystery about who sees your ads can be frustrating. A benefit of Audience Segments is that advertisers can get visibility into how budget and performance are distributed between important groups.

Audience Segments allow advertisers to define people who are connected to their business:

• Engaged Audience: People who have interacted with your business but have not made a purchase
• Existing Customers: People who have bought a product or signed up for your services

Anyone who falls outside of these groups will be considered a New Audience. You will then be able to see how much of your budget was spent on each group — as well as how performance varied between them.

Audience Segments were first made available for Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. In the beginning, advertisers were only able to define Existing Customers. Not only did this allow them to view breakdowns of results by customers and non-customers, but it could be used to set an Existing Customer Budget Cap for those campaigns.

The Engaged Audience segment would soon follow. Meta eventually rolled out Audience Segments for all sales campaigns — whether manual or Advantage+ Shopping. While it doesn’t allow for an Existing Customer Budget Cap on manual campaigns, these Audience Segments are enormously useful for reporting.

NOTE: You’ll know that you can leverage Audience Segments for manual Sales campaigns if you see this reporting section when creating a campaign.

Define Them

You won’t be able to leverage Audience Segments until you define them. To define your your Audience Segments, go to Advertising Settings in the All Tools menu. You may need to go to Ad Account Settings first.

Click the section for Audience Segments.

It will look like this…

1. Define Engaged Audience.

If you haven’t yet defined your Engaged Audience, expand this section and it will look like this…

You can select from existing custom audiences or create new custom audiences to define this group. You’ll want to use every method possible to help define people who have engaged with you. That includes Website, Customer List, App Activity, Offline Activity, Catalog, Lead Form, and Shopping.

Note that this will not include certain types of custom audiences like Page Engagement, Instagram Account Engagement, and Video View Engagement.

There will be overlap — not only between custom audiences within Engaged Audience, but between your Engaged Audience and Existing Customers. Do not worry about excluding people to prevent that overlap. People will only be counted once. If someone is shown your ad who exists in both the Engaged Audience and Existing Customers, they will only be counted as an Existing Customer.

Define this Audience Segment as throughly as possible. Here’s what mine looks like…

2. Define Existing Customers.

If you haven’t defined your Existing Customers, expand it and it will look like this…

You will want to define this based on people who have bought from you. There is a bit of confusion in Meta’s definition since it also includes “people signed up for your services.” I do not interpret that as being anyone who is on your email list (these people would be part of your Engaged Audience). A purchase needs to be made.

The most common ways to define this will be a segmented customer list of people who have made a purchase. I’ve created several Customer List Custom Audiences based on specific purchases as well as one that captures all purchases. I also use a Website Custom Audience based on the Purchase standard event that fired during the past 180 days.

Here’s what my Existing Customers Audience Segment looks like…

Depending on your business, you could certainly use Shopping, App Activity, Offline Activity, and and Catalog Custom Audiences, too.

Leverage with Breakdowns

Once your Audience Segments have been defined, you can leverage them for Ads Manager breakdowns going forward. How long will it take until it’s available? It could be as quick as a few minutes, or it could take longer.

Then click the Breakdowns dropdown menu in Ads Manager (between Columns and Reports).

You will have two different breakdowns that you can use.

1. Breakdown by Audience Segments.

This is found under “By Demographics.” When your Audience Segments are defined, your results will be broken down to include three separate rows:

• Engaged Audience
• Existing Customers
• New Audience

Here’s an example…

You may also see Uncategorized or Unknown. “Uncategorized” will appear when viewing campaigns that don’t qualify (not a Sales campaign). Keep in mind that not everyone has this for manual Sales campaigns.

“Unknown” may reflect that ads were delivered to people while your Audience Segments weren’t yet defined. I’ve also seen some results for Unknown temporarily before they eventually move to one of the two Audience Segments.

2. Breakdown by Country and Audience Segments.

This is found under “By Geography.” You will then get breakdowns by Audience Segments for each country where people were shown your ads. Here’s an example…

Examples of How I Use Them

I’ve had lots of fun using Audience Segments with both Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns and manual Sales campaigns. This feature was central to a test I ran to determine how much our audience inputs matter (and how much remarketing happens) when using various targeting approaches.

1. Advantage+ Audience without Suggestions.

I was curious how much of my budget would be spent on remarketing without providing any suggestions at all. It was a lot!

2. Advantage+ Audience with Suggestions.

If that much remarketing happens without providing suggestions, what happens when I provide suggestions that match my Audience Segments exactly? Maybe surprisingly, the distribution was virtually unchanged.

3. Original Audiences Using Custom Audiences with Advantage Custom Audience Turned On.

If I use Original Audiences, would Meta respect my inputs more before going broader? Once again, the custom audiences I used matched my Audience Segments. Distribution was again about the same.

4. Original Audiences Going Broad.

What about using Original Audiences and going broad? Well, still lots of remarketing!

5. Advantage+ Shopping Campaign Optimizing for a Complete Registration.

And finally, I created an Advantage+ Shopping Campaign that optimizes for the Complete Registration event to be consistent with what I did in the other four tests. So far, this is looking a lot like Advantage+ Audience without suggestions.

Here are my main takeaways from these tests:

1. Algorithmic targeting and audience expansion do indeed result in remarketing. This is a good thing!

2. It is unclear how much our targeting inputs matter when audience expansion and algorithmic targeting are at play. The distribution of my budget and results were all within a similar range for each approach.

Feel free to use Audience Segments for your own tests!

Your Turn

Have you started using Audience Segments? What have you learned from using them?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post A Guide to Audience Segments appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Now that audience segments are available for manual Sales campaigns, it opens up all kinds of fun opportunities for testing and learning. That’s what this post is all about.

If you’re not familiar with audience segments, they’re set within your Ad Account Settings. You can define your Engaged Audience and Existing Customers.

This information can then be used to provide greater insight into your reporting. Using breakdowns, you can generate separate rows for each of these groups — as well as “New Audience” (those who qualify for neither group).

This transparency was helpful, even necessary, for Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, which are driven almost entirely by algorithmic targeting without the advertiser’s input. These audience segments help answer questions about who is seeing our ads.

Now that audience segments are available for manual Sales campaigns, we can use this to answer some similar questions that have gone unanswered — until now.

Here are three ways you can leverage audience segments to get greater insights into your manual Sales campaign reporting. At the end, I’ll also provide some surprising results of what I’m seeing…

1. Advantage+ Audience without Suggestions

When you create an ad set that uses Advantage+ Audience, you have the option of providing an audience suggestion.

If you don’t, ad delivery will be entirely algorithmic. Meta says that their “AI uses lots of information to find your audience” — like past conversions, pixel data, and prior engagement with your ads.

Here’s a screenshot of that explanation…

That sounds a whole lot like remarketing, right? In other words, even if you don’t provide an audience suggestion, Meta’s AI should — in theory — prioritize showing ads to people you’d otherwise select to target.

I’ve long wondered whether using an audience suggestion mattered. I’ve decided that while it may not make a difference, it can’t hurt.

But, what actually happens? Does Meta’s AI prioritize remarketing audiences like their documentation claims?

Thanks to audience segments, we can test this. Define your audience segments as thoroughly as possible.

This is how I defined my Engaged Audience…

And my Existing Customers…

Next, create a Sales campaign with Advantage+ Audience without providing an audience suggestion. You will then be able to use Breakdowns by Audience Segment to see how many of the people you reached fall within Engaged Audience, Existing Customers, or New Audience.

2. Advantage+ Audience with Suggestions

We can also use audience segments to help answer our questions about whether providing audience suggestions makes a difference.

As I said in the prior section, I tend to use audience suggestions. It’s partly out of habit. But it’s also out of a belief that, at best, it can help the algorithm get started. At worst, it shouldn’t hurt.

Back to Meta’s documentation. If you provide an audience suggestion, Meta says that they will “prioritize audiences matching your suggestions, before searching more broadly.”

Again, let’s screenshot this for emphasis…

In theory, if we were to provide suggestions matching our Engaged Audience and Existing Customers, we should see Meta’s explanation above reflected in our breakdown by audience segments.

So, let’s do that! Create a Sales campaign using Advantage+ Audience. Provide audience suggestions that match your definitions of Engaged Audience and Existing Customers exactly.

The reason for this approach is simple. There’s no reason to provide detailed targeting or lookalike audiences as suggestions since we can’t use those to define our audience segments. Because of that, we’ll never know for sure whether people in those audiences saw our ads.

Since we’re told that Meta AI will prioritize our audience suggestions before going broader, we can prove that one way or another by using the exact custom audiences for suggestions that we used to define our audience segments. When we breakdown our results, we should see that reflected.

In theory, of course.

3. Original Audiences with Advantage Custom Audience

I’ve mostly abandoned original audiences (and Advantage expansion tools that go with them) since the rollout of Advantage+ Audience.

Original audiences feel like old strategies, and we should use Meta’s new and improved tools. Advantage+ Audience works in much the same way that Advantage Detailed Targeting, Advantage Lookalike, and Advantage Custom Audience, but Meta says that Advantage+ Audience is better and more advanced.

Back to Meta’s own documentation on Advantage+ Audience, this is spelled out:

Meta’s original audience options, including Advantage options (Advantage detailed targeting, Advantage custom audience and Advantage lookalike), can limit the potential of Meta’s AI which can be less effective.

Based on Meta’s own words, we assume that these work similarly, but Advantage+ Audience has the ability to go much broader (and lead to better results). So, the assumption is that if you turn on audience expansion with original audiences, the audience will expand — but your original inputs may be more respected.

Once again, we need to stick with the topic of custom audiences since these are what can be verified with audience segments. If we provide all of the same custom audiences that were used in our audience segments and turn on Advantage Custom Audience, what would happen?

How many of the people reached would be from our custom audiences? How many would be from expansion? And how does this compare to when using Advantage+ Audience?

We can test this! Once this is set up, use the breakdown by audience segment to see how your ads are distributed.

Initial Learning

I actually started part of this test already. The early results represent a small sample size, and in some cases they have been surprising.

It’s not clear how much the conversion event matters. Will your Engaged Audience and Existing Customers be used differently depending on whether you optimize for a purchase, lead, or something else?

Other factors like the sizes of the audience segments, sizes of the custom audiences used for suggestions, budget, and time may all contribute.

My initial test used a custom event for 60 second website views as the conversion event. The results were staggering. When providing audience suggestions, less than 1% of my budget was spent on them. When providing no suggestions, it was only slightly better.

But, I started a new test and the results have (thankfully) adjusted. Distribution to my Engaged Audience and Existing Customers has increased significantly, regardless of which approach I’m taking. These results have increased my faith in Meta’s claims that remarketing happens, regardless of whether you provide audience suggestions.

I’ll hold off on sharing specifics until I’m done. Until then, I encourage you to test this, too.

A Note on “Sales” Campaigns

Something that flies a bit below the radar is that you don’t technically need to optimize for purchases when running a Sales campaign. Because of that, you could run tests like I describe in this post while optimizing for any website conversion event (leads, registrations, custom events, and whatever else you use).

Sales is simply how you defined your campaign objective.

It doesn’t determine how your ads are optimized. This is defined by your performance goal and conversion event.

This is the case with Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, too. Yes, it’s super confusing. You don’t need to optimize for SALES when running Advantage+ Shopping or manual Sales campaigns.

Your Turn

Have you run a test like this? What have you seen?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Leverage Audience Segments for Manual Sales Campaigns appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Breakdowns may be the most valuable and underutilized feature in Ads Manager. Once you’ve used it, you understand it’s something you can’t do without. The problem is that so many advertisers don’t even realize it exists.

You can find the Breakdowns dropdown menu between Columns and Reports on the right side of Ads Manager. Note that breakdowns are also found in Ad Reports, but we’ll focus on how they are used in Ads Manager here.

The six categories of breakdowns:

• Time
• Demographics
• Geography
• Delivery
• Action
• Dynamic Creative Element

You will only see the Dynamic Creative Element breakdown category when inside the Ads view.

Let’s go through each of these breakdown categories. In each case, we’ll walk through what is available and at least one specific way you might use it.

By Time

Breakdown Options

• Day
• Week
• 2 Weeks
• Month

Description

When utilized, you will get extra rows for each day, week, two weeks, or month.

Examples

These breakdowns are helpful for understanding trends. If you look only at your overall results, it may be difficult to spot how something is doing right now. If a campaign hasn’t been running for very long, you may want to breakdown by day to get a sense of how performance is trending. For longer running campaigns, you can breakdown by week, two weeks, or month.

In the example above, Cost Per Lead is steadily increasing every week.

By Demographics

Breakdown Options:

• Age
• Gender
• Age and Gender
• Audience Segments

Description

Generate extra rows to isolate performance by age and gender (or a combination of age and gender). Audience Segments are specific to Sales campaigns. You are able to break down results by New Customers, Existing Customers, and Engaged Audience.

Examples

When running Sales campaigns, you can get a better sense of performance and distribution of budget based on the audience that saw your ads. Even when using Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (when no targeting inputs are provided) or Advantage+ Audience (when any inputs are merely suggestions), you can get a breakdown of performance by Engaged Audience, Existing Customers, and New Audience.

Breaking down by age, gender, or age and gender is interesting from a research point of view. But, what I wouldn’t do is let it be motivation to micromanage your targeting. There was a time when that may make sense. But now, the algorithm should adjust automatically based on results.

By Geography

Breakdown Options:

• Country
• Country and Audience Segments
• Region
• Business Locations
• DMA Region

Description

Add a separate row for each country or region. The Country and Audience Segments is relevant only to Sales campaigns and refers to current and new customers by country.

Examples

This can be especially helpful when running ads to multiple countries. Is most of your budget getting spent in one country? Are most of your results coming from one country? Breakdown by country to find out.

This is why you should consider grouping countries by similar CPM, especially if you want distribution by country to be mostly consistent. Otherwise, the algorithm will often spend most of your budget in the countries that will get you the most impressions.

By Delivery

Breakdown Options:

• Placement
• Platform
• Time of Day (ad account time zone)
• Time of Day (viewer’s time zone)
• Impression Device
• Platform and Device
• Placement and Device
• Media Type
• Product ID

Description

Primarily for isolating performance by placement and platform, but also relevant for catalog ads (Product ID).

Examples

The primary way that I use this breakdown category is by placement to pinpoint potential distribution problems. If you’re optimizing for an action other than some type of conversion, certain placements might have weaknesses that result in high-volume, low-quality actions. Because of that, the algorithm may spend the majority of your budget there to get you as many of those actions as possible.

If you optimize for link clicks or landing page views, you’ll likely see this with Audience Network. It will result in accidental clicks, bots, and click fraud (prior to detection) that will give you low-cost, but low-quality results.

Another example is Audience Network Rewarded Video when optimizing for ThruPlay. Users are incentivized to watch your video in order to get something in return. You may assume watching more of your video means they are actually interested in your product, but that’s often not the case.

By Action

Breakdown Options:

• Messaging Purchase Source
• Messaging Outcome Destination
• Conversion Device
• Carousel Card
• Destination
• Post Reaction Type
• Brand
• Category
• Video Sound
• Video View Type
• Instant Experience Component

Description

There are a few use cases for the Action category of breakdowns. If you run carousel ads, you can get a better sense of which card people engage with. Post Reaction Type generates rows for each type of reaction. Destination indicates what link was clicked (if multiple were provided) to go to your properties. Brand and Category are useful for catalog ads. Video Sound and Video View Type breakdown the quality of video engagement. And Instant Experience Component help you understand which items in your Instant Experience are driving engagement.

Examples

Lots of options here, but let’s focus on a couple.

First, you may know that your ads are generating lots of reactions because you have a column for that. But, are these positive or negative reactions? A breakdown could clarify.

What would be great is if we could see how purchases and other actions breakdown by reaction type, but that information isn’t available.

Video Sound and Video View Type are great for getting a better sense of how people engage with your videos — beyond simply how much of your video they watched.

Was your video watched with sound on or off?

This also helps formulate a strategy related to captions or making sure the video sends the intended message without sound if this percentage is high.

Video View Type breaks down how many people clicked to watch your video, which could show a greater level of engagement.

By Dynamic Creative Element

Breakdown Options:

• Image, Video, and Slideshow
• Text
• Headline (Ad Settings)
• Description
• Call to Action
• Website URL

Description

Add rows based on variable elements in an ad.

Examples

This breakdown was created specifically for Dynamic Creative, which allows you to provide up to 36 creative elements for Meta to experiment with. I didn’t realize until recently that these breakdowns also work when using other types of creative optimization.

For example, if you create an ad with multiple text options, you can breakdown by Text to see how budget is distributed and each variation performs.

You can do the same thing for any of the ad creative elements. But, I would express some caution regarding how you use this.

For the most part, this should be for informational purposes only. It can also be used to help understand what performs best so that you can apply it to future ads. But, I wouldn’t use it to dissect a current ad and try to override what Meta is and isn’t showing.

Watch Video

I recorded a video about this, too. Watch it below…

Your Turn

Do you use Breakdowns? What are your favorites?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post A Guide to Breakdowns in Meta Ads Manager appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook Ads Manager is changing all the time. There were three recent changes that may not have been big enough to create a lot of noise individually, but you need to be aware of them.

In this post, we’ll discuss the following:

1. The return of conditional formatting
2. The return of conversion breakdowns
3. The loss of Instant Articles placement

Let’s go…

Conditional Formatting is Back

It was just a week ago. It feels like yesterday. I wrote a blog post lamenting the disappearance of conditional formatting.

Well, it’s back.

I don’t know what happened. But conditional formatting has returned to your custom ad reports. And this is good news because it’s a valuable tool.

You can access it in one of two locations (reminder: This is in the custom ad reports, not the main Ads Manager):

1. The header row drop-down menu.

2. The “Format” button.

I prefer the header row menu since it’s one less step to format the metric that I want.

You can format cells based on a single color or a color scale.

I prefer the color scale, so let me show you a quick example.

With a green/white/red scale, I can automatically assign colors to cells depending on whether results fall within the bottom, middle, or top of the scale (signifying good, average, and bad).

Here’s an example of what that might look like…

It’s a great tool to quickly get a visual on how your ads are performing. Read this blog post for more details on conditional formatting.

Conversion Breakdowns Return

Back in November, Facebook announced that breakdowns of conversion reporting would return after a long, post-iOS 14 hiatus.

I didn’t have this right away. Admittedly, I mostly forgot about it. Eventually, I’d see it in my custom ad reports, but I still wouldn’t have it in my main Ads Manager.

And then today, I finally saw it…

So, a quick recap of what happened is in order. When Facebook made a bunch of changes in response to iOS 14 opt-outs, one piece of functionality that was lost was the ability to breakdown conversions.

For example, go to the Breakdown drop-down menu and choose to breakdown by Placement.

Previously (and post iOS 14 changes), you would get a total for conversions but you wouldn’t see how that metric broke down by placement.

You would get these breakdowns for other metrics, but not for any type of conversion (standard events, custom events, or custom conversions).

Now, of course, that is back.

This is super useful. Until now, we didn’t truly know how segments like age, gender, country, and placement performed. We could get breakdowns of surface-level metrics, but not conversions.

If you don’t have this yet, it appears to be rolling out now.

Instant Articles Placement Going Away

Finally, you may have noticed this update if you’ve manually selected placements recently.

We already knew as of October of last year that Meta planned to retire the Instant Articles format in April. This is a good reminder.

If you have ads running to the Instant Articles placement, you shouldn’t see an interruption of delivery. Your ads will keep running, but they’ll no longer run to that non-existent placement.

I’ve seen that less than 1% of my budget is spent on this placement, so it’s hardly a big loss. Still, advertisers prefer to see the addition of placements rather than subtraction. This means less ad inventory, which can lead to higher costs (even if it isn’t noticeable).

Your Turn

Have you noticed any other big changes?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post 3 Recent Facebook Ads Manager Updates appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

What once was old is new again. After more than a year-and-a-half hiatus, Meta is bringing back breakdowns for conversion reporting.

This update follows a recent theme. After removing functionality in response to iOS 14 restrictions in 2021, Meta is beginning to bring them back. The return of breakdowns for conversions follows closely behind the Compare Attribution Settings feature and 28-day click attribution.

In this post, let’s clarify what Breakdowns are, what specifically went away, what’s back, and why it matters.

What are Breakdowns?

Breakdowns exist in both Ads Manager and Ad Reports, but for the purpose of simplicity let’s focus on Ads Manager.

Breakdowns allow you to take a single campaign, ad set, or ad and break down the results by a single segment. There are four categories of breakdowns: Time, Delivery, Action, and Dynamic Creative Element.

Let’s focus on the Delivery category since that’s what’s most impacted by this latest development. There are several ways you can break down your advertising…

There are a few more options below the scroll that aren’t picked up in this image.

Let’s say you use the Placement breakdown (admittedly my favorite). When you break down by placement, separate rows will be added to your reporting for each placement that received delivery. This helps advertisers understand, for example, how your advertising performed on Desktop Newsfeed, Facebook Stories, Instagram News Feed, and all the rest.

Whether it’s placement, country, age, gender, or something else, this can be incredibly enlightening.

What Went Away and Why?

When Apple announced the iOS 14+ changes related to opt-outs, Facebook made several adjustments in response. One of them was removing access to conversion data when running breakdowns.

This means that you could still perform a breakdown by placement, for example, but you wouldn’t get detailed segmentation for any conversion data. You’d only get it for the on-Facebook activity.

You’d get the summary row, but that’s it.

I don’t know that Meta has ever been incredibly clear about why this was. We can assume it has something to do with a lack of confidence in the data due to opt-outs. They may know, for example, that a conversion happened, but they are less sure about where.

What is Back?

Breakdowns for conversions are returning for the following (all fall under the “Delivery” category):

• Age
• Gender
• Age and Gender
• Country
• Impression Device
• Platform
• Platform and Device
• Placement

Here’s a quick video that walks through it.

@jonloomer Meta’s bringing back breakdowns for conversion reporting! #facebookads ♬ Hip Hop Background(814204) – Pavel

This, like every update, is a rollout. I only have it in one ad account, and it’s inactive. There’s been no official announcement from Meta (as far as I’ve seen), beyond messages from ad reps to advertisers.

Why Does it Matter?

These extra data points are so important. They provide necessary context.

Without split testing, you can quickly uncover which placements, ages, countries, and impression devices are performing the best. This might impact how you construct your campaigns going forward.

Loss of context has been significant since iOS changes. We are getting so much of that back with the return of Compare Attribution Settings, 28-day click attribution, and now breakdowns for conversions.

Your Turn

Do you have this yet? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Meta is Bringing Back Breakdowns for Conversion Reporting appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Performance measurement of Facebook video ads is challenging, primarily due to the way video ads work. But, video breakdowns provide important context for the performance of these ads.

Let’s talk about the issues with video ads and how you can get a clearer idea of performance thanks to this buried feature.

The Problem with Video Ads

If you’ve run video ads on Facebook, you probably understand the concept of auto-play. When a video appears in someone’s feed, it may auto-play (assuming the person hasn’t turned this feature off or they don’t have slow internet).

This can be both good and bad, of course.

Auto-play can be good because a video playing in the news feed is more likely to get someone’s attention. Movement can be powerful.

It can be bad because it complicates measurement and reporting. You’re going to get a whole lot of plays of that video. In some cases, the user may have stopped to watch it. In others, they may not have even noticed that it was playing.

The issue of sound vs. no sound is also important. The video may be playing, but sound may be off. While captions may help, a play with sound on would certainly be preferred.

The video-specific metrics available to you in Ads Manager are okay. There are metrics for:

• 2-second continuous plays
• 3-second plays
• ThruPlays (15 seconds or the entire thing)
• 25%, 50%, 75%, 95%, 100%
• Average play time
• Total plays

These metrics by themselves aren’t great because they ignore important context. How many of these views are with sound off? How many were due to auto-play?

Breakdown by Action

Luckily, there is a way to get this information. Within Ads Manager, use the Breakdown feature and select “Action.”

There, you should see two very relevant options:

• Video View Type
• Video Sound

1. Video View Type

When you breakdown by Video View Type, you can get separate rows of results for Auto-played and Clicked-to-Play.

In the example above, results fall heavily on auto-play. That certainly isn’t a great sign regarding the quality of engagement.

2. Video Sound

If you breakdown by Video Sound, you will be able to view different rows for Video Sound On and Video Sound Off.

In this case, the results are a bit more evenly split between the two, which is a better sign.

Taken together, these breakdowns will give you much better context for the metrics you are seeing. When you have better context, you can make more informed decisions with your advertising.

Your Turn

Have you used these breakdowns to better understand the performance of your video ads? What have you seen?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Video Breakdowns Provide Important Context for Facebook Ads Actions appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

When you create a Facebook ad campaign, you have limitless options. You can roll with defaults or make manual changes. When it comes to where your ads appear, which placements should you choose?

When creating your ad set, Facebook uses “automatic placements” (or now Advantage+ Placements) by default. But, you can manually select placements as well.

What should you do? Let’s investigate…

Advantage+ Placements

When you use Advantage+ Placements, Facebook will “maximize your budget” and automatically distribute your ads across placements that will lead to the most results. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean using only the most effective placements. Cost and competition will matter, too.

The Advantage+ Placements selection removes thinking from this step. If you trust how Facebook optimizes and shows your ads, just leave it be.

You may have noticed that during the past year or so, Facebook is pushing more and more to leave these default automations as they are.

The Problem

We’ve discussed the potential pitfalls of Facebook ads optimization before, and it comes up here once again.

When you’re optimizing for an action, Facebook rarely cares about the quality of that action (there are a few exceptions). Facebook only cares that they get you the most actions you ask for at the lowest cost.

This can result in some issues, particularly if you’re optimizing for top-of-the-funnel and surface-level results (like link clicks). Facebook wants to get you that action. That’s it. They don’t care what happens next.

I’ve found that the Audience Network placement is notorious for accidental clicks, click fraud, and overall low-quality clicks. I’ve also discussed how the Audience Network Rewarded Video placement can be problematic for ThruPlay optimization since those who watch that video are incentivized to do so, in exchange for something of value (completely unrelated to your product).

When this happens, Facebook may push more of your budget to these placements in an effort to get you more of the action that you want. You, of course, don’t necessarily want that.

Manual Placement Selection Issues

It would seem that the easy answer is to use the manual placements option. The answer isn’t always so clear.

I’ve heard from advertisers who automatically turn off placements like Audience Network and Right Hand Column, regardless of the optimization. I don’t think this is the right approach as a catch-all.

As mentioned above, there are times when Facebook optimizes for quality events (purchase or value, for example). In those cases, click fraud, accidental clicks, and incentivized video views won’t mislead Facebook to use that placement. If you don’t get the quality actions, Facebook will stop using that placement (in theory).

Sometimes, advertisers can micro-manage in this case. They’ll choose only the news feed placement, for example, assuming it is the most valuable placement.

Even if news feed were the most valuable placement, there are reasons to include other placements as well.

Every Placement is Different

The copy and design requirements are different for every placement. The action rate for every placement is different. But, most importantly, so is the cost.

In other words, you may get the highest action rate from news feed. But, the cost just to reach people there may be high, too.

Meanwhile, the right hand column may provide the lowest action rate. But, the cost to reach people there may be the lowest.

Not to mention that the competition may be high and inventory low in news feed. If you force Facebook to use only that placement, you may inadvertently increase costs. And you may struggle to reach as many people as you potentially could otherwise.

Every placement (in most cases) has its role. The question is whether Facebook properly distributes your budget by placement if you allow it to automatically.

Use Breakdowns

One way to check how Facebook is distributing your budget is to use the Breakdown feature in Ads Manager. Click the drop-down and select “Placements” under “Delivery.”

When you do this, look beyond the total number of actions. Focus on Cost Per Action, but also get a sense of whether that cost is over a large enough sample size to care.

The main reason to use Breakdowns here is to see if Facebook is blowing your budget on one placement that simply isn’t working. Otherwise, Facebook should use every placement to experiment with how people respond. Over time, Facebook will learn from those results.

One thing to keep in mind is that you may not see results for all metrics when using breakdowns depending on the optimization due to iOS 14+ changes.

What Should You Do?

First, I’d say that the inexperienced advertiser should always keep it simple. Use defaults whenever possible. In this case, trust Advantage+ Placements.

I’d also say that Advantage+ Placements is likely fine when optimizing for conversions. Overall, you can overthink this. The more you micro-manage, the more likely you are to force up costs.

Neither approach is perfect. They both have their potential issues.

Use the Breakdown by Placements feature. Respond to any glaring issues. Apply what you learn to future campaigns, but always keep an open mind.

Watch Video

Your Turn

How do you use placements? Do you run with Advantage+ Placements or do you select them manually?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Choose Facebook Ad Placements appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

I love to use Reach optimization. It’s only an option for the right situation, but one reason I use it is for Frequency Capping. A small problem, though, that I recently uncovered: Frequency Capping is imperfect. Facebook doesn’t enforce a strict cap.

In this post, we’ll talk more about the following:

• What Frequency Capping is
• How it’s supposed to work
• The imperfection
• How to detect and control it
• How much it matters

Frequency Capping

When you use Reach Optimization, advertisers have the ability to put a cap on the number of times a user can be reached. This feature is unique to this specific optimization method.

A Frequency Cap is set from the ad set within the Optimization & Delivery section.

The default is 1 impression every 7 days, but you have full flexibility to set it at whatever you want.

The Imperfection

I’ve used Reach with Frequency Capping for years, but I’ve never had doubts about its execution — at least until recently.

I’m running a test that relies entirely on Frequency Capping running the way it should. My goal is to reach all or most of my Facebook page followers with a single ad. To do that, I used a frequency cap of 1 impression in 90 days.

When I created this ad, the copy was clear about my goals and how it was created. I indicated that each user should only see the ad once.

And then I received a comment from a user indicating they had seen it multiple times. At first, I didn’t worry much about it. But, it happened often enough that it raised some doubts.

If you take a closer look at the settings for Frequency Caps, there’s a message from Facebook that I believe is relatively new (I don’t recall seeing it before).

The message:

As part of our efforts to regularly update our systems and processes, we’ve made changes that may result in some people temporarily seeing your ad more times than the maximum frequency you set.

Facebook isn’t clear why, but they won’t always strictly enforce these caps.

It makes sense that it’s impossible to guarantee perfect enforcement. For example, you could conceivably reach a user in two places at the same time on two different devices. I’m okay with imperfection.

But this was sounding less precise than I’d like.

How to Detect and Control it

Recall that I set this up with a frequency cap of 1 impression per 90 days. Since the campaign hasn’t been running for 90 days, the average frequency should be somewhere around 1.00.

Instead, my overall frequency for this campaign is currently 1.14. While that’s certainly close to 1.00, it represents about 18,000 extra impressions that I didn’t want to pay for.

That’s an unfortunate waste.

One of the first messages I received about this was from a user who said they were seeing the ad in the Instant Articles placement. We can actually do some digging to see if this placement is problematic.

Within Ads Manager, you can run a Breakdown by Placement.

Some of the frequencies stuck reliably close to 1.00:

• Facebook Groups Feed (Mobile App): 1.00
• Facebook Stories (Mobile App): 1.00
• Facebook News Feed (Desktop): 1.00
• Facebook News Feed (Mobile Web): 1.00
• Instagram Explore (Mobile App): 1.00
• Facebook Video Feeds (Mobile App): 1.01

Truthfully, all but two placements were below the overall average of 1.14:

• Facebook In-Stream Video (Mobile App): 1.15
• Facebook Instant Article (Mobile App): 1.38

Not only was the Instant Article placement significantly higher than anything else, but it also represents 12% of the ad set’s impressions. Considering I turned this placement off some time ago after figuring this out, that’s a lot!

Does it Matter?

Normally, I wouldn’t even notice this because I wouldn’t care about reaching people more than once. So, this is unique.

Ultimately, you will need to decide whether it matters. Does it truly matter whether you reach people with 1 impression every 7 days or whether you reach some people twice? Granted, that’s waste that will be charged to your account, but my feeling is that there are bigger issues to worry about.

The main thing is to be aware of it. It does appear to be a new issue, based on the message from Facebook. Maybe it’s something that is in the process of being corrected. Regardless, you can use Breakdown by Placement to spot whether it’s an issue for specific placements. At that point, you could choose to turn those placements off.

Is there something unique to in-stream video and Instant Articles that make frequency difficult to control? Maybe. Or it’s entirely possible that what I’m seeing is random and not unique to those placements.

Your Turn

Do you use Frequency Capping? Have you seen this issue before, and does it matter to you?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post The Imperfection of Facebook Ads Frequency Capping appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

One of the most valuable and underutilized features in Ads Manager reporting is Breakdown. This feature requires no setup or planning. Yet, it can provide important insights that will shape your strategy.

In this post, we’ll walk through how you can breakdown your reporting by time, delivery, action, and dynamic creative element, and how you can act on that information. I’ll also highlight some of my favorite breakdowns.

Let’s go…

What is Breakdown?

From your Ads Manager, Breakdown is a drop-down menu on the right side.

When you use this feature, Facebook will breakdown your reporting by a single variable. The four categories within breakdown:

• Time
• Delivery
• Action
• Dynamic Creative Element

Note that Dynamic Creative Element doesn’t appear when you’re viewing from the campaign level.

Let’s walk through what you can do with each one…

Breakdown by Time

Let’s start with the Time breakdown.

By default, Facebook doesn’t use a breakdown by time. But you can choose to breakdown your results by the following time periods:

• Day
• Week
• 2 Weeks
• Month

Let’s use “Day” as an example. When you select the Day breakdown, Facebook will create a different row for each day within the time window of your report.

This is a good way to visualize the daily trends and volatility of costs. Because of the daily volatility, trends from longer time periods provide more valuable insight — particularly if it’s a long-running campaign.

Let’s breakdown a campaign by week.

In this example, you can visualize costs abruptly rising during the past couple of weeks, signaling that it may be time for a change.

Breakdown by Delivery

Next up is the Delivery breakdown, where you’ll find a bunch of options…

Once again, Facebook doesn’t use a breakdown by default. But you can choose to breakdown your results by the following:

• Age
• Gender
• Age and Gender
• Business Locations
• Country
• Region
• DMA Location
• Impression Device
• Platform
• Platform & Device
• Placement
• Placement & Device
• Product ID
• Time of Day (Ad Account Time Zone)
• Time of Day (Viewer’s Time Zone)

Some clarifications on a few of these…

Business Locations: This is only available if you use dynamic page location targeting, where Facebook surfaces your ads from your business location closest to the targeted audience.

Region: Such as state or province.

DMA Region: Designated Marketing Area (like a metro TV market in the US).

Impression Device: Android smartphone, iPhone, desktop, iPad, etc..

Platform: Facebook or Instagram.

Product ID: Only available when using a product catalog.

Let’s look at a few examples of how you can use this.

First, breakdown by age. Facebook automatically splits up results by age group. In the example below, I may be wasting money on the over-54 age group.

Here’s a breakdown by country. Here, you can spot where you may be wasting money or not dedicating enough budget. If you aren’t focusing on specific countries, you may want to check where the impressions are going.

Now, let’s breakdown by placement. In this example, it’s costing far more for a registration on mobile web. That said, Facebook is doing a good job of spending less there.

This is a good one to check, along with breakdown by country, if you are getting results that seem too good to be true. If you aren’t limiting your placements (and optimizing for something other than purchases), you may get inflated numbers from placements like Audience Network.

Breakdown by Action

We can also breakdown by Action…

You can choose to breakdown your results by the following actions:

• Conversion Device
• Post Reaction Type
• Destination
• Video View Type
• Video Sound
• Carousel Card
• Instant Experience Component (only viewable at Ad level)

Conversion Device could be more valuable, but Facebook only breaks down the volume, rather than costs.

I’ll admit that I haven’t found value in the Post Reaction Type breakdown yet. If I view the Engagement report, it lists out the number of times each reaction was used. But not much else.

The Video View Type breakdown will separate auto-plays from clicked-to-plays.

You can also breakdown video plays with and without sound.

If you use a carousel, you can breakdown clicks by carousel card to get a sense of which card generates the most engagement.

Dynamic Creative Element

Finally, you can breakdown by Dynamic Creative Element. Note that you won’t see this option if viewing from the campaign level.

You can choose to breakdown your results by the following elements:

• Image, Video, and Slideshow
• Website URL
• Text
• Headline
• Description
• Call-to-Action

I’m often asked how to view your results and see what’s working best when using Dynamic Creative. This is it. Select an element to separate the variataions you generated for each creative type.

My Favorite Breakdowns

There are a ton of options here, but some of my favorite breakdowns are as follows…

1. Day or Week Breakdown.

You can’t overreact to short-term results. It’s also easy to lose track of what your normal results are for a campaign. Breaking down by day or week is a really good way to track how your results are trending.

2. Country Breakdown.

I typically select a small number of countries when creating an ad set. But there are times, particularly if an audience is especially small, that I might expand the number of countries or even use Worldwide. In these cases, I’ll keep a close eye on how my ads are being distributed by country and adjust if necessary.

3. Placement Breakdown.

If you use automatic placements and run ads for objectives other than conversions, keep this one handy. If you ever see results that are too good to be true, check the distribution of budget and results by placement. I’ve found that Audience Network, in particular, can lead to accidental clicks or bot clicks. Those too-good-to-be-true results are often explained with this breakdown.

Your Turn

Do you use breakdowns? Do you have a favorite?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Ads Breakdown by Time, Delivery, Action, and Dynamic Creative Element appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.