Campaign metrics explained

Each Ads Manager column has a specific meaning. Spend / Impressions / Clicks / CTR / CPC / CPM / Conversions / ROAS / CPA / Frequency. Per-platform variants (Meta vs Google differ on attribution defaults). Late attribution caveat: data settles over 24-72h.

Who is this for

Mediabuyers reading Ads Manager columns. Anyone wondering why ROAS dropped overnight or why Meta + Google show different numbers for the same product.

The core metrics

Spend

What it is: Total money spent on ads in selected date range.

How to read: in account's native currency (or workspace currency for cross-account rollup, auto-converted via daily FX).

Notes:

• Includes platform's billing rate (auction-driven, varies by demand)

• Doesn't include Wevion's subscription cost (that's separate)

• Updates every 15 min via sync

Impressions

What it is: Number of times your ad was shown.

How to read: counts every display (one user seeing the ad 5 times = 5 impressions).

Different from Reach (distinct users):

• Reach = unique users

• Impressions = total displays

• Impressions ÷ Reach = Frequency

Clicks

What it is: Number of times someone clicked your ad.

How to read: includes all clicks (link clicks + Page clicks + other interactions, depending on platform's click definition).

Compare:

• All clicks: any click (including page-like, comment, video play)

• Link clicks: clicks that go to your destination URL (more relevant for performance)

Wevion typically shows Link clicks as the headline number.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

What it is: Clicks ÷ Impressions × 100%

Benchmarks:

• < 0.5% = creative resonance problem

• 0.5%-1.5% = average

• 1.5%-3% = good

• 3% = strong creative

Per-platform variations:

• Meta Feed: 1-2% typical

• Meta Stories: 0.5-1.5% (lower because of full-screen format)

• Google Search: 3-10% (high intent)

• Display: 0.05-0.5% (banner blindness)

Don't compare across platforms — compare within.

CPC (Cost Per Click)

What it is: Spend ÷ Clicks

How to read: lower = cheaper traffic. Compare within audience + objective (different objectives have wildly different CPCs).

CPM (Cost Per Mille)

What it is: (Spend ÷ Impressions) × 1000 — cost per 1.000 impressions

How to read: reflects auction competitiveness. Lower = cheaper inventory.

Per-platform CPMs vary significantly. Meta CPMs higher than Display in many markets.

Conversions

What it is: Count of conversion events fired matching your campaign's optimization goal.

Per-objective:

• Sales: Purchase events

• Leads: Lead form submissions

• App Promotion: App install events

• Traffic: Landing page views (not "conversions" technically, but shown as engagement metric)

Source: pixel events + CAPI events + tracker postback (see am-121 attribution sources).

Conversion Rate

What it is: Conversions ÷ Clicks × 100%

How to read: indicates landing page + offer fit.

• E-commerce: 1-3% typical

• Lead-gen: 2-10%

• High-intent search: 5-15%

If CTR good (clicks happening) but conversion rate low: landing page issue, not creative issue.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

What it is: Revenue ÷ Spend

How to read: > 1.0 = revenue exceeds ad cost (profitable on ad spend alone, before fixed costs).

Targets vary by business model:

• E-commerce direct: 2-4x typical target

• High-margin: 3-5x

• Low-margin (commodity): 5-10x needed

• Subscription / LTV: 1-2x acceptable (long-tail revenue)

CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

What it is: Spend ÷ Conversions

How to read: lower = cheaper acquisition. Compare to your max-allowed CPA (per-product economics).

Target CPA depends on:

• LTV (lifetime value): higher LTV allows higher CPA

• Profit margin: higher margin allows higher CPA

• Cycle time: longer to break even allows higher CPA

Frequency

What it is: Impressions ÷ Reach — average impressions per unique user

How to read:

• < 2: low exposure, room to scale

• 2-4: healthy

• 4-6: watch creative fatigue

• 6: definitely refresh creative

High frequency = same users seeing same ad = creative fatigue + ad blindness → falling CTR.

See cc-112 audience saturation AI for automated detection.

Per-platform metric variations

Compare metrics within platform, not across, for like-for-like analysis.

Late attribution

Conversion data settles over time:

• Hour 0-24: rapid settle (most pixel-based conversions arrive within 1h)

• Hour 24-72: late attribution (Meta credits conversions that happened up to attribution window earlier; view-through conversions back-fill)

• Day 3-7: trickle (long-tail view-through; some apps with delayed installs)

So a campaign's ROAS at end of Day 1 may show 1.8x, then settle to 2.5x by Day 7. Don't make permanent decisions on Day 1 data.

Wait at least 3 days for stable conversion-based metrics.

Currency normalization

For cross-account / cross-platform rollups:

• Per-account: native currency (e.g. EUR for IT account)

• Workspace rollup: workspace currency (auto-converted via daily FX from Stripe's rate)

Slight differences with platform's own currency conversion are normal (FX timing).

Metrics you won't see (and why)

Wevion shows channel attribution at ad-platform level, not cross-channel attribution (Meta last-touch, Google last-touch).

What you'll see

Metric columns in Ads Manager:

• Configurable per user via Customize Columns

• Per-row values for current date range

• Sortable

• Delta vs comparison period (if Compare to enabled)

Common questions

• "Why is ROAS dropping?": late attribution may not have settled. Wait 24-48h. Or audience saturation. Or creative fatigue.

• "CPA looks crazy ($500)": small sample size. 1 conversion + $500 spend = $500 CPA. Wait for 30+ conversions before judging.

• "Spend > Budget?": platforms can overshoot by ~25% on high-performing days, balanced by under-spend later. Daily budget is a target, not a hard cap.

• "Reach declining over time": audience saturation. Refresh creative or expand audience.

Related

• Drill-down — see per-ad-set + per-ad metrics

• Understanding your data — day-1 vs week-2 framing

• Glossary — every metric defined