Facebook Announces Removal Of Redundant Ad Metrics

Facebook has announced that it is removing redundant and outdated ad metrics. Certain features will be gone by June 2018. So, for businesses and marketers, here’s the rundown of what’s changed.

Actions, People Taking Action, Cost Per Any Action. ‘Actions’ is a Facebook metric that includes link clicks, outbound clicks, post engagement, and video views. However, it is a very general way to measure interaction, and Facebook recommends that marketers find more narrow and precise methods.

Amount Spent Today. ‘Amount Spent Today’ measures how much money was spent on an ad since 12 AM on that day. Facebook advises advertisers to use the dynamic date selector by putting in the date and using the ‘Amount Spent’ metric. The dynamic date selector can also be used to compare with other dates.

Button Clicks. Facebook is discarding the redundant ‘Button Clicks’ metric, which shows how many times users clicked the call to action button. Marketers can access the ‘Link Clicks,’ ‘Event Responses,’ or ‘Offers Saved’ metrics instead.

Canvas Component Time Percentage. This measures the average percentage of time users spent viewing each component of a Facebook Canvas. Canvas is a mobile screen that pops up after a user clicks an ad’s Canvas link, looking at content like video or images. However, this metric isn’t widely used, so Facebook encourages marketers to use ‘Canvas View Time’ and the ‘Canvas View Percentage’ instead.

Carousel Card. This is another unpopular metric that Facebook has chosen to get rid of. This feature has to do with a breakdown of conversion and calculated metrics by carousel card. Users can still see the data by going to the ‘Link Clicks’ metric broken down by carousel card.

Link Click Destination. This Facebook metric is used to track redirects to an app’s deep link to an app store for ads set up with backup link destinations. However, recent mobile OS updates have prevented this from being accurately tracked. Therefore, advertisers should use ‘Outbound Clicks’ and ‘Landing Page Views’ at the moment, although Facebook is looking to fix this problem.

Mobile App Conversion Value. This measures the total value returned from mobile app purchases, based on the value marketers assigned when they set up an app event. Facebook recommends using specific app event conversion values like ‘Mobile App Purchases Conversion Value.’

Page Mentions, Cost Per Mention. Facebook’s ‘Page Mentions’ metric measures the number of @ mentions of a Page that are attributed to ads. However, it’s an outdated metric, since it doesn’t indicate whether users feel positively or negatively about the page in question. Facebook wants marketers to use ‘Page Likes’ or ‘Page Engagement’ metrics instead.

Page Tab Views, Cost Per Tab View. These metrics measure the number of views of tabs on a marketer’s Facebook page due to ads. But, again, Facebook feels like this doesn’t indicate sentiment accurately, and it recommends to use ‘Page Likes’ or ‘Page Engagement’ metrics.

Positive Feedback, Negative Feedback. ‘Positive Feedback’ is an estimated score that’s based on the number of times users are expected to interact with an ad. ‘Negative Feedback’ is an estimated score based on the number of times users hide an ad or choose not to see ads from a brand. Facebook feels like these metrics create confusion, and marketers should view the ‘Relevance Score’ instead, which takes in account the same calculations as Positive/Negative Feedback.

Social Reach, Social Impressions, Social Clicks (All), Unique Social Clicks (All). ‘Social Reach’ measures the number of users who saw an ad with social information like other Facebook friends who engaged with the Page/ad. ‘Social Impressions’ measures the number of times the ad was viewed with social information. ‘Social Clicks’ measures the number of clicks on an ad with social information; ‘Unique Social Clicks (All)’ is the number of users who clicked on the ad with social information. Facebook says these metrics are outdated and aren’t actionable, so Reach and Impressions metrics should be used in their place.

And that’s all! Fellow marketers, keep your eye out for the Facebook metric changes and good luck with your brands and clients.