Facebook Ads: Measure your conversions!

Cotswold Web • Dec 06, 2023

Heading 1

Facebook Ads are a very effective form of advertising for many businesses. But how effective? If you don’t measure your conversions, you really can’t be sure, as you will have no idea how good your return on investment (ROI) is.

How to advertise on Facebook in 2021 (cotswoldweb.co.uk)

By focusing on conversions, you can ensure you are reaching the right audience and measure your ROI to ensure you’re not paying more for a conversion than you should.

First things first – what is a conversion?

A conversion is when an ad achieves its purpose. It is an action or event which is part of a customer journey. Different businesses will have different actions which they class as conversions. The most obvious conversion is a sale, but it could also be booking a call, filling in an enquiry form or signing up for a subscription.

You can track a huge number of metrics through Facebook Ads Manager (also known as Meta Ads Manager), so it is important to focus on the ones which are most relevant to your business and what you want to achieve. If the only conversion you are interested in is purchases, there is no point in tracking any other form of conversion.

Some common conversions to focus on are:

·      Website purchases

·      Leads

·      Downloads

·      Subscription sign-ups

By doing that, you can work out how much it is costing every time to achieve that goal - known as the Cost Per Action (CPA) on Meta Ads Manager.

Facebook ads mistakes to avoid (cotswoldweb.co.uk)

Results on Meta Ads Manager are the number of times an ad campaign achieves its desired outcome ie a conversion. The result will vary from business to business and industry to industry, depending on the type of ad campaign you use and the goal you have set.

You can measure your ROI using the formula: Revenue divided by ad spend. So if you make £100 revenue and your ad spend is £10, your ROI is 10.


Conversion rate


Conversion rate is the metric used to measure the success of an ad. When you know the aim of your ad campaign, you can measure your conversion rate (sometimes known as the result rate).

This is the percentage of desired results you achieved compared to the total number of impressions. Impressions are the total number of times your ad appeared on a screen in front of your audience.

The formula for your conversion rate is the number of conversions divided by the number of impressions. This is then multiplied by 100 to give a percentage.

If your Facebook ad gets one person to buy a product for every 25 impressions, your conversion rate is 1/25 x 100, which gives a conversion rate of 4%.

Conversion rate is likely to be very different depending on whether you are aiming to reach a business to business (B2B) audience or a business to consumer (B2C) audience. Consumer products are generally cheaper and only one person needs to make the decision.

Using Facebook Ads for B2B businesses (cotswoldweb.co.uk)

Products for a B2B audience are likely to be significantly more expensive and the decision will generally be made over a longer period of time and by more than one person. But when it does convert, it will be worth the wait, with a single B2B conversion usually worth significantly more than a single B2C conversion - or even significantly more than multiple B2C conversions.

Conversion rate also varies significantly from one industry to another. A ‘good’ Facebook Ads conversion rate might be 10%, but that would be considered low in some industries and very high in others. To know what a good conversion rate for your business would be, you need to focus on industry-specific conversion data and make sure your conversions are at least in line with that, then focus on improving them.

It’s important to remember that conversion rate doesn’t account for the money made from a conversion or the money spent to achieve that conversion. If 5% of consumers are converting for two businesses, but are buying something for £10 from one business and £200 from another business, the conversion rate is still the same.


Conversion lift


Conversion lift is a service specifically offered by Facebook to its advertisers. It helps you understand the value of your Facebook Ads in driving sales and conversions (it is also used for Instagram and Audience Network ads). 

Conversion lift measures conversions for the 2020s and is based on the fact that most people are switching between devices, rather than sat at the same desktop computer all day. This means cross-device conversion measurement is more important than ever, which is what conversion lift on Facebook offers.

It looks beyond traditional measurement - by measuring the impact of being exposed to an ad across devices, conversion lift offers a more holistic view of an ad's performance, rather than just relying on the number of clicks.

While people use multiple devices throughout the day, a significant proportion of purchases still happen in physical shops. Conversion lift helps you understand ad performance across multiple devices and conversion events, whether they happen online, offline or in-app.

It compares the actions of real people in randomised test and control groups to measure the additional online, offline or mobile app business driven by Facebook Ads. Companies advertising with Facebook have the option to create their own lift studies for key business questions.

All kinds of companies use Facebook to advertise from small, local businesses through to big multinationals. While some industries may see more frequent conversions, its targeting will fit all industries, as well as very localised advertising.

By measuring your conversions, you will know whether or not Facebook Ads are right for the bottom line of your business and whether you need to make any changes to your advertising strategy in the future.

Historically, Facebook Ads have always had 11 ad objectives to choose from. But from January 2024, that is being simplified to six, which should align with a business or organisation’s goals.

More Posts.

SEO vs PPC: Which delivers better ROI for your marketing budget?

13 Mar, 2024
Heading 1 The best way to drive traffic to your website for most businesses is through search engines, so it is essential to secure a prominent position on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The two ways to do this are through search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. The two options offer a different approach to generating leads and sales. Depending on what you are looking to achieve, either PPC or SEO might be better at reaching your business goals. With PPC, businesses bid on relevant keywords to appear as a sponsored link at the top of SERPs. When visitors search for those keywords, the ad will be displayed in the sponsored results section. A business only pays for the ad if the link is clicked. The most popular ads are Google Ads, but advertising on Facebook, LinkedIn (ADD LINK - Why you need LinkedIn paid ads for your business (cotswoldweb.co.uk)) (ADD LINK - Facebook Ads: Measure your conversions! (cotswoldweb.co.uk)) or other social media can be just as effective, depending on your own target audience. SEO is a long-term strategy to generate clicks without having to pay for them directly. It is about optimising your website content around relevant target keywords to convince a search engine that your business is a leading authority on a particular subject. Here we will discuss the pros and cons of each, and which delivers the better return on investment (ROI) for your marketing budget. One way to help you make a decision on which is the best option for your business is to check out the competition. They are targeting the same audience as you, so you can learn from their successes and their failures. If your competitors are investing heavily in PPC, it could indicate it would work well for your business too. And on the flipside, if they are ranking well in search results, investing in SEO could be the way forward. 

Why you need LinkedIn paid ads for your business

by Cotswold Web • 14 Feb, 2024
Heading 1 LinkedIn might not be the first platform you think about for advertising your business. But if you’re looking for business-to-business (B2B) sales, you shouldn’t ignore LinkedIn’s paid ads. Most online advertising is geared towards business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses. In B2C, you can rely on mass advertising and big audiences. But B2B is all about being more focused on finding the right people. LinkedIn has an audience of 850 million professionals. They are potential customers for your B2B business. (For comparison, there are just over 3 billion Facebook users, but the demographic of Facebook is much more mixed, and its advertising is far more relevant than to a B2C audience.) While your own (or your company’s) LinkedIn profile might be active, your posts will only reach your direct connections. If direct connections comment on or share your post, it might then reach second- or third-degree connections. But it’s not going to reach even a fraction of the audience you want to target. Using paid ads on LinkedIn will take your reach way beyond your organic following. B2B buying has a much longer lead time than B2C. According to LinkedIn, the average B2B sales cycle is six to nine months. Advertising in the B2B sector is about building long-term relationships. And LinkedIn helps you to do that. LinkedIn says it helps businesses to ‘Target the professionals you care about’ and ‘Reach a qualified audience with sophisticated B2B targeting’. According to its own data: 180 million senior-level influencers are on LinkedIn Four out of five LinkedIn members drive business decisions LinkedIn audiences are six times more likely to convert LinkedIn’s audience has double the buying power of the average web audience 40% of B2B marketers see LinkedIn as the most effective channel for driving high quality leads LinkedIn has a ready-made audience of professionals, a variety of ad types and the right data to help you target your advertising to reach the right audience. LinkedIn’s audience data is what it calls ‘deep zero-party data’. In other words, the data has been provided by LinkedIn members themselves – so it is trustworthy, accurate and frequently updated. This means your ads can be targeted at a very specific audience.

Google Ads: Measure your conversions!

by Cotswold Web • 18 Oct, 2023
Heading 1 You can invest as much time and money as you like into Google Ads. But if you don’t measure conversions, you will have no idea how effective they are for your business and how good your return on investment (ROI) is. A conversion happens every time your ad achieves its purpose. This isn’t just a sale. In fact, for many business to business (B2B) companies, booking a call or a prospective customer filling in an enquiry form is an important conversion. As a business, you decide on what counts as a conversion depending on your own business goals. Each business will have its own higher value conversions, which won’t be the same as those of other businesses. It is essential to always measure these conversions. It is the one definitive way of checking whether your ads are leading to those meaningful actions you want potential customers to take.

Fully responsive web design for your B2B professional services business

by Cotswold Web • 20 Sept, 2023
Heading 1 Using your website to promote your professional services business and sell to other businesses (business to business or B2B) is different from selling services direct to consumers (B2C). The cost involved for your customers is usually a lot higher than for consumer goods and services. Buying from another business is generally a big decision made over a longer period of time and often by a number of people. To compete in a competitive B2B marketplace, you need a clear and concise, fully responsive website, which can really showcase what you have to offer. Cotswold Web has worked on the website design of a variety of B2B professional services businesses from accountants to copywriting and IT services. Web design for B2B businesses is surprisingly cost effective and can make a real difference to your bottom line. Here are some of the fully responsive professional services business websites Cotswold Web has worked on…
Web design template

Fully responsive web design for your B2B business

by Cotswold Web • 21 Aug, 2023
Cotswold Web has worked on the website design of a variety of B2B businesses from wholesalers to contract electricians and even interior design for restaurants.

Fully responsive web design for your countryside business

by Cotswold Web • 10 Jul, 2023
Booking Software Many countryside businesses are having to diversify these days. It’s not enough just to farm the land. You need a visitor attraction or a farm shop on site to keep the cash flowing. But how do you go about promoting your countryside business to let potential visitors know what you have to offer? Cotswold Web has worked on the website design of a variety of countryside businesses from large country estates to family farming businesses and orchards. Having your own website will showcase everything you have to offer far better than a site like TripAdvisor can. Your website will work alongside TripAdvisor – so if potential visitors search for your business (or stumble across it!) on the review site, they can go to your own site to find out more information. We can also include booking software for visitors to book day visits, accompanied by the best possible photography and copy, to give potential visitors all the information they need to choose your countryside business over your competition. Cotswold Web has worked on the web design of several countryside businesses. These professionally designed websites complement sites like TripAdvisor, so potential customers can move seamlessly from one to the other. Web design for countryside businesses like farms, country estates and farm shops is surprisingly cost effective and can make a real difference to your bottom line.
Share by: