There are more than 2.9 billion people who use Facebook.
This makes it one of the most powerful marketing platforms in the world
If you’re not running any ads on Facebook, you should.
They can make a huge difference.
In this guide, we look at how you can conduct Facebook ad audits, why you need them, and how you should go about doing them.
Let’s dive right in.
What is a Facebook Ad Audit?
A Facebook ad audit isn’t just the process of taking a look at all your existing and past (related) campaigns together to find out if they’ve met your goals. It’s also the process of figuring out why a particular campaign performed the way it did, understanding the customer’s reaction to the ads, and ensuring the campaigns are running at peak efficiency.
Audits will help you find out:
- CPCs and conversion rates
- Efficiency
- The results of A/B tests
- Consumer behavior
- Emerging trends and patterns
- Mistakes that you made
Here’s the thing.
Half the time, you’re probably doing a great job already.
But, knowing how you can adapt and get a better bang for your buck can really take your growth to the next level.
Think of it like email hygiene.
You might not have bouncing emails, but it’s always good to know if you need to tweak your campaigns a little bit more.
When Should I Do Facebook Ad Audits?
If you haven’t done a Facebook ad audit before, we suggest you do it immediately.
We’re not kidding.
Facebook ad audits are an essential part of growth hacking.
You need to integrate them into your campaign schedules as part of maintaining a healthy marketing system.
Here are a couple of ways to schedule your Facebook ad audit:
- Once a month for basic marketing hygiene
- After a group of themed campaigns are done
- If you notice underperformance
- If you notice overperformance
- If you want to tweak your campaigns to make sure they’re efficient
As you’ll notice, the most critical part of your auditing system is to make sure is that it occurs regularly.
How Do You Perform a Facebook Ad Audit
First, you want to gain admin access to the account where the ads are being run. If you’re going to do an independent audit for someone else, ask them to grant you access to their ad account by going to Facebook’s Business Manager, clicking on “All Tools,” and then “Ads Manager.”
Once they’re there, all they have to do is navigate to “Settings” (the gear icon to the left menu bar), go to “Ad account roles” and click on “Add people”.
So, say you’ve been granted access, here’s what you do next.
In the Facebook Ads Manager interface, you’ll have access to all of your ads.
Select an ad that you’re interested in and then click on “Reports”, this will open a drop-down menu. Click on “Export table data…”
This should open a popup menu, choose your settings and click on “Export”.
Give it some time and you’ll get a notification once it’s ready.
The CSV file should contain important information about the ad in question such as:
- Ad Set Budget
- Ad Set Budget Type
- Attribution
- Results
- Reach
- Impressions
- Cost per results
- Quality ranking
- Engagement rate ranking
- Conversion rate ranking
- Link clicks
- Amount spent (in currency)
But, if you want a more powerful (and easier way) to do things..
You can select the campaign and click on “Create custom report…”
This option activates a menu on the right-hand side where you can choose your metrics and report breakdowns.
This is pretty dope if you want to check out data broken down into more specific categories.
Also, you can export this, too.
Pretty neat if you want to get a quick breakdown.
Analyzing the Data – What Are You Looking For?
This stage helps you determine if something is going well (or wrong) and shows you how effective your Facebook ads are.
Now, a Facebook ad audit will bring up a lot of data.
A lot.
Some of it you don’t even need to look at.
And, it’s so easy to get stuck and fall victim to analysis paralysis.
Here are a couple of things that you should look out for:
- Conversion rates – The first thing you want to look at is the conversion rate. Your conversion rates should paint a picture of how effective your ad campaigns are. Look at it in conjunction with your engagement rate; if you’re getting a lot of engagement but poor conversions, it could be the symptom of a problem with your pricing, product, etc.
- Post Engagement – Engagement indicates a prospect’s interest in the ad that you’re putting out and is usually a good sign that your ad is pulling people into your brand. However, just as mentioned in the previous section, this still has to translate to proper conversions.
- Reach – What’s the difference between impressions and reach? Reach deals with the number of unique users who have been exposed to the ad so pay attention to it. If your reach numbers are high, but engagement is low, you have a problem. Pay attention to the ratio between reach and post engagement; it can show you ways to make your ads more efficient.
- Split Tests – Which of your campaigns are doing well in split-tests? Why are they doing better? Is it the messaging or the design? Check out the results of your split tests and find ways to further test your material to see if it works better.
- Costs – Higher costs aren’t necessarily a problem as long as you’re converting well; check out how much you’re spending and how much of that is being turned into revenue.
- Demographics – Where are most of your engagements, conversions, etc., coming from? Does this suggest a shift in the market or a problem with targeting?
- Date – This is where you consider when your post was getting the most exposure and engagement. Is it during weekends? During a specific day in the week? Etc.
The list doesn’t just end there, but this can provide you with some basis to start your audit.
Now the factors you’re looking for can vary depending on the industry.
For example, high-value goods with complicated product catalogs can be more expensive to sell and are not that interesting enough to generate a high reach.
You need to incorporate this into your ad audit.
Find out which ads have turned out the best results and where they belong in your campaign funnels. This should provide the basis for the next step.
Looking for Patterns – Replicating the Results
Don’t just stop at the audit.
Now that you’re armed with data, you can now replicate the results of your good ad campaigns.
Here’s what you should be doing:
Step 1. Identify the Highest Ranking Campaigns
First, choose the top 3-5 highest-ranking campaigns that you’ve had for the month based on conversions, engagements, or other KPIs for a given period.
This is the basis of your comparison of what your subsequent campaigns should be like.
Step 2. Do They Have Any Similar Metrics?
Next, you want to check their metrics to see if they have anything similar. Does a particular demographic – that’s part of your ideal customer profile(s) – seem to like these ads? Are the engagement levels the same?
This can help you spot a pattern that can help or correct targeting.
Step 3. Compare the Content
Take a look at the content.
What is it about?
What are the emotions that you’re getting from the ad?
Is it a common theme that you want to explore or create a story out of?
This can be a subjective process, so it would help if you got more than one set of trained eyes on it.
Step 4. Compare the Copy
Check the copy between the different successful ad campaigns.
You’re not just looking for buzzwords here, but the way it’s written.
Is there a specific structure that appeals to your target audience?
What types of words were used, i.e., do they contain jargon, confident phrases, etc.?
Copy is an integral part of ad campaigns because it can help convince your prospect to do what you want them to.
Step 5. Compare the Visuals
The ad visual as a whole is the first thing you see when you come across a Facebook ad. It needs to pique your prospect’s interest in just a couple of seconds.
Now check if there’s anything in common with your visuals.
Next Steps
There should be at least one thing in common with the successful ads, and your goal is to replicate this in your next ads.
It could be the copy or the visuals, or maybe the theme of your campaigns. If it’s successful, you have a template for a great campaign that you can use in the future.
What do you do if there’s nothing in common?
Then check them out individually and see where they stand out from each other.
Caveat
Don’t make this a reason not to express your creativity and change things out.
You can’t just find one successful formula and milk it all the way.
Feel free to keep changing content and finding new ways to bring in engagements.
Actual results come from experimentation, so don’t feel bad if a new batch of ads is unsuccessful; what’s important is that you keep learning.
Takeaways
A Facebook ad audit is part of tracking.
Remember?
You can’t growth hack if you don’t track.
You need to perform audits not because you want to control your creatives but instead you’re doing it to find more room for growth.
Since everyone is on Facebook, there’s massive competition for eyeballs.
And, when you get your ads in front of people, you want to make the most out of the time, AKA converting them.
Audits are just a way of achieving more conversions.
And it’s a necessary part of growth.
