Nyah Eliud
Impressions are not an achievement
A report that opens with a huge impressions figure is leading with its best-looking number, not its most useful one. Impressions count how many times your advert was shown, including to people who never noticed it.
Impressions can be bought cheaply and in enormous quantity. On their own they tell you almost nothing about whether the money worked.
Clicks are a cost, not a result
Clicks are better, because somebody chose to act. But a click is the thing you paid for, not the thing you wanted. Reporting clicks as the result is like a shop counting people who walked through the door and calling it revenue.
Click-through rate is genuinely useful, but as a clue. It tells you whether the advert appeals to the people seeing it. It says nothing about what happened next.
The three numbers that actually matter
- Conversions. How many people did the thing you wanted: enquiry, call, message, purchase.
- Cost per conversion. Total spend divided by that number. This is the figure to watch month to month.
- What a customer is worth to you. Not in the report at all, but without it the other two mean nothing.
If a report doesn’t contain the first two, it isn’t a performance report. It’s an activity report, and activity isn’t what you’re buying.
The comparison that mattersCost per conversion against what a customer is worth. Everything else is context.
Beware of conversions that are not conversions
Conversion tracking can be set up to count almost anything, including things that cost you nothing and prove nothing. A page view. Thirty seconds on the site. A scroll. A click on the menu.
Ask what exact action is being counted. If the answer is vague, or the conversion count looks far higher than the enquiries you actually received, push on it politely but firmly.
Watch for double counting too. One person who submits a form and then calls can show up as two conversions, which makes your cost per lead look half what it is.
Averages hide the thing you need to see
A campaign with an acceptable average cost per lead often hides one keyword producing cheap leads and several producing none at all. The average covers up both.
Ask for the breakdown by campaign, and by search term rather than keyword. That’s where the decisions are: what to stop, and what to put more money behind.
The numbers, from flattering to useful
| Number | What it measures | How much it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions and reach | How often the ad was shown | Very little on its own |
| Clicks and click-through rate | How many people were interested | Whether the ad works, not the campaign |
| Cost per click | What each visit cost | A cost, not a result |
| Conversions | Enquiries, calls, sales counted by tracking | The point, if the tracking is honest |
| Cost per conversion | Spend divided by conversions | The number to compare with what a customer is worth |
| Revenue or customers | What actually came of it | The only final answer |
A good report reads from the bottom of this table upwards. A report that only reaches the third row has not told you whether the money worked.
Five questions to ask whoever sends the report
- What exactly counts as a conversion here?
- What did each enquiry cost us this month, and what did it cost last month?
- Which campaign or search term produced the most, and which produced none?
- What did you change since the last report, and what did it do?
- What would you stop doing if this were your own money?
The last one tells you the most. Anyone really managing an account has a view on what isn’t working, and a report that never contains bad news isn’t a report.
Go further: the advertising guide, our ads service, ads management prices, or why ads get clicks but no customers.
Questions people ask
Return on ad spend: the revenue that came from ads divided by what the ads cost. It is only meaningful when sales are tracked accurately, which is rare for businesses that close sales on WhatsApp or by phone.
They count differently: different attribution rules, time windows and definitions of a conversion. Pick one source for decisions and use it consistently.
Spend, conversions and cost per conversion, which campaigns and searches produced them, what was changed last month, and what will change next. Our reports lead with spend, leads and cost per lead.
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