Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the 44 metrics, audiences, formats and creative terms performance marketers use every day in Meta Ads Manager. Written by the team behind Winning Ads.
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The numbers you read in Ads Manager to judge whether an ad, ad set or campaign is working.
Revenue attributed to your ads divided by what you spent on them. A 4x ROAS means every $1 of spend brought back $4 in tracked revenue. It is the headline efficiency metric for most ecommerce accounts, but it only counts the sales the platform can attribute.
Total revenue divided by total marketing spend across every channel. Because it does not rely on any one platform's attribution, many brands use MER as a reality check on platform ROAS.
Clicks divided by impressions. Ads Manager shows CTR (all), which counts any click on the ad, and link CTR, which counts only clicks that leave for your destination. Link CTR is the better read on whether the creative earns traffic.
What you pay for 1,000 impressions. CPM rises with audience competition, seasonality and narrow targeting, and it tends to fall when Meta judges your creative as relevant to the people seeing it.
Spend divided by clicks. It moves with both CPM and CTR: a stronger hook at the same CPM lowers your CPC.
Spend divided by the number of conversions you optimise for, such as purchases, leads or sign-ups. Compare CPA with your margin or customer value to know whether a campaign can scale.
The share of clicks or landing page views that turn into the conversion you track. A good ad with a weak landing page shows up as a healthy CTR with a poor CVR.
Revenue divided by number of orders. Raising AOV with bundles or thresholds lets you afford a higher CPA at the same profit.
The share of impressions that turn into a 3-second video view (3-second plays divided by impressions). It is not an official Meta column, so marketers build it as a custom metric to measure how well the first frame stops the scroll.
ThruPlays divided by 3-second video plays. It shows whether the people your hook stopped keep watching. A ThruPlay is a play to completion, or to at least 15 seconds on longer videos.
Impressions divided by reach, so the average number of times each person saw your ad. Rising frequency alongside falling CTR is a classic sign of creative fatigue.
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Who sees the ad and how warm they already are. Every Winning Ads template is mapped to one of these stages.
People who have not interacted with your brand yet. Cold creative has to introduce the problem and the product fast, so it leans on bold hooks, clear benefits and simple claims.
People who know you but have not bought: site visitors, video viewers, followers and engagers. Warm creative adds proof, comparisons and answers to objections.
People close to buying, such as cart abandoners, checkout starters and past customers. Hot creative is direct: the offer, urgency and a clear call to action.
Showing ads to people who already engaged with your site, app or content. Because these audiences have shown intent, retargeting usually converts at a lower cost than prospecting.
An audience Meta builds from people who resemble a source list you supply, such as customers or high-value purchasers.
Running with few or no interest and demographic limits so Meta's delivery system finds buyers on its own. With broad targeting, the creative does most of the targeting work by signalling who the ad is for.
Meta's AI audience option. Any age, location or interest inputs you add are treated as suggestions the system can go beyond when it expects better results.
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Where an ad appears and the shape it needs to be. Every template in the pack ships in all four sizes below.
A location where Meta can show your ad, such as Facebook and Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, Marketplace, Search results and Audience Network. Advantage+ placements let Meta choose where to deliver.
1080 by 1080 pixels. A safe default for Feed placements and the format most carousel cards use.
1080 by 1350 pixels. Takes up more of the mobile screen in Feed than a square, which is why many performance teams use it as the main Feed size.
1080 by 1920 pixels. The native size for Stories and Reels, where the ad fills the whole phone screen.
Typically 1200 by 628 pixels. Used for link-style placements and for platforms such as LinkedIn and Google display, where wide images are common.
The area of a 9:16 frame that stays clear of the profile name, captions and call-to-action button the app lays over the ad. Keep headlines, logos and prices inside it.
A single image ad. Statics are fast to produce and test, which makes them the workhorse of most creative testing programmes.
An ad with between 2 and 10 swipeable cards, each with its own image or video and link. Good for product ranges, step-by-step stories and feature breakdowns.
Creative made to look like user-generated content: testimonial layouts, reviews, chat screenshots and selfie-style framing. It blends into the feed and borrows the trust of a real customer voice.
Formerly called dynamic product ads. Meta pulls products from your catalog and matches them to people based on their behaviour, often used for retargeting.
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The building blocks of an ad that earns attention and drives the click.
The first line, frame or visual of an ad, designed to stop the scroll. On Meta you usually have a fraction of a second before someone moves on, so the hook carries most of the ad's weight.
The specific reason to buy that an ad leads with, such as a pain point, an outcome, a comparison, social proof or the offer. Testing new angles usually moves results more than testing new colours.
What the buyer gets and on what terms: price, discount, bundle, guarantee or bonus. A clear offer is often the difference between a hot-audience ad that converts and one that does not.
Evidence that other people trust the product: reviews, ratings, customer counts, press mentions and creator testimonials.
The instruction that tells people what to do next, both in the creative and in Meta's CTA button, such as Shop now or Learn more.
The drop in performance when the same audience sees an ad too often. Watch for rising frequency, rising CPM or CPA and falling CTR, then refresh the creative with a new hook or angle.
Running several concepts or variations side by side to find winners, ideally changing one variable at a time so you know what caused the difference.
A concept is a distinct idea, angle or format. A variation keeps the concept and changes one element, such as the hook, image or headline. Testing new concepts finds new winners; variations extend the life of existing ones.
A reusable ad layout with the structure, hierarchy and spacing already solved, so you only swap in your product, offer and copy. Winning Ads templates come in all four Meta sizes and are mapped to a funnel stage.
Meta no longer limits ads to 20 percent text in the image, but short, high-contrast copy still tends to read better on a small screen than dense paragraphs.
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How Meta campaigns are structured and how results are measured.
Meta's three levels. The campaign sets the objective, the ad set sets audience, placements, budget and schedule, and the ad holds the creative and copy.
Previously known as campaign budget optimisation (CBO). You set one budget at campaign level and Meta shifts spend between ad sets towards the best expected results.
The period after launch or a significant edit while Meta's delivery system explores who to show the ad to. An ad set usually exits learning after about 50 optimisation events within 7 days.
A snippet of code on your website that reports visits and actions, such as add to cart and purchase, back to Meta for targeting, optimisation and measurement.
A server-side connection that sends conversion events from your server directly to Meta. Used alongside the Pixel, it recovers events that browsers block and improves optimisation.
The window Meta uses to credit a conversion to an ad. The default is 7-day click and 1-day view: a purchase within 7 days of a click or 1 day of a view counts.
Winning Ads gives you 150 Meta ad templates in Figma, every one in 1:1, 4:5, 9:16 and 1.91:1 and mapped to a cold, warm or hot audience. Swap in your product, offer and hook, then start testing.