Have you ever noticed that metric totals in Facebook Ads Manager don’t appear? It’s frustrating for many advertisers since this seems like an intermittent and inconsistent issue.
Let’s discuss why this happens and what to do about it…
Why it Happens
Here’s the situation in Ads Manager. It may appear as a bug…
This happens when you utilize multiple attribution settings for different campaignsThe campaign is the foundation of your Facebook ad. This is where you'll set an advertising objective, which defines what you want your ad to achieve. More. Attribution is how Facebook gives credit to an ad for a conversion. If one campaign reports on conversionsA conversion is counted whenever a website visitor performs an action that fires a standard event, custom event, or custom conversion. Examples of conversions include purchases, leads, content views, add to cart, and registrations. More within 7-day click and 1-day view while another reports based on 1-day click, Facebook will not attempt to add these metrics.
As shown in the example above, you’ll see totals for other metrics, but not conversions. This includes standard events, custom events, and custom conversions.
What Can You Do?
Obviously, this can be frustrating if the total of these metrics matter to you (and conversions usually will).
First, know that the attribution settingAttribution is how Meta gives credit to an ad for a conversion. Your Attribution Setting determines how your ad will be delivered and the reporting attribution window. The default Attribution Setting is 7-day click and 1-day view, which means that anyone who converts within 7 days of clicking or 1 day of viewing your ad will be counted as a conversion. More is set within the ad set of conversions campaigns. You can find the attribution setting under OptimizationThe Performance Goal is chosen within the ad set and determines optimization and delivery. How you optimize impacts who sees your ad. Meta will show your ad to people most likely to perform your desired action. More & Delivery (expand “Show more options” to see it).
As for your Ads Manager reporting, click the Columns drop-down and select Customize Columns.
Add a column for “Attribution Setting.”
You will then be able to see whether you’re using different attribution settings with different ad setsAn ad set is a Facebook ads grouping where settings like targeting, scheduling, optimization, and placement are determined. More or campaigns.
If you are, consider viewing only those campaigns or ad sets utilizing the same attribution setting. Within the filters, select “Attribution Setting” and then check the box next to the setting that the campaigns you want to view are using.
You should now see totals for all metrics.
Standardize Attribution Setting
There’s actually one more thing you can do. There’s a feature buried in your custom ad reports called Standardize Attribution Setting.
When you use this, you can view your results within a common attribution setting. You can read more about this here.
Your Turn
Have you had issues getting metrics totals in Ads Manager?
Let me know in the comments below!
