How to See Ad Performance in Meta Ads Manager

How to See Your Facebook & Instagram Ad Performance in Meta

If you’ve ever opened your Meta Ads Manager and felt overwhelmed by all the numbers, you’re not alone. Budget, reach, impressions, bid strategy… so many metrics, but which ones actually matter when you're just trying to see how your ads performed?

In this blog, I’ll walk you through the simplest, cleanest way to view your Meta ad performance, without the noise. You’ll also learn how to build performance-focused column presets, including one for conversions and another for creative analysis.

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Start Here: Filter for Ads That Actually Delivered

Before you look at any metrics, make sure you’re seeing ads that delivered during your selected date range.

• Click Had Delivery

• This ensures your dashboard only shows meaningful data.

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Step 1: Switch to the Right Column View

Click Columns → Performance → Customize Columns.

This is where we’ll build a cleaner, results-focused view.

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Step 2: Create a “Results” Column Preset

Most accounts show way too much information by default. Let’s simplify.

Remove everything first

Click the X on all metrics in the left column.

Add back only what matters

• Amount Spent (your inputs)

• Purchases (your outputs)

• Purchase Conversion Value (your revenue)

• Cost per Purchase

• ROAS

• MER / ACOS (if you're using custom efficiency metrics)

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This setup lets you instantly see:

• How much you spent

• How many purchases you got

• How much revenue the campaign generated

• How efficiently each dollar worked

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Creating a Custom Metric: MER / ACOS

If you want to measure overall efficiency (spend vs. revenue), you can create a custom metric.

Go to:

Customize Columns → Custom → Create Custom Metric

Example:

Name: MER

Set to Percentage format.

Formula: Amount Spent ÷ Purchase Conversion Value

Add a short description so your whole team understands it.

Your Results View Should Now Look Like This

• Amount Spent

• Purchases

• Purchase Conversion Value

• ROAS

• Cost per Purchase

• MER / ACOS

Simple, clean, and focused on what matters: inputs, outputs, and efficiency.

Building the Creative Funnel View (Your “Analyzer” Preset)

This second preset helps you understand how people interact with your ads—from thumb-stop to purchase.

Here’s what we’ll include, in order:

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1. Amount Spent

2. 3-second Video Plays Rate Per Impressions

3. CTR (Click-Through Rate)

4. Landing Page Views per Link Clicks

5. Product Consider Rate

6. Add To Cart Rate

7. Purchase Rate Per Link Clicks

8. Purchase Rate Per Landing Page Views

Step 1: Create Your Hook Rate / Thumb-Stop Rate

Formula:

3-Second Video Plays ÷ Impressions

Step 2: Create Watch Rate / Hold Rate

Formula:

ThruPlays ÷ Impressions

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Step 3: Create Quality Click Rate

Formula:

Landing Page Views ÷ Link Clicks

Step 4: Create Product Consideration Rate

Formula:

Content Views ÷ Link Clicks

Step 5: Add to Cart Rate

Formula:

Add to Carts ÷ Link Clicks

Step 6: Conversion Rate (Purchases / Link Clicks)

Formula:

Purchases ÷ Link Clicks

Step 7: Reorder Everything into a Funnel

Your final “Creative Funnel” preset should flow like this:

Thumb-Stop Rate

Watch Rate

CTR

Quality Click Rate

Product Consideration Rate

Add to Cart Rate

Conversion Rate

Final Thoughts

By building these two column presets, the Results column preset and the Creative Funnel column preset. You'll simplify your Meta Ads Manager and focus only on the metrics that matter for:

• Evaluating performance

• Understanding efficiency

• Improving creative

• Diagnosing drop-off points in the funnel

No more messy dashboards that tax your ad spend. Just clean, actionable insights.

If you need more detail and automatically generated reports, check out Lens by Foreplay.

Have any questions? Feel free to send me a message.

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