Top 15 Ad Performance Metrics to Track in 2025

Ad performance metrics help you figure out if your ads are doing what they’re supposed to, whether that’s grabbing attention, driving clicks, or making sales. But just checking numbers isn’t enough. The real value comes from understanding what those numbers mean and knowing when (and how) to act on them.

In this article, we’ll cover: 

• What ad performance metrics are
• 15 key advertising metrics that matter
• Using metrics to measure ad performance
• How creative performance makes a difference

Let’s jump right into what digital advertising metrics are.

What are ad performance metrics?

Ad performance metrics are the numbers that indicate how well your ads are performing. They measure everything from how many people saw your ad to how many took action, like clicking, watching, or buying. These numbers help you spot patterns and figure out what to do next.

Metrics act like signals. If your ad gets a lot of views but no clicks, something’s probably off. It could be the message, the visual, or the audience targeting. The numbers give you a starting point, but to really improve performance, you need to look at what’s behind them.

15 key ad performance metrics that actually matter (by goal)

Not every metric deserves your attention. The key is to focus on the ones that match your goal, whether you’re aiming for reach, engagement, conversions, or creative clarity.

Here are 15 ad performance metrics that actually matter, grouped by what they help you achieve:

Awareness metrics

If your goal is to get your brand in front of more people, awareness metrics are where to start. These show how many people saw your ad, how often they saw it, and how widely it spread across your audience. They're helpful when you're testing new creative, launching top-of-funnel campaigns, or building name recognition over time.

Here are the top awareness metrics to keep an eye on:

1. Impressions

Impressions count how many times your ad is shown, even if the same person sees it more than once. It’s a basic awareness metric that tells you how often your ad is entering the feed or screen. 

You’ll find it by default in Meta, Google Ads metrics, and TikTok ad dashboards. If impressions are low, it could mean your budget is too small, your bid is too restrictive, or your audience is limited. If impressions are high but people aren’t clicking, the creative might need a refresh.

Watch for:

• High impressions but low click-through rate (CTR): Try new visuals, hooks, or headlines
  
  
• High impressions with low reach: You’re showing the same ad to the same people too often

2. Reach

Reach tells you how many individual people saw your ad at least once. It filters out duplicates, so if someone saw your ad five times, they still only count as one. 

It’s great for tracking how wide your ad is spreading and whether your targeting is helping you reach new eyes. When reach is low, your audience might be too tight, or your budget may not be scaling. If reach is decent but engagement is low, that’s often a creative or relevance issue.

Quick tip: Pair reach with CTR or engagement rate to get a sense of whether your audience is responding to what they’re seeing.

3. Frequency

Frequency is the average number of times each person has seen your ad. Calculate it by dividing impressions by reach. A little repetition can be helpful, especially in awareness campaigns, but too much can lead to ad fatigue or drop-offs in performance. 

Most brands aim to keep frequency under 3 for top-of-funnel campaigns. Once you start seeing a dip in engagement or conversions, it’s probably time to rotate in new creatives.

Here are some common signs your frequency is too high:

• Engagement or CTR drops while impressions keep rising
  
• Comments start to include “I keep seeing this ad”
  
• Return on ad spend (ROAS) begins to slip without other changes

Engagement metrics

Once your ad is out there, the next step is figuring out if people are interacting with it. Engagement metrics track what happens after the impression — did someone click, watch, or stick around to learn more? These metrics help you understand how strong your creative is, how relevant your message is to the audience, and whether you’re actually holding their attention.

Here are the core engagement metrics to watch:

4. CTR

CTR tells you what percentage of people clicked your ad after seeing it. It's a clear indication of how well your creative, headline, and offer work together.

A strong CTR usually means your ad is relevant and your hook is landing. A weak CTR, even with high impressions, could mean your message isn’t connecting or your visuals aren’t standing out.

CTR is easy to find on every platform and is calculated like this: CTR = (Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100

Here’s what you can do if your CTR is low:

• Test new thumbnails or headlines
  
• Make sure your offer is clear and matches the audience intent
  
• Try different placements or ad formats

5. Video views (3-sec, ThruPlay)

If you’re running video ads, view metrics tell you how much of your ad people actually watch. A 3-second view usually just means they didn’t scroll immediately. A ThruPlay (on Meta) means they watched at least 15 seconds or the entire video, whichever comes first. These metrics help you see whether your intro is strong enough to hold attention and if the pacing is working.

Short views with high drop-off could mean your hook isn’t compelling enough or that your video is too slow to get going. ThruPlays are a more meaningful signal, especially when paired with clicks or conversions.

Try this if views are dropping fast:

• Cut to the main message sooner
  
• Use movement or a strong visual in the first second
  
• Add captions so people can follow without sound

6. Time on page

Time on page measures how long someone stays after clicking your ad and landing on your site. It’s tracked in tools like Google Analytics and can give you insight into how engaging or relevant your landing page really is. 

If people click but bounce right away, something’s probably off — maybe the content doesn’t match the ad, the page loads too slowly, or it’s just not scannable.

There’s no one-size-fits-all benchmark, but in general, a longer time means people are actually reading or watching. Pair this with scroll depth or clicks on the page to get a better sense of whether your ad led to meaningful engagement.

Conversion metrics

Engagement is a great start, but conversions are where the real results happen. These metrics tell you if people are taking the actions that matter, like signing up, buying, or adding to cart. They’re especially important for bottom-of-funnel campaigns, but they also help you understand how effective your entire ad journey is, from targeting to creative to landing page.

Here are the most important conversion metrics to track:

7. ROAS

ROAS tells you how much revenue you made for every dollar you spent on ads. It’s one of the clearest ways to judge campaign profitability. If you spent $500 and made $2,000 in sales, your ROAS is 4. That means you earned four dollars for every dollar spent.

This metric is most helpful when you’re running campaigns tied to direct sales or purchases. You’ll usually find it in Meta or Google Ads dashboards under purchase reporting. Just be cautious — ROAS can look great in the short term, but if it’s built on one-time buyers or discounted offers, the long-term value may not hold up.

If ROAS is low:

• Double-check your targeting and landing page experience
  
• Test higher-intent audiences or stronger offers
  
• Look for hidden costs, like shipping fees, that might be killing the sale

8. CPA (Cost per acquisition)

CPA tells you how much you’re paying for each conversion. A conversion could be anything from a sale to a lead form submission, depending on how you’ve set it up. While ROAS focuses on return, CPA focuses on cost, which makes it especially helpful for managing your budget.

Lower CPA means you’re acquiring customers more efficiently. High CPA could mean you’re paying too much to get results, and that could kill your margins fast.

To lower your CPA:

• Improve your ad relevance to get more clicks at a lower cost
  
• Tighten your audience targeting
  
• Make sure your landing page matches the intent of the ad

9. Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of people who completed the goal after clicking your ad. If 100 people clicked and 5 of them made a purchase, your conversion rate is 5%. It’s one of the best ways to see how well your ad and landing page are working together.

A high conversion rate means your message is clear and your offer is convincing. A low rate might mean there’s friction, like slow load times, a confusing layout, or a disconnect between the ad and the page.

To improve conversion rate:

• Match your ad copy with your landing page headline
  
• Reduce the number of steps or distractions
  
• Test different CTAs, layouts, or trust signals like reviews

Budget and efficiency metrics

These metrics help you understand how your ad spend is being used. They won’t tell you if your creative is strong or your offer is working, but they do show whether you’re spending efficiently and pacing correctly over time.

Here are the top budget and efficiency metrics to keep track of:

10. CPM (Cost per 1000 impressions)

CPM tells you how much you're paying to show your ad 1,000 times. It's a baseline metric for understanding how competitive your audience or placement is. A high CPM might mean you're targeting a hot market or bidding aggressively. A lower CPM could mean you’re getting more exposure for your budget, but that doesn’t always mean better results.

Use CPM to compare performance across platforms, placements, or audiences. But don’t read into it too much on its own. A cheap CPM doesn’t matter if no one’s clicking or converting.

If CPM is higher than expected:

• Revisit your bid strategy or audience size
  
• Consider shifting to lower-cost placements or less saturated segments

11. CPC (Cost per click)

CPC tells you how much you're paying for each click on your ad. It’s a direct way to measure how efficiently you’re driving traffic. Lower CPC usually means your ad is engaging and relevant, while higher CPC can point to weak creatives or a mismatch with your audience.

That said, a super low CPC won’t mean much if the traffic doesn’t convert. You’ll want to look at CPC in context with CTR and conversion rate.

If CPC is too high:

• Try new creative formats
  
• Improve your ad copy or headline
  
• Look into better audience targeting

12. Spend vs. budget pacing

This isn’t a metric you’ll see on every dashboard, but it’s one worth tracking manually if needed. Pacing tells you whether you're spending your budget too fast or too slowly. 

For example, if you planned to spend $1,000 in 30 days, but you’ve already burned through half in the first week, you’re overpacing and probably missing out on late-cycle conversions.

Tracking spend against your plan helps you avoid surprises and gives you more control over when and where your budget is working hardest.

Signs your pacing is off:

• Conversions drop as the month goes on
  
• You run out of budget mid-campaign
  
• You underspend and miss volume targets

Creative quality and experience

Even with solid targeting and a well-paced budget, weak creative can drag your performance down. These metrics help you understand how users are responding to the look, feel, and messaging of your ads. If they’re getting ignored, skipped, or flagged, that feedback shows up here. 

Here are the creative-focused metrics worth paying attention to:

13. Ad relevance score (and its replacements)

Meta used to report a single relevance score, but that’s changed. Now, your ad’s performance is broken down into three separate rankings:

• Quality ranking: How your ad’s perceived quality stacks up against other ads competing for the same audience
  
  
• Engagement rate ranking: How likely people are to interact with your ad, compared to others
  
  
• Conversion rate ranking: How well your ad is expected to convert, based on your goal and setup

Each one is rated as “above average,” “average,” or “below average” compared to similar ads. These rankings don’t directly affect delivery, but they do give you clues about what’s holding performance back.

If you’re seeing low scores across the board, it might mean your creative feels off, your targeting is misaligned, or your ad just isn’t compelling enough.

To improve your rankings:

• Refresh your headline or visuals to better match what your audience wants
  
• Make sure your ad message fits the stage of the funnel you’re targeting
  
• Avoid content that feels overly salesy, generic, or irrelevant

14. Quality ranking

Quality ranking is Meta’s way of showing how your ad compares to others competing for the same audience. It’s measured as “above average,” “average,” or “below average,” and it affects how often your ad gets shown and at what price.

If your ranking is low, it could be due to poor engagement, negative feedback, or weak creatives. While it’s not something you can control directly, you can respond by improving how your ad looks, what it says, and who it’s targeting.

Here are a few ways to bump up quality ranking:

• Test variations with clearer messaging or faster pacing
  
• Use visuals that stand out without being overwhelming
  
• Remove friction from your landing page

15. Creative fatigue indicator

Creative fatigue happens when people have seen your ad too many times and start tuning it out. Some platforms will show a warning when performance drops after repeated exposure, but you can also catch it by watching for declining CTR, rising CPA, or negative comments.

Tools like Bestever make it easier to understand why certain ads perform the way they do. It looks at the creative itself — things like structure, visuals, and timing, so you’re not just relying on surface-level metrics. If something’s starting to fall off, you’ll be able to catch it early and get direction on what to adjust based on what’s worked before.

To spot fatigue before it tanks your campaign:

• Watch frequency, CTR, and relevance score together
  
• Set up alerts or thresholds in your reporting tools
  
• Rotate new creatives in regularly based on past performance

Interpreting metrics: what they do (and don’t) tell you

Ad performance metrics can tell you a lot, but they rarely tell the full story on their own. A high CTR doesn’t always mean your ad is working, just like a low ROAS doesn’t automatically mean it failed. Metrics are signals. They show what’s happening, but not always why. That’s why it’s good to look at metrics in combination.

Some signals are clear enough to act on. If spend is pacing too fast or your CPA suddenly spikes, you probably need to adjust something right away. But other times, it’s worth digging deeper before making changes. For example, a drop in conversion rate might have more to do with your landing page than your ad, or it might reflect seasonality, ad fatigue, or a weak offer.

Creative is often the missing layer. Many marketers spend too much time tweaking targeting or bids, when the real issue is what people are seeing in the ad itself. Most dashboards don’t tell you if your visuals are clear, if your CTA stands out, or if your hook is strong enough to stop the scroll.

That’s why it helps to look at metrics in combination, and why you need more than numbers to really improve performance.

Creative performance: the metric most dashboards miss

Most ad platforms show you the basics, like clicks, views, conversions, but they stop short of explaining why your ad performed the way it did. That’s where a lot of marketers get stuck. You can see that something worked (or didn’t), but not what part of the ad actually made the difference.

Was it the headline? The first few seconds of a video? A clear CTA? Without that context, it’s easy to repeat the same mistakes or miss chances to improve.

If you need help figuring it out, you can use a tool like Bestever. Instead of just reporting numbers, it looks at the creative itself — what’s in the ad, how it’s structured, and which parts are doing the heavy lifting. It highlights patterns, like whether your strongest ads all opened with fast movement, or if the ones with higher drop-off buried the message too late.

This kind of breakdown helps you:

• Catch early signs of creative fatigue
  
• Understand why certain ads get better results
  
• Figure out what’s worth testing next
  
• Give clear direction when refreshing ads

Frequently asked questions

What is the most important ad performance metric in 2025?

If you’re focused on awareness, impressions and reach are helpful signals. For sales, ROAS and CPA matter more. But no matter the goal, it’s good to read metrics in context. For example, a high CTR doesn’t mean much if no one’s converting. And low impressions might just mean your budget or bid settings need adjusting.

How do I know if my ad is working?

Start with engagement and conversion metrics, like clicks, time on page, and conversion rate. But don’t stop there. Creative quality, targeting, and pacing all play a role. If performance drops, dig deeper before making changes. Tools like Bestever can help you figure out which parts of your ad are doing the heavy lifting and which ones might be holding it back.

What is a good ROAS for Facebook or Google Ads?

Marketers typically aim for a ROAS of 2 to 4. In general, a ROAS of 3 or higher is considered solid. Still, it depends on your margins. A ROAS of 2 might be great for a high-ticket product, but unsustainable for something lower-priced. 

How do I track creative fatigue in my ads?

Watch for drops in CTR, rising CPA, or negative feedback. If performance declines while impressions stay high, your audience might be seeing the same thing too often. Platforms don’t always warn you, but Bestever flags these patterns early so you can rotate in new UGC creatives or variations before results slip.

Should I optimize for CTR or conversions?

If you’re running a brand awareness campaign, CTR might be a helpful benchmark. But if your goal is to generate leads or sales, you’ll want to focus on actual conversions. High CTR with no follow-through usually means there’s a disconnect between your ad and what comes after the click.

Can I measure ad success without pixel tracking?

You can, but it’s tougher. Pixel data helps tie ad interactions to real outcomes. Without it, you’re relying on broader indicators like CTR, time on page, and form completions. If you’re running into tracking limitations, tools like Meta’s CAPI can help fill in the gaps by passing data directly from your server.

What’s the role of cost cap bidding in campaign performance?

Cost cap bidding is useful when you want to control costs without completely cutting off delivery. It gives platforms like Meta room to find results under your limit, instead of aiming for the absolute lowest cost. This approach can be helpful during scaling.

What is ad measurement, and how does it work?

Ad measurement is the process of tracking and analyzing how your ads perform across different channels. It includes metrics like impressions, CTR, ROAS, and more. 

How can I tell which parts of my funnel actually drive conversions?

If you’re trying to understand which touchpoints drive conversions, you might want to look beyond last-click and explore linear attribution or other multi-touch models.

Are there AI tools that can help me generate ad creatives?

Yes. Bestever can help you quickly generate and analyze ad variations using AI, especially when you need fast creative testing. If you're looking for tools focused purely on creative generation, you can try something like AdCreative.ai.

How Bestever can complement your ad performance metrics

Ad performance metrics help you see what’s happening across your campaigns, but they don’t always explain why. You can spot a dip in CTR or a spike in CPA, but figuring out the cause usually means digging through dozens of ads and making a lot of educated guesses.

That’s where creative analysis comes in. The visuals, pacing, messaging, and even where your CTA lands all play a huge role in whether people engage, click, or convert. Most dashboards won’t show you those details, which makes creative performance hard to measure — and even harder to improve.

Bestever bridges that gap. It adds a layer of visual and creative insight on top of your existing ad measurement tools, so you’re not just tracking outcomes, you’re actually understanding them.

Here’s how:

• Analyze your ads' effectiveness: Bestever’s Ad Analysis Dashboard gives you instant feedback on an ad's visual impact, brand alignment, sales orientation, and audience engagement. It’ll even break down each element in detail. 
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• Get suggestions to improve every frame: If an ad isn’t hitting the mark, ask Bestever to tell you what’s wrong and get instant suggestions from its computer vision algorithm. No more guessing or wasting time — your team can start fixing those issues asap. 
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• Know your target audience: Bestever’s audience analysis tools go beyond sharing standard demographics and offer insights that help you refine both targeting and messaging. You can share your website URL, and it’ll quickly let you know who wants to hear more from you. 
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• Rapid asset generation: Fetch AI-generated images, stock photos, and video clips that all fit your brand voice. Then you can share with your design team to create multiple YouTube ad variations faster — no large creative team required.
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• ‍Instant feedback loop: Know immediately if an ad variant underperforms, then pivot before wasting your budget.
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• Actionable recommendations: Get concrete suggestions, like which visuals to swap or calls-to-action to refine, based on real-time data comparisons.

Ready to make your metrics more actionable? Let our team show you how Bestever helps turn ad data into clear creative decisions so you can get more out of every ad you run.

Try a demo of Bestever for free.