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Meta ad metrics and attribution

Ads Manager reports an ad in three layers: how often Meta showed it, what people did on it, and which sales or leads Meta credits to it. This topic gives Meta's own definitions for the core metrics in each layer and explains the attribution rules that decide the last one.

Those rules changed twice in 2026. The Ads Insights API stopped returning 7-day and 28-day view windows in January, and in March Meta began counting only link clicks as clicks for website and in-store conversions. Reports, dashboards and comparisons with Shopify or Google Analytics all depend on knowing which rules a number was counted under.

Key terms

Common questions

Which Meta ad metric matters most?
The cost of the event your ad set optimises for, which Ads Manager shows as cost per result. Meta advises focusing on that optimisation event, because delivery bids for it and other metrics such as CPM can move the opposite way. Delivery and engagement metrics then explain why that cost changed.
Are Meta's reach and frequency numbers exact?
No. Meta labels reach and frequency as estimates calculated from sampled data. Reach also counts unique accounts, so ad set figures do not add up to the campaign total.
Does the attribution setting change who sees my ads?
Yes. Meta says the attribution model informs ad delivery as well as reporting, and that standard attribution optimises delivery for the windows and behaviours you select. Changing it changes what the system optimises for as well as how results are counted.
Can I compare results under different attribution settings?
Yes. Ads Manager has a compare attribution settings feature for this. Meta warns against comparing ad sets that use different attribution models side by side in the campaign table, because each model counts conversions differently.

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