Ad platforms report dozens of metrics, and most of them exist to make a campaign look busy. If your goal is leads and orders, four numbers carry almost all of the meaning.
Start at the bottom, not the top
Impressions and reach tell you how many people the platform showed your ad to. That is a spending report, not a results report. Read the report from the bottom up: how many leads or orders came in, what each one cost, and how many turned into money.
The four numbers worth your attention
Everything else is diagnostic detail you only need when one of these four moves in the wrong direction.
- Cost per lead - what you paid for one enquiry
- Lead quality - how many of those enquiries were real potential buyers
- Close rate - how many of the real ones became customers
- Cost per sale - total spend divided by actual sales, the only number your bank account feels
A cheap lead is not automatically a good lead
A campaign producing leads at Rs 200 each looks better than one at Rs 900 until you check which ones your sales team could actually close. Cheap leads often come from broad audiences and curiosity clicks.
Track what happens after the enquiry. A simple sheet with date, source, whether it was genuine and whether it closed is enough to tell you where the money should go.
Compare like with like
Judge a campaign against the same campaign last month, not against a different service, a different season or a competitor's claim. Ramadan, Eid, sale periods and school terms move results in most Pakistani categories, and a month-on-month comparison across those boundaries will mislead you.
Questions to ask whoever runs your ads
If a report cannot survive these four questions, it is a summary of activity rather than performance.
- What did one lead cost, and what did one sale cost?
- Which campaign or ad set produced the best leads, not just the most?
- What was changed since the last report, and why?
- What is the single next change you recommend?
A good report should let you decide in five minutes whether to spend more, spend less or change the offer. If it does not, ask for a simpler one.