Read the Advertising dashboard
What every card, tile and tab on the dashboard means, how to change the time window, and how often the numbers update.
Where it is in the app
Open Home, choose Advertising, then Dashboard.
- Home
- Advertising
- Dashboard
The dashboard is the first row in the Advertising sidebar. It shows your ad spend and results across every ad account in a slot, for one time window.
If nothing is connected yet, opening it sends you to Connections.
#The top row
The title row has, from left to right:
- As of time: when we last read your accounts.
- The time menu: Last hour, Last 24 hours, Last 7 days, Last 30 days or Last 90 days. The default is last 30 days.
- The account picker: choose one, several or all ad accounts. Your choice stays when you change the time window or the tab.
- Sync now: reads Meta again. The page shows "Syncing with Meta — reading your accounts and the latest numbers…" and comes back when the fresh numbers are in. Only owners and admins can press it.
On the last hour, you get a single point. The page says "One hour is a single point. Pick Last 24 hours or longer to see the trend." If hourly numbers have not arrived yet, they show a dash and say "No hourly numbers yet — they arrive within 15 minutes of connecting."
#Needs attention
When something needs you, one line sits under the title, worst first. It might say an ad account was lost or an ad was turned down. See details opens Alerts. See "Rejected ads and alerts".
#The four big cards
| Card | What it is |
|---|---|
| ROAS | Your store's revenue divided by your ad spend. Every store order over every ad dollar. It needs your store connected; otherwise it says "connect your store to see ROAS from your own orders". |
| Revenue | Every order your store took. Without a store, it shows Meta's own revenue figure instead. |
| Total spend | What your ad accounts spent. |
| Purchases | Orders from your store, or Meta's purchases without a store. |
Each card shows the change against the period before it, a small chart, the line "from" with the earlier figure, and a Daily average. When your store is connected, ROAS, Revenue and Purchases also split into New customers and Repeat customers.
Your store's figures and Meta's figures are shown side by side and never blended. Meta counts only what its pixel saw, so the two differ.
#The strip of smaller figures
Under the cards, two rows of figures with a short note under each:
- Fleet counts: Active ad accounts, Accounts lost, Ads disapproved, Pages hit, Live campaigns and Payment issues.
- Meta's cost figures: CPM and Cost per purchase. Clicks, impressions and click rate sit in the funnel and in the tables below.
"Accounts lost" counts ad accounts that stopped being usable inside the window. "Ads disapproved" counts ads Meta refused. Hover a figure to see its note.
#Channel breakdown
One row per platform: Share of spend, Spend, Revenue, ROAS and Click rate. Platforms you have not connected are greyed out. Connected ones say Connected.
#Conversion funnel and Metrics trend
The funnel runs from impressions to clicks to purchases, with Reach shown beside it. Reach is added up day by day, so somebody who saw your ads on two days counts twice. Meta does not count reach by the hour, so the last-hour window shows none. The trend chart plots the metrics over the window.
#The tabs
Below, one table with five tabs:
- By account. One row per ad account with its Status, Spend, Revenue, ROAS, Purchases, Cost / purchase, Impressions, Reach, Clicks and Click rate. Press an account name to open its page. See "Read your ad account's status".
- By campaign. The same figures for each campaign, with its Status.
- By ad. Each ad with its numbers.
- By pattern. Ads grouped by pattern, with spend, purchases and the Best ad. It says "Numbers per ad arrive after the next hourly read" until the first read is done.
- Fleet. One row per ad account with its Status, Why, Pages, Last launch, Spend, ROAS and Card. Why says what is wrong with an account that is not running, and Card shows the card on file or the payment problem.
Export CSV sits beside the tabs.
#How fresh the numbers are
We read your accounts on a schedule: ad account status and cards about every 5 minutes, today's spend about every 15 minutes, and campaigns, ads, review results and the last 7 days of results every hour. Spend and ROAS lag by hours at Meta, and the last few days move as Meta settles the figures. Sync now reads everything at once.
#If it didn't work
- Every figure is a dash. The first read can take a few minutes on a big fleet. The page says "Reading your account now." and fills in as it goes.
- ROAS is empty. Connect your store. Without one we cannot see your orders.
- A figure differs from Ads Manager. Meta settles its own figures for days, and reach is added up day by day. Press Sync now, then compare again.
- An ad account is missing. It is outside a slot, or filtered out of the account picker.
- A banner says Advertising is not on this account yet. You can look at everything. Start the trial to switch it on. See "What Advertising costs and the free trial".