Compare ad performance between different time periods in Campaign Manager

Last updated: 3 months ago

You can use the compare feature on your reporting dashboard to view the percentage change between two timeframes for your key ad metrics, including total spend, impressions, and clicks. This can help you better understand your ad performance over time, measure the impact of a new strategy or ad set change, identify opportunities for further optimizations, and plan for future ad sets. 

Who can use this feature?

We are gradually making this feature available, and it may not be available for your ad campaign at this time.

To compare performance on your reporting dashboard between time periods: 

  1. Go to your ad account in Campaign Manager.

  2. Click Advertise on the left menu.

  3. Choose Campaigns, Ad sets, or Ads at the top. 

  4. Click the Columns dropdown menu to choose the metrics you want to compare, such as performance, engagement, or conversions and leads. 

  5. Click the Time range dropdown menu.  

    • You can choose a custom timeframe, or you can select time periods like last month, last quarter, or all time. 

  6. Click the Compare dropdown menu. 

    • You can choose a custom timeframe, or select previous period, last month, last quarter, or last year. 

  7. Click Update. From here, you can see a percentage difference on the reporting dashboard. 

    Reporting dashboard showing percentage change between comparison dates

  8. To see the actual numbers for both periods, the change, and the percentage change, click the percentage change number in each column.

    Pop-up box with actual comparison numbers

  9. To export your comparison report, click the Export button in the upper right. Confirm that you have a compare date range selected to export a comparison report.

  10. Select the Report Type and Column view. 

  11. For Time breakdown, select Ad Set Performance for all time. You can only download a report for the all time time period.

  12. Select the checkbox next to Compare vs selected previous period.

    Export CSV Report pop-up window

  13. Click Export. 

When looking at your percentage change, keep in mind: 

  • Percentage change over time = (value of the metric in the current time period – value of the metric in the previous time period) / (value of the metric in the previous time period).  

  • If your comparison value shows N/A, this could mean that both time periods have no data, your current time period has no data, or your previous time period’s data is 0. 

Here's a tip

There are a few metrics that are excluded from comparisons: total budget, daily budget, bid, start date, and end date. Comparisons are also excluded from breakout views and total rows.

Learn more 

Campaign metrics

Metrics available for your ad campaign include: