What Are Ads Manager Breakdowns in Meta Ads?

A campaign total tells you what happened overall. A breakdown cuts that total into pieces, for example by age group, by placement or by day, so you can see which piece is doing the work. Meta also says statistical modeling may be used in breakdowns when conversion data is missing or partial, so a sliced number may not be a straight count.

What breakdown groups are there?

In Ads Manager, Meta sorts breakdowns into three groups:

Group	What it splits by	Examples Meta lists
By delivery	Who saw the ad and where	Age, gender, country, placement, platform, impression device, time of day
By action	What people did as a result	Conversion device, carousel card, video view type, video sound
By time	When it happened	Day, week, 2 weeks, month

Ads Reporting adds a “by object” group that shows creative results by ad, and its own labels such as level, demographics and geography.

How do you open a breakdown?

1. Select the campaign, ad set or ad you want to view.
2. Click Breakdown.
3. Choose By delivery, By action or By time, then pick a breakdown.

Which breakdowns work for website conversions?

Fewer. For offsite conversions, Meta supports these delivery breakdowns in Ads Manager: age, gender, age and gender, country, impression device, platform, platform and device, and placement. Ads Reporting adds audience segments to that list. Meta also says that when you break down conversions, any conversions it can’t attribute to a slice appear as “uncategorized”.

Can you combine two breakdowns?

In Ads Reporting, yes, but not two from the same category. Meta’s example is age (under delivery) with day (under time) to see which age group responded and when. For offsite conversions, you can only combine the supported delivery breakdowns with time breakdowns or dynamic creative asset.

How does the hourly breakdown work?

Under By delivery you can choose time of day in the ad account’s time zone or in the viewer’s time zone. Meta sets these rules:

• General metrics such as results, cost per result and amount spent are available.
• Unique metrics, such as reach and unique CTR, are not.
• You can combine it with day, week, 2-week or month breakdowns.
• You can’t combine it with other delivery breakdowns such as age, gender or location, or with action breakdowns.
• There is no hourly data for impressions before 1 May 2015.

What does location mean in a geography breakdown?

Meta says geographic breakdowns reflect where people live or where they were when they saw your ad, depending on how you set your location targeting. You can show results by country, region or Comscore market, which Meta describes as marketing regions in the US.

FAQ

Why do some breakdown conversions show as uncategorized?

Meta says that when you use breakdowns for conversions, any conversion it isn’t able to attribute shows up as uncategorized. It also says statistical modeling may be used in breakdowns to give a more complete measurement when conversion data may be missing or partial, so sliced conversion numbers can be estimates rather than exact counts.

Can I see reach by hour of day?

No. Meta lists reach, unique CTR and cost per 1,000 Meta accounts reached among the unique metrics that are unavailable with the hourly breakdown. General metrics such as results, cost per result and amount spent are still available by hour, and you can export the hourly report.

What does media type mean as a breakdown?

It is a delivery breakdown that splits your results by the type of media in the ad: image, video, or both image and video. Meta lists it in Ads Reporting’s delivery breakdowns, alongside placement, platform and the time-of-day options.