Measuring Facebook adverts: which enquiries turn into orders?

Receiving lots of enquiries from Facebook is great, but they don’t tell you much about your turnover. With Facebook ad analytics, you can therefore look beyond the completed form: which enquiry turned into a quote, and which quote ultimately turned into a contract?

This gives a more accurate picture of your adverts. A campaign with fewer enquiries can yield a higher return on investment than one that mainly attracts non-binding price enquiries.

Why aren’t enquiries a good measure of your adverts’ success?

Advertising platforms mainly track what happens immediately after a click. Someone clicks on your advert, fills in a form and is counted as a conversion. But that’s only the start of your actual sales process: making a call, taking measurements, preparing a quote, following up and, ultimately, securing or missing out on a deal.

If you only look at enquiries, it’s easy to draw the wrong conclusion. The cheapest enquiry isn’t always the best one. A customer who wants a comprehensive project might require more attention and cost more per lead, but could turn into a valuable contract.

To get a meaningful measurement, you therefore need to be able to track this chain:

• the ad click and campaign from which the visitor came;
• the enquiry that results from this;
• the quotation and the amount you quote;
• the status of that quotation or opportunity;
• the contract won and the order value.

Only then can you determine which adverts are bringing in customers. Clicks and enquiries are intermediate steps, not the end result.

What data do you need to measure Facebook adverts?

The basic principle is that a visitor’s source is recorded as soon as they arrive on your website via Facebook or Instagram. That source must then remain linked to the enquiry, even if someone doesn’t leave their details straight away but returns later.

When a visitor submits an enquiry, you’ll want to see, at the very least, which source and campaign that lead came from. In ‘Klantly’, that information is passed on to the CRM and remains linked to the contact. This ensures the link between your marketing and your customer isn’t lost as soon as you start working on a quotation.

It is then important that your sales process is also tracked. For example, a quotation can be assigned the status ‘sent’, ‘viewed’ or ‘accepted’. If a deal is marked as ‘won’, you can link the result to the original ad click.

A pipeline helps to keep these intermediate steps visible. In the article ‘What is a pipeline and when do you need one?’, you can read about how to track ongoing opportunities by stage.

How do you measure adverts by turnover rather than just by leads?

Measuring adverts by turnover means you don’t stop at the enquiry stage. You also track which leads resulted in an order or a won project, including the amount. Facebook and Instagram can then learn not only which adverts generate forms, but also which adverts contribute to actual turnover.

This only works if you properly record the outcome of each process. A job you win verbally but never mark as ‘won’ cannot be counted towards your advertising results. The same applies to quotations that are issued but whose status isn’t updated.

For example: a conservatory company runs two campaigns. Campaign A generates twenty enquiries. Many people are primarily looking for a low guide price, and only one enquiry turns into a contract. Campaign B generates eight enquiries, but several of those people request a full quotation and two contracts are secured.

If you look only at the number of leads, Campaign A appears to be the winner. If you look at the jobs secured and their value, Campaign B may be far more valuable. That is precisely why Meta tracking of conversions must go beyond the moment a form is submitted.

With ‘Klantly’, you can report won jobs – including the order value and original source – back to Facebook and Google. This ensures the entire journey remains visible: from the ad click to the won job.

Why might the number of measured leads drop after proper set-up?

A lower number of conversions in your ad account might sound like bad news. However, it could actually mean that your tracking is more accurate.

With Facebook and Instagram adverts, enquiries are sometimes counted twice. This can happen, for example, because the same action is recorded using different tracking methods. Privacy settings and ad blockers can also mean that some enquiries are not properly tracked.

A well-structured setup aims to eliminate double-counting and links each lead to the correct advert just once. As a result, the number of leads recorded may be lower than you’re used to. This isn’t a loss of leads, but a more accurate picture of what actually happened.

You should therefore not judge your adverts solely on the figures in Meta. You should also compare them with what actually comes into your own customer management system and how many of those result in a quotation or an order. The Meta Ads integration helps you link that measurement to your own sales data.

Which figures do you look at each month?

You don’t need to maintain a comprehensive dashboard. For most SMEs, a few standard questions are enough. For each campaign or advert, look at the number of enquiries, the value of quotes issued, and the number or value of jobs secured.

Also pay attention to the ratio between these stages. A campaign with lots of enquiries but hardly any quotations can create false expectations. A campaign with few leads but many accepted quotations, on the other hand, deserves attention.

Don’t draw firm conclusions from a single lead or a single week. A customer’s source is an indication, not absolute proof. Someone might first see an advert, then search for your company name later, and only then submit an enquiry. You should therefore look at a longer period and identify patterns, rather than isolated outliers.

If you’re running Instagram adverts alongside your Facebook campaigns, the same approach applies. Both fall under ‘Meta’, but you still want to know which campaign and which advert ultimately generate enquiries and orders.

Effective ad tracking doesn’t replace your sales efforts. However, it does ensure you can assess your budget based on what matters: not how many people clicked, but which enquiries turned into customers. Would you like to find out how Klantly can support this for your business? Get started for free.