The 2025 Ad Metrics Playbook:
A marketer's guide to what ad metrics to track
Top performance marketers aren’t just tracking ad metrics. They’re mastering them. This guide distills the measurement strategies used by high-growth brands to sharpen creative, streamline spend, and outperform their competition. If you want to know what metrics the best in the business are watching, you’re in the right place.
In today’s digital jungle, data is your compass. Tracking the right ad metrics lets you navigate the chaos, spot opportunities, and avoid budget burn. Whether you're running a high-stakes programmatic blitz or testing creative in social ads, understanding your performance marketing metrics gives you the power to pivot, grow, and win.
In this guide, we're breaking down the seven core categories of digital advertising KPIs, explaining what each one means, why it matters, and how to use them together like a pro.
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It doesn’t matter how good your ad is if it's not being delivered.
Ad Delivery metrics measure how and where your ads are being served.
Ad Delivery metrics tell you if your campaigns are being executed as planned or falling flat. Monitoring delivery helps ensure that your ads are showing up where they should, to the audiences that matter. They also help identify issues with inventory, pacing, or budget allocation before they snowball into major problems.
Learn more about which Ad Delivery metrics you should be following...
Just because an ad was served doesn’t mean it was seen.
Ad Viewability metrics track whether your ad was actually viewable by a human according to industry standards (usually 50% of pixels in view for at least 1 second).
Ad Viewability is essential for brand awareness and upper-funnel impact. Low viewability? You’re paying for ghosts. These metrics help you cut wasted impressions and optimize for placements that actually deliver attention. They also factor into how platforms charge you, especially with viewability-based buying.
Learn more about the best Ad Viewability metrics you should be following...
Clicks are just the tip of the iceberg. Engagement is what lies beneath.
Ad Engagement metrics show how users interact with your ad. Not just that they saw it, but what they did with it.
Ad Engagement means attention. Attention means interest. And interest is the path to conversion...
Learn more about the top Ad Engagement metrics you should be following...
Interactive ads can be immersive, but only if people engage.
Ad Expansion metrics measure user interactions with expandable or rich media ad formats.
If users are expanding or interacting with panels, that’s a signal of deep interest...
Learn more about the Ad Expansion metrics and why they matter
Video ads are storytelling in motion. But are your stories actually being heard?
Video Ad metrics track how much of your video people watch and how they engage with it.
Video production isn't cheap. Video Ad metrics help you maximize every second of screen time...
Learn more about the top 10 Video Ad metrics you should be following...
Let’s be honest: conversions are the holy grail. If your ads aren’t turning eyeballs into action, what’s the point?
Ad Conversion metrics tell you if people are actually doing what you want them to do - buying, signing up, downloading, or whatever your goal may be.
Ad Conversion metrics are the truest indicators of campaign success and the closest numbers to revenue...
Learn more about the Key Ad Conversion metrics you should be following...
It’s easy to pour money into ads. It’s harder to make sure that money’s doing something useful.
Cost metrics track how much you're shelling out to make things happen.
Ad Cost metrics tell you if your campaigns are cost-effective or draining your budget without returns...
Learn more about the Key Ad Cost metrics you should be following...
Ad metrics are powerful on their own, but when used together, they become transformational. Marketing campaigns aren’t one-dimensional, and your measurement strategy shouldn’t be either. Instead of evaluating performance in isolation, successful marketers combine metrics across categories to get a fuller, more nuanced view of what's really working, and where to pivot.
When you use ad metrics in tandem, they tell a connected story: from whether an ad was actually seen, to how a user engaged with it, to whether that interaction led to a meaningful conversion.
This chapter explores two strategic frameworks for doing just that: the traditional funnel and the modern flywheel.
The funnel is a tried-and-true framework for visualizing the customer journey from awareness to conversion. Each stage of the funnel has different objectives, and different metrics that matter most.
These metrics show if you're getting in front of the right audience. High impressions and strong viewability indicate your message has the opportunity to make an impact.
This is where you measure how users are reacting to your creative. Are they swiping, pausing, expanding, or rewatching? This is where interest is cultivated.
Here's where it all pays off — literally. Are people taking action? And are you paying a reasonable amount to make it happen?
This structured approach is perfect for identifying where performance is lagging in the user journey, and for aligning campaigns with specific objectives at each stage.
While the funnel is great for visualizing the journey from awareness to conversion, it assumes a linear path, and today’s customer journeys are anything but linear. So, instead of thinking in terms of a beginning, middle, and end, a flywheel shows how different elements of your campaign continuously feed and support each other.
In this model, each ad metric category plays a role in generating momentum. When optimized, they create a cycle of performance that builds on itself.
Here’s how to map your ad metrics to the flywheel approach:
When viewed through the flywheel lens, ad metrics become less about checkpoints and more about power sources. The goal is to keep spinning faster, smoother, and smarter with every cycle.
Whether you're a funnel traditionalist or a flywheel futurist, the principle remains the same: apply the right metric groups at the right moments. Use your data to build momentum, eliminate weak points, and continuously improve. Great campaigns are built on great measurement, and great measurement starts with knowing how to connect the dots.
Not all ad metrics are created equal, and not all of them should be read the same way. That’s where contextual properties like region, device type, audience, and time come into play. These fields give your metrics the depth they need to become actionable.
A 3% click-through rate might look great at a glance, but if it’s 5% on mobile and 1% on desktop, that insight can guide creative formatting or platform strategy. Similarly, if your ROAS is strong in North America but weak in APAC, that’s an opportunity to shift budget or test regionalized messaging. Without context, you could be optimizing based on averages that hide valuable (or costly) outliers.
These properties don’t change what your metrics mean, but they do change how you interpret and act on them. Think of dimensions as layers of context. Each one adds a sharper level of insight. Instead of saying “this ad performed well,” you can say, “this ad performed well with 18–24 year-olds on Instagram Stories in the Northeast during evening hours.”
That’s the kind of detail that drives meaningful optimization. By applying these filters, marketers can:
If the smartest teams are making faster, more confident decisions, it's because they’re moving past static dashboards. Don’t get left behind. Conversational AI is quickly becoming the competitive edge for data-driven teams.
Ad metrics become even more powerful when you remove the friction from how they’re accessed and explored. While dashboards have long been the standard for reporting, they often rely on static views, manual updates, and technical gatekeepers. That’s changing.
Thanks to advances in conversational AI, teams can now interact with their data in a more natural, intuitive way, through simple questions and answers. Imagine asking your data, “What was our ROAS in Germany last quarter?” or “Which campaign had the highest CTR among 25–34-year-olds last week?” - and getting an instant, visualized response.
This shift turns ad metrics into something dynamic and collaborative. Instead of waiting for a report or navigating layers of dashboards, marketers, analysts, and stakeholders can have a real-time dialogue with their data. This means faster insights, more timely decisions, and greater confidence in day-to-day execution.
When paired with the measurement strategies in this guide, whether you’re tracking funnel stages, flywheel momentum, or regional engagement, conversational AI acts as the bridge that makes those insights truly accessible. No coding. No BI tools. Just natural questions and actionable answers.
By moving beyond traditional dashboards, you open the door to:
The future of ad metrics isn’t just about collecting more data, it’s about empowering more people to use it.
We’ve come a long way in how we use ad metrics. When they’re organized, put in context, and easy to access, they don’t just inform decisions, they drive them.
Throughout this guide, we've shown how core categories like conversion, cost, and engagement metrics can be layered across funnel stages or flywheel cycles. We've highlighted how dimensions like geography, device, and audience turn averages into insights. And we’ve introduced a new way of working with data - one where conversational AI replaces complexity with clarity, opening up access for every team.
Whether you're optimizing for brand awareness, driving conversions, or planning your next campaign, the key is simple: use the right metrics at the right moment, in the right context.
Your next best insight is likely already in your data. Make sure everyone can find it, understand it, and act on it.