DocsCreative Lab
How do I see which images, videos, headlines and ad copies work best?
The Creative Breakdown tab ranks each image, video, text, button and audience across all the ads that use it.
Open a list
- In Creative Lab, click the Creative Breakdown tab.
- Under the line Find your winning creative elements. Same video/image across multiple ads? We combine their stats to show true performance., click the list you want, for example Videos or Headlines.
- A line with an info icon under the lists says what the open list shows.
Only the lists that have something in your dates appear, in this order:
| List | Line under the lists | What each card is |
|---|---|---|
| Images | Your top-performing static images ranked by performance | One image used in your ads. |
| Videos | Your top-performing videos with hook rate and engagement metrics | One video used in your ads. |
| Audiences | Custom audiences ranked by ROI and conversion rate | One custom audience your ad sets target. Lookalike audiences are left out. |
| Interests | See which interest targeting drives the best results | One part of your detailed targeting, such as a group of interests, as Meta describes it. |
| Targeting | Audience targeting that performs best for your ads | One line of your ad set targeting as Meta describes it, such as a location, an age range or an audience. |
| Ad Copies | Primary text that converts - ranked by performance | One primary text. |
| Headlines | Top headlines that grab attention and drive clicks | One headline. |
| CTA Buttons | Which call-to-action buttons drive the most conversions | One button type, written the way Meta stores it, in capital letters with underscores, not the words people see on the button. |
- Lookalike audiences, meaning custom audiences with Lookalike in their name, have a list of their own right after Audiences.
- Ad descriptions get no list of their own, and age ranges only show in Targeting.
- The tab opens on Images. When your ads have no images in your dates, it shows No data available for this category until you click another list.
- When none of the lists has anything, the tab only shows the line at the top.
Sort a list
- Open Sort by above the cards.
- Pick True ROAS (best performers), True Sales (highest revenue), True Orders (most conversions), Spend (highest first), Meta ROAS, CTR (most engaging), CPC (lowest cost) or Impressions (most reach).
- Every choice puts the highest number first, except CPC (lowest cost), which puts the lowest first.
- The lists start sorted by True ROAS (best performers). Your choice applies to every list and stays while you are on the page, even when you change the dates.
- Next to Sort by, a count shows how many cards the list has, for example 12 videos, 8 images or 5 items.
Read a card
- The rank in your sort. Number 1 has a gold badge with a trophy and a gold edge, and numbers 2 and 3 have a silver and a bronze badge and edge.
- The image, or the video's thumbnail with a video label on it. Lists of texts and audiences show the text itself, cut after 4 lines. Under a text longer than 120 characters, Read full text opens Full Ad Text with the whole text. No text available means the item has no text.
- A tag with the kind of item: Video, Image, Ad Copy, Headline, CTA Button, Interest or Audience. Cards on Targeting and on the lookalike list are tagged Creative.
- Preview Ad opens Meta's preview of one of the ads that use the item, as described in What is Creative Lab and what can I do there?. On video cards, Analyze Hook checks the video's opening seconds. See How do I check the hook of one of my video ads?.
- ROAS, Sales and Orders show two figures each. The TrueROAS figure is in green with the TrueROAS icon, and only shows when it is above 0. The figure Meta reports has the Meta icon. A dash means 0 or nothing to show.
- Under them come Hook Rate on video cards, then Spend, Impressions, CTR and CPC. Show all metrics adds Clicks and Assists, and Show less metrics hides them again.
- Numbers are rounded to at most 2 decimals, with your store's currency sign on Sales, Spend and CPC, an x after ROAS and a % after CTR and Hook Rate.
- Hook Rate is red below 5%, green from 15% and dark green from 30%.
Hover over a box to read what it means:
| Box | Text when you hover over it |
|---|---|
| ROAS | Return on Ad Spend - Compare your actual ROAS (TrueROAS) with Meta's reported ROAS |
| Sales | Total revenue - Compare actual tracked revenue (TrueROAS) with Meta's reported value |
| Orders | Number of purchases - Compare actual tracked orders (TrueROAS) with Meta's reported purchases |
| Hook Rate | Hook Rate - % of viewers who watched more than 3 seconds. Higher means your video grabs attention quickly. |
| Spend | Total amount spent on ads using this creative element |
| Impressions | Number of times the ad was displayed to users |
| CTR | Click-Through Rate - Percentage of impressions that resulted in clicks |
| CPC | Cost Per Click - Average cost for each click on your ad |
| Clicks | Total number of clicks on your ad |
| Assists | Assisted conversions - Orders where this creative was in the customer journey but wasn't the converting ad |
How the numbers are worked out
Attribution is how TrueROAS decides which ad gets the credit for a sale. The TrueROAS sales and orders on a card are the ones credited to its ads with your store's attribution model and window. See How do I change the attribution model and attribution window?.
- A card adds up every ad that uses the item during your dates, and counts each ad once.
- One ad can count on several cards of the same list. An ad with several images, texts, headlines or buttons, such as an ad with several text options, counts in full on each of them. So adding up the cards of a list can give more spend and sales than you really had.
- The same goes for Audiences, Interests and Targeting. An ad counts in full for every audience and every targeting line of its ad set.
- Items are matched on the exact same image, the same video thumbnail or the exact same text, ignoring spaces at the start and the end. The same video can show up on two cards when its ads have different thumbnails.
- Spend, Impressions, Sales, Orders, Clicks and Assists are added up across the ads.
- The TrueROAS ROAS is the added-up TrueROAS sales divided by the added-up spend. Hook Rate is the added-up 3-second video views divided by the added-up impressions.
- The Meta ROAS, CTR and CPC are the plain average of each ad's own figure, so a small ad counts as much as a big one.
- CTR and CPC are based on link clicks, while Clicks counts every click Meta reports.
- Assists counts orders where an ad with this item was part of the customer's path to the purchase, but another ad got the credit for the sale.
Good to know
- Opening a list and sorting only change what you see, for your own screen. Your sort is gone when you reload the page or leave Creative Lab.
- On a phone, the lists move to a white bar at the bottom of the screen. Each list takes at least half of the bar, so swipe the bar or use its arrows to reach the others. The feedback button in the corner moves up to make room.
- These numbers are worked out differently from the Ad Performance table, where CTR and CPC come from the totals, Clicks means link clicks and ads are grouped by the video or image they show. See What do the numbers on the Ad Performance tab mean?.
- Like the rest of Creative Lab, the lists only cover Meta ads.
- You cannot export a list, search it or see all the ads behind a card. Preview Ad shows one of them.
- For AI tips on one creative, see How do I get AI suggestions for one creative?.