How to See ROAS on Facebook Ads

Seeing your Return On Ad Spend in Facebook Ads Manager is a straightforward process, but getting an accurate number depends on having your tracking set up correctly from the start. This guide will walk you through everything, from the essential setup to finding and analyzing the metric so you can understand what's actually working. We'll show you exactly how to find the numbers you need and what to do with them.

What Exactly is ROAS (and How Is It Different from ROI)?

Before you start digging through your metrics, it's important to understand what ROAS actually measures. Return On Ad Spend is a simple, direct metric that tells you how much revenue you've generated for every dollar spent on advertising.

The formula is simple:

Total Revenue from Ads ÷ Total Ad Spend = ROAS

For example, if you spend $100 on a Facebook ad campaign and it generates $500 in sales, your ROAS is 5x (or 500%). For every dollar you put in, you got five dollars back. It's one of the cleanest ways to measure the direct profitability of an ad campaign.

ROAS vs. ROI: What's the Difference?

People often use ROAS and ROI (Return on Investment) interchangeably, but they measure different things. While ROAS looks only at the revenue generated from a specific ad campaign against its cost, ROI takes a much broader view of profitability.

• ROAS focuses solely on your ad spend. It answers the question: "Is this ad campaign generating more money than it costs to run?"
• ROI accounts for all your other business costs. This includes the cost of goods sold (COGS), shipping, software, your team's salaries, and any other overhead expenses. It answers the bigger question: "Is this entire marketing effort profitable for the business as a whole?"

Think of it this way: you could have a high ROAS of 6x, which looks amazing on paper. But if your product margins are very thin after accounting for all your costs, your overall ROI could still be negative. Both metrics are important, but when you're optimizing your ads inside Facebook Ads Manager, ROAS is your primary guidepost.

The Essential First Step: Setting Up Your Meta Pixel and Purchase Events

You can't see your ROAS if you don't tell Facebook how much money your ads are making. This is the single most common reason why advertisers can't find or trust the ROAS numbers in their dashboard. Without proper tracking, Facebook is just guessing.

To fix this, you need two things configured correctly:

1. The Meta Pixel (formerly Facebook Pixel)
2. Standard Events with dynamic values

1. Install the Meta Pixel on Your Website

The Meta Pixel is a small snippet of code that you place on your website. It acts as a bridge between your site and Facebook, collecting data that allows you to track conversions, optimize ads, and build targeted audiences. If you're using a platform like Shopify, Wix, or BigCommerce, there are built-in integrations that make installing the pixel incredibly simple - often just by copying and pasting your Pixel ID into a field.

If you have a custom-built website, you'll need to manually add the pixel code to the header of every page. You can find the code and a full set of instructions in your Facebook Events Manager.

2. Set Up the "Purchase" Standard Event with Dynamic Values

Once the pixel is installed, you need to tell it what actions to track. For e-commerce, the most important one is the Purchase event. This event needs to fire every time a customer successfully completes a checkout.

But just firing the event isn't enough to calculate ROAS. You must also pass back two critical pieces of information with that event:

• `value`: The total price of the order.
• `currency`: The currency of the transaction (e.g., USD, CAD, EUR).

This is what "dynamic values" means. The values change with every order. If someone buys one t-shirt for $25, the pixel sends `$25`. If the next person buys three hoodies for $150, it sends `$150`. If you don't send this dynamic data, Facebook knows a purchase happened, but it doesn't know the revenue generated, making it impossible to calculate your ROAS.

Again, most e-commerce platforms handle this for you automatically once the pixel is integrated. However, if you're not seeing accurate purchase values in your Events Manager, this is the first place you should troubleshoot.

How to See ROAS in Facebook Ads Manager: A Step-by-Step Guide

Once your tracking is squared away, finding your ROAS is just a matter of customizing the columns in your dashboard. Here's exactly how to do it.

Step 1: Navigate to Your Ads Manager

Log in to your Facebook Business account and go to the Ads Manager.

Step 2: Choose Your View (Campaigns, Ad Sets, or Ads)

The columns are available at every level of your campaigns. Looking at the Campaigns tab gives you a high-level overview. Viewing the Ad Sets tab helps you see which audiences or placements are performing best, and the Ads tab lets you analyze individual creatives.

Step 3: Click the "Columns" Dropdown Menu

On the right side of the screen, just above your performance stats, you'll see a dropdown button labeled "Columns." Click it.

Step 4: Select "Customize Columns"

A default list will appear ("Performance," "Engagement," etc.). Ignore those for now and click on "Customize Columns..." at the bottom of the list. This is where you can build the perfect dashboard for your needs.

Step 5: Search for and Add the ROAS Metric

A pop-up window will appear with dozens of available metrics. In the search bar on the left, simply type "ROAS." You'll see several options appear.

For most e-commerce stores, the most important one is Website Purchase ROAS. Check the box next to it. As you check metrics, they will be added to a list on the right-hand column which represents what you'll see in your dashboard.

Step 6: Drag and Drop to Organize Your View

You can drag the "Website Purchase ROAS" metric up or down in the right-hand column to place it wherever you want. A good practice is to place it next to "Amount Spent" and "Purchase Conversion Value" so you can easily compare your cost, revenue, and return.

Step 7: Click "Apply" and Save Your Column Preset

Click the blue "Apply" button in the bottom right corner. Your dashboard will now show the ROAS column.

To save yourself from repeating this process every time, click the "Columns" dropdown again and choose "Set as Default." Or, for even more flexibility, click "Save" and give your new column set a name, like "Main KPI View" or "Ecom ROAS View." Now you can toggle to this preset any time with one click.

Building a More Powerful ROAS View

Just looking at ROAS in isolation doesn't give you the full story. To get deeper insights, add these metrics to your custom column preset and view them alongside your ROAS:

• Amount Spent: The foundation of your ROAS calculation. You need to see how much you're investing.
• Website Purchases: The total number of individual sales. Is your campaign driving a high volume of small sales or a few large ones?
• Website Purchase Conversion Value: The total revenue. This is the other side of the ROAS equation.
• Cost per Website Purchase: How much are you paying on average to acquire one customer?
• Frequency: How many times, on average, has each person seen your ad? High frequency with low ROAS might mean you need to refresh your creative.
• Outbound Clicks / CTR (Link Click-Through Rate): Is your ad actually getting people to your website? If this is low, your creative or targeting might be the issue, not your landing page.

With these columns together, you get a complete narrative. An ad might have a great ROAS but a very high Cost per Purchase, indicating it's only converting customers on big-ticket items. Another might have a lower ROAS but an incredible Cost per Purchase, making it a great strategy for acquiring lots of new customers efficiently.

What Is a "Good" ROAS on Facebook?

This is the million-dollar question, and the honest answer is: it depends. A "good" ROAS is entirely relative to your business's financial health, particularly your profit margins.

Here are the key factors that determine what a good ROAS looks like for you:

1. Your Profit Margins

This is the single most important factor. If your business has a 75% profit margin on its products, a 2x ROAS means you are highly profitable. But if your margin is only 25%, you need at least a 4x ROAS just to break even.

You can calculate your break-even ROAS with this simple formula:

Break-Even ROAS = 1 / Your Profit Margin %

• If your profit margin is 50% (0.50), your break-even ROAS is 1 / 0.50 = 2x.
• If your profit margin is 20% (0.20), your break-even ROAS is 1 / 0.20 = 5x.

Any number above your break-even point is profit.

2. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Are you willing to lose a little money on the first sale to acquire a customer who will come back and buy again and again? Many subscription businesses or brands with high customer loyalty are happy with a break-even - or even slightly negative - ROAS on prospecting campaigns. They know that the initial loss will be recouped over the customer's lifetime.

If your business model depends on one-time purchases, your initial ROAS needs to be profitable from day one.

3. Your Campaign Goal (e.g., Prospecting vs. Retargeting)

You shouldn't expect the same ROAS from every campaign.

• Prospecting Campaigns (cold traffic): These ads target people who have never heard of you. ROAS here is often lower, as you're educating and building awareness. Achieving your break-even ROAS is a great start.
• Retargeting Campaigns (warm/hot traffic): These ads target people who already visited your site or added a product to their cart. ROAS here should be considerably higher, often in the 8x, 10x, or even 20x range.

As a general benchmark, many direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands aim for a blended ROAS of 4x or higher across all their campaigns, but it's essential to calculate your own specific targets before judging your performance.

Final Thoughts

Seeing your ROAS on Facebook Ads isn't difficult - it's just a matter of customizing columns. The real work lies in setting up accurate conversion tracking beforehand, as your data is only as good as the inputs you provide. Once configured, your ROAS becomes a powerful compass for navigating your ad performance and scaling what works.

Once you've honed your paid advertising by tracking ROAS, it's just as important to understand what's resonating with your audience on the organic side. That's where we've built our own tool, Postbase, to be a lifesaver. Analyzing our performance across all social platforms in one clean dashboard helps us spot the organic posts that truly connect, which gives us fantastic ideas for what we should be putting our ad dollars behind next.