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Meta Ads Usage Examples

This section collects practical recipes for configuring reports and extracting data through the Meta Ads connector.

Recipe 1: Daily Spend and Performance Report

Goal: get a daily summary across all campaigns for the last 7 days with key metrics.

Request parameters:

  • level: campaign
  • date_preset: last_7d
  • fields: campaign_name, spend, impressions, clicks, ctr, cpc, cpm, reach, frequency

Result:

campaign_namespendimpressionsclicksctrcpcreach
Summer Sale 20261 250.0045 0001 2002.67%1.0432 000
Brand Awareness800.00120 0008000.67%1.0095 000
Retargeting Cart450.0012 0006005.00%0.758 500

Analysis: the Retargeting Cart campaign shows the best CTR (5%) but the smallest reach. Brand Awareness has the largest reach with a low CTR, which matches the campaign's objective.

What could be improved: add a daily breakdown to analyze trends, add a filter to exclude paused campaigns.

Recipe 2: Conversion Analysis by Ad Set

Goal: evaluate ad set performance by conversions and ROAS over the last 30 days.

Request parameters:

  • level: adset
  • date_preset: last_30d
  • fields: adset_name, campaign_name, spend, purchases, purchase_value, purchase_roas, cost_per_result
  • filtering: spend > 10 (exclude ad sets with minimal spend)
  • action_attribution_windows: 7d_click, 1d_view

Result:

adset_namespendpurchasespurchase_valuepurchase_roascost_per_result
Lookalike 3%5 000.0012018 000.003.6041.67
Interests - Sport3 200.00456 750.002.1171.11
Retargeting 30d1 800.00659 750.005.4227.69

Analysis: Retargeting shows the best ROAS (5.42), but a smaller sales volume. Lookalike delivers more sales in absolute terms with a ROAS of 3.6.

What could be improved: add a breakdown by platform (publisher_platform) to compare Facebook vs Instagram performance.

Recipe 3: Detailed Ad Report with Creatives

Goal: get a list of ads with creatives and metrics for a manual audit.

Request parameters:

  • level: ad
  • date_preset: last_30d
  • fields: ad_name, adset_name, campaign_name, thumbnail_url, body, link, media_type, spend, impressions, clicks, ctr, video_plays
  • filtering: media_type = video (video ads only)

Result:

ad_namethumbnail_urlmedia_typespendimpressionsclicksctrvideo_plays
Product Demo 30shttps://...video750.0022 0005502.50%18 000
Customer Storyhttps://...video620.0018 0003802.11%14 500
UGC Reviewhttps://...video340.0010 0002902.90%8 200

Analysis: UGC Review shows the best CTR among the videos, but a smaller reach. Product Demo has more views, but a slightly worse CTR.

What could be improved: add an age + gender breakdown to understand which audience responds best to each creative.

Recipe 4: Cross-Campaign Platform Comparison

Goal: compare placement performance on Facebook and Instagram.

Request parameters:

  • level: campaign
  • date_preset: last_30d
  • fields: campaign_name, spend, impressions, clicks, ctr, cpc, results, cost_per_result
  • breakdowns: publisher_platform

Result:

campaign_namepublisher_platformspendimpressionsctrcpc
Summer Salefacebook800.0030 0002.10%1.27
Summer Saleinstagram450.0015 0003.50%0.86
Brandfacebook500.0080 0000.50%1.25
Brandinstagram300.0040 0000.80%0.94

Analysis: Instagram shows a better CTR and lower CPC compared to Facebook within the same campaigns. It may be worth reallocating budget toward Instagram.

General Recommendations

  1. Start at the aggregated level (campaign), then drill down to adset and ad
  2. Filter out inactive entities: impressions > 0 or spend > 0
  3. Compare periods of equal length: week-over-week, month-over-month
  4. Account for conversion delay: data for the last 1-2 days may be incomplete
  5. Use breakdowns sparingly: each additional breakdown increases the volume of data

Maintained by the LightLead Documentation Team · Last verified: 2026-07-25