The Ads Insights API
provides API access for reporting and analytics purposes.
When exclusively using the Ad Insights API, request the ads_read permission.
1. Marketing API Quickstart
2. Example Query: Campaign Statistics
3. All References
# Next Steps
1. Marketing API Quickstart
To get started with the Marketing API, start by creating an app.
Once created, you can add Marketing API as a product and go through the Quickstart experience within your app dashboard.
Marketing API Quickstart simplifies using the Marketing API by generating sample code for you.
It is a step-by-step on-boarding flow that helps you use ad management and insights tools built on Facebook's Marketing API.
You can start getting insights from your Facebook Pixel or App Ads SDKs by clicking the Create Ad reports below.
#To get the statistics of a campaign's last 7 day performance run the following query: curl -G -d "date_preset=last_7_days" -d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>" "https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<AD_CAMPAIGN_ID>/insights"
To learn more about how to query statistics, see the ad insights edge documentation.
3. All References
The Ads Insights API has the following references that we strongly recommend to read:
Insights
This insights edge provides a single, consistent interface to retrieve an ad's statistics.
- Parameters - Parameters available on this endpoint.
- Fields - Options for in the
fieldsparameter for this endpoint. - Breakdowns - Group results from API calls
- Action Breakdowns - Understanding the response from action breakdowns.
- Async Jobs - For requests with large results, use asynchronous jobs
- Limits and Best Practices - Explains Insights API call limits, filtering and best practices.
- Metrics Names and API Fields - Metrics Names in Facebook Ads tools with corresponding API fields.
Making A Call
The Insights API is available as an edge on any ads object.
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#You can request specific fields with a comma-separated list in the fields parameters: curl -G -d "fields=impressions" -d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>" "https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<AD_OBJECT_ID>/insights"
Levels
Aggregate results at a defined object level. This automatically deduplicates data.
# get a campaign's insights on ad level. curl -G -d "level=ad" -d "fields=impressions,ad_id" -d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>" "https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<CAMPAIGN_ID>/insights"
If you don't access to all the ad objects at the requested level, the insights call returns no data.
For example, while requesting insights with level as ad, if you don't have access to one or more ad objects under the ad account, this api call will return a permission error.
Attribution Windows
The conversion attribution window provides timeframes that define when we attribute an event to an ad on Facebook.
For background information, see Facebook Ads Help Center, How Attribution Reporting Works.
We measure the actions that occur when a conversion event occurs and look back in time 1-day, 7-days, and 28 days.
To view actions attributed to different attribution windows, make a request to /{ad-account-id}/insights.
If you do not provide action_attribution_windows we use 28d_click and 1d_view and provide it under 'value'.
#For example specify action_attribution_windows and 'value' is fixed at 28d_click and 1d_view attribution windows. # Make a request to act_10151816772662695/insights?action_attribution_windows=['1d_click','1d_view']
Field Expansion
Request fields at the node level and by fields specified in field expansion:
curl -G
-d "fields=insights{impressions}"
-d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>"
"https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<AD_ID>"
Sorting
Sort results by providing the sort parameter with {fieldname}_descending or {fieldname}_ascending:
curl -G -d "sort=reach_descending" -d "level=ad" -d "fields=reach" -d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>" "https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<ADSET_ID>/insights"
Ads Labels
Stats for all labels whose names are identical.
Aggregated into a single value at an ad object level.
curl -G
-d "fields=id,name,insights{unique_clicks,cpm,total_actions}"
-d "level=ad"
-d 'filtering=[{"field":"ad.adlabels","operator":"ANY", "value":["Label Name"]}]'
-d 'time_range={"since":"2015-03-01","until":"2015-03-31"}'
-d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>"
"https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<AD_OBJECT_ID>/insights"
Clicks Definition
To better understand the three click metrics that Facebook offers today, please read the definitions and usage of each below:
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Link Clicks,
actions:link_click- The number of clicks on ad links to select destinations or experiences, on or off Facebook-owned properties. See Ads Help Center, Link Clicks -
Clicks (All),
clicks- The metric counts multiple types of clicks on your ad, including certain types of interactions with the ad container, links to other destinations, and links to expanded ad experiences. See Ads Help Center, Clicks(All)
Deleted and Archived Objects
Ad units may be DELETED or ARCHIVED.
The stats of deleted or archived objects appear when you query their parents.
This means if you query impressions at the ad set level, results include impressions from all ads in the set it, regardless of whether the the ads are in a deleted or archived state.
See also, Storing and Retrieving Ad Objects Best Practice.
However if you query at a certain level, such as level=ad, objects that have been archived or deleted do not appear.
As the result, the total stats of the parent node may be greater than the stats of its children.
By default, ARCHIVED objects are not included in the response of the insights edge, such as act_<AD_ACCOUNT_id>/insights?level=ad.
You can get the stats of ARCHIVED objects from their parent nodes though, by providing an extra filteringparameter.
#To get the stats of all ARCHIVED ads in an ad account listed one by one:
curl -G
-d "level=ad"
-d "filtering=[{'field':'ad.effective_status','operator':'IN','value':['ARCHIVED']}]"
-d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>"
"https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/insights/"
#You can query insights on deleted objects if you have their IDs or by using the ad.effective_status filter. For example, if you have the ad set ID:
curl -G
-d "fields=id,name,status,insights{impressions}"
-d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>"
"https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<ADSET_ID>"
#In this example, we query with ad.effective_status:
POST https://graph.facebook.com/<VERSION>/act_ID/insights?access_token=token&appsecret_proof=proof&fields=ad_id,impressions&date_preset=lifetime&level=ad&filtering=[{"field":"ad.effective_status","operator":"IN","value":["DELETED"]}]
Troubleshooting
Timeouts
The most common issues causing failure at this endpoint are too many requests and time outs:
- On
/GETor synchronous requests, you can get out-of-memory or timeout errors. - On
/POSTor asynchronous requests, you can possibly get timeout errors. For asynchronous requests, it can take up to an hour to complete a request including retry attempts. For example if you make a query that tries to fetch large volume of data for many ad level objects.
Recommendations
- There is no explicit limit for when a query will fail. When it times out, try to break down the query into smaller queries by putting in filters like date range.
- Unique metrics are time consuming to compute. Try to query unique metrics in a separate call to improve performance of non-unique metrics.
Rate Limiting
The Facebook Insights API utilizes rate limiting to ensure an optimal reporting experience for all of our partners. For more information and suggestions, see our Insights API Limits & Best Practices.