Total reach for a Facebook ad may be less than the sum of the reach from the four Facebook platforms

Since reach represents the number of unique people who saw your ad, it is known as a “de-duplicated” metric, meaning Facebook removes instances of the same person seeing the ad multiple times for the ad as a whole, but not for each individual platform.

Consider the following scenario. You run an ad that reaches 100 unique people. Of those 100 people, 25 of them saw the ad on all four of Facebook’s platforms (Facebook, Messenger, Audience Network, and Instagram) and 75 only saw the ad on Facebook.

Facebook would say that the ad itself reached 100 unique people, because it would remove the 25 instances of one person seeing the ad in multiple places. However, when breaking down the data to view reach for each individual platform, Facebook includes each unique person who saw the ad on that platform.

Example: 

• Total Reach for the Ad, Across all Four Placements: 100
• Total Reach for Facebook: 100
• Total Reach for Instagram: 25
• Total Reach for Messenger: 25
• Total Reach for Audience Network: 25

This ad, as a whole, reached 27 unique people. Any instance of a single person seeing the ad in multiple places has been removed from the total. However, when viewing the breakdown of each individual platform, Facebook counts the unique people who saw the ad on that platform.

Still have questions? Contact Support@TrackMaven.com.