According to Facebook, advertisers solely interested in clicks aren’t tracking the right metric.

Brad Smallwood, Facebook Head of Measurement and Insights, stated today that impressions, reach, and frequency are more valuable than clicks.

Facebook and recently announced partner Datalogix tracked about 50 ad campaigns to determine whether they were driving in-store sales, and to find the common themes among those that worked.

Smallwood shared the results: 99 percent of sales came from members who saw an ad but didn’t interact with it. Additionally, campaigns optimized for reach were 70 percent more effective at driving ROI, and campaigns optimized for frequency had a 40 percent increase in ROI.

As TechCrunch pointed out, this is a small subset of advertisers on the social network. However, Smallwood cited a study previously conducted by Nielsen, which found no correlation between offline sales and clickthrough rates.

Facebook ads can be a challenge to navigate, especially for small businesses. Although there isn’t a secret recipe for success, the lessons shared above are worth keeping in mind when strategizing your next campaign.

[Via: TechCrunch, Image credit: The U.S. Army]