Facebook ads allow advertisers to reach targeted audiences and promote their products or services. As with any advertising platform, Facebook ads include options to edit and optimize campaigns over time. This raises the question – can advertisers see a change history for their Facebook ads?
The short answer
Yes, Facebook does provide advertisers with visibility into changes made to their ads over time. The Facebook Ads Manager interface includes options to view editing history and compare versions of ad creatives, audiences, placements and more.
Accessing Facebook ad change history
There are a few ways advertisers can access the change history for their Facebook ads:
- The Ads Manager Campaigns tab shows high level insights into recent changes for each campaign.
- The Ad Sets view shows changes made to the budget, schedule, targeting and placement.
- The Ads view shows history for changes made to the creative, link, text and other ad content.
Facebook also provides options to compare two versions of an ad side-by-side to understand exactly what was changed. Advertisers can select the “View Change History” button on an active or expired ad, and then select two dates to compare.
Types of changes shown
When accessing the change history for a Facebook ad, advertisers can see:
- Changes to the images, videos or other creative content used in the ad
- Changes to the ad text, headline, link description or call-to-action
- Updates to the landing page URL the ad directs visitors to
- Adjustments to the target audience, such as age, gender, interests and behaviors
- Changes to the ad placement – News Feed, Instagram feed, Stories, etc.
- Budget changes to increase/decrease daily or lifetime spending
- Adjustments to the campaign schedule and active run dates
Reviewing these changes can help advertisers understand the optimization path taken over time and what impact edits have made on ad performance.
Change history limitations
While Facebook does provide the ability to view ad change history, there are some limitations to be aware of:
- Changes are only shown at the campaign, ad set and ad level. Granular history for specific creative versions or individual audience updates is not available.
- For image ads, previous versions of the creative are not stored. Only the date of change is displayed.
- Change history may not include every minor adjustment, like small text edits or URL changes.
- The detailed comparison view only allows two dates to be compared at once.
Due to these constraints, advertisers should view Facebook’s change history as a helpful but incomplete record of adjustments.
Why review Facebook ad change history
There are a few key reasons advertisers should regularly check the change history for their Facebook ads:
- Identify beneficial changes – Reviewing performance before and after changes can reveal what edits had a positive impact. These learnings can inform future optimization.
- Learn from unsuccessful changes – Change history can also show what adjustments did not lead to improvements. Avoiding these types of ineffective updates saves time and money.
- Remain organized – Checking change history keeps multiple people managing campaigns aligned and aware of updates.
- Prepare for future tests – Viewing past changes provides ideas for what to test and iterate on next.
Tips for leveraging Facebook ad change history
Here are some tips to help advertisers get the most value from Facebook ad change history:
- Check change history weekly or monthly to stay up-to-date on recent adjustments.
- Compare time periods where performance increased or decreased to identify what drove the change.
- Document learnings and strategic next steps from each change history review.
- Share change history findings with other campaign collaborators to keep everyone informed.
- Use the Facebook Campaign History report for a printable, high-level view of changes.
- Refer back to change history when planning tests and updates to avoid repeating poor performers.
Change history and Facebook ad reporting
Beyond the change history available in Ads Manager, advertisers can also leverage Facebook reporting to understand how ads are performing over time. Useful reports include:
- Campaign History report – High level overview of campaign milestones and status changes.
- Creative History report – Tracks performance for different iterations of ad creative content.
- A/B Test results – View performance for different ad variations tested against each other.
- Ad set delivery reports – Filters results by active schedules and statuses.
Facebook’s reporting options provide additional visibility into how ads have run and changed over their duration. Change history should be reviewed in conjunction with performance reports for a full view.
Tools to supplement Facebook’s change history
Third-party tools can also help advertisers track and visualize Facebook ad changes. Some popular options include:
- Iconosquare – Shows an interactive timeline of Facebook ad changes.
- AdStage – Records change history and compares time periods in chart format.
- Swydo – Logs adjustments and provides a calendar heat map of edits.
- Adobe Advertising Cloud – Integrates with Ads Manager data to supplement change history.
These tools pull data directly from Facebook to provide additional change history presentation options beyond Facebook’s built-in capabilities.
Conclusion
In summary, Facebook does offer advertisers helpful options to view a read-only change history for their ads. This allows tracking of significant adjustments made over time at the campaign, ad set and ad level. While useful, Facebook’s change history has limitations in completeness and detail. For maximum insight, advertisers should combine built-in change history with performance reporting and third-party tools.
Reviewing change history provides opportunities to identify beneficial updates to replicate, unsuccessful changes to avoid, and new ideas to test in the future. Consistently monitoring and applying learnings from Facebook ad change history helps drive better campaign results.
| Date | Campaign | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 1/1/2023 | Winter Sale | Increased budget by 30% |
| 1/15/2023 | Spring Collection | Changed audience to ages 20-30 |
| 2/1/2023 | Yoga Retreat | Swapped image for video creative |
| 2/15/2023 | Jewelry Promotion | Edited text to add Valentine’s Day mention |
| 3/1/2023 | Summer Sale | Reduced bid amounts |
Here is an example data table showing hypothetical Facebook ad change history over time.
Detailed change history view
When advertisers select two dates to compare ad versions, Facebook provides a detailed view of exactly what changed. This can include:
- Old vs. new ad creative images or videos
- Changes to ad text, headlines or descriptions
- Audience demographic and interest updates
- Budget, schedule or positioning changes
Seeing the specific adjustments side-by-side makes it easier to understand the optimization path for an ad. Detailed change history helps answer questions like:
- Was performance impacted by switching from an image to video ad?
- Did expanding the target age range improve clicks and conversions?
- Did decreasing the bid amount decrease impressions as expected?
Without the detailed change history view, answering these questions would require more guessing and uncertainty.
Advertiser use cases
Here are a few examples of how advertisers can apply Facebook ad change history:
- A clothing retailer sees sales dip in February. Checking change history reveals they lowered bids mid-month. They raise bids again and sales recover.
- A D2C food brand finds conversions increasing. Change history shows this aligns with an image swap to lifestyle photos. They continue featuring those photo types.
- An ecommerce site observes lower CTR over the holidays. Change history confirms they mistakenly changed ad text to remove holiday discounts. They update text to fix.
In each case, the ability to review changes provides valuable context and informs correction or continuation of optimizations. This visibility enables advertisers to connect Facebook ad results to their actions.
Complementary solutions
Some advertisers pair Facebook’s built-in change history with additional solutions for further functionality:
- Ads Manager Chrome Extension – Shows change history details over time directly on Facebook.
- Swydo – Provides a calendar heat map to visualize intensity of past ad changes.
- AdStage – Captures granular history and data to supplement Facebook’s reporting.
- Iconosquare – Displays an interactive, visual timeline of all Facebook ad adjustments.
Integrating third-party tools can help fill change history gaps and create more customizable reporting. The solutions automatically sync data from Facebook to capture a comprehensive log of all optimization updates made over time. This expands the capabilities beyond Facebook’s current offerings.
Change history retention
Facebook provides advertisers access to change history for the following timeframes:
- Detailed change history – 13 months
- High level change insights – 18 months
So advertisers reviewing change history can expect to see:
- 13 months of granular adjustment details when comparing ad versions
- Up to 18 months of general change info per campaign, ad set and ad
Older changes beyond these limits will no longer be viewable in Ads Manager. Advertisers can reference dated screenshots or changelogs from previous months to supplement the information Facebook retains directly.
Potential enhancements
While Facebook provides helpful ad change history capabilities today, there are a few potential enhancements that could improve the value:
- Ability to compare more than two dates at once
- Custom date ranges for comparison, vs. single dates
- Filtering history by type of change
- Granular creative version history
- Offline access to change history data
- Smart notifications of significant optimization changes
Features like these could enable advertisers to gain even more context into how and why their Facebook ad performance has shifted over time. More robust change history makes results more easily traceable.
Implementation tips
Here are some best practices for advertisers looking to integrate Facebook ad change history tracking into their processes:
- Document all optimization updates as they are made for your own records.
- Assign specific team members the task of regularly reviewing change history.
- Set calendar reminders to check change history so it is not forgotten.
- Capture screenshots of detailed change views in case they are later unavailable.
- Take notes in an optimized spreadsheet or changelog document for comparison.
- Share key change insights across your team and stakeholders.
Developing habits and systems to leverage Facebook’s change history capability helps ingrain it as a regular component of campaign management and reporting.
Linking change history to results
To maximize its value, advertisers should consistently connect Facebook ad change history to corresponding performance results. Useful practices include:
- Comparing ad metrics before and after each optimization using Facebook reports.
- Charting daily changes and results over time to identify correlations.
- Analyzing which audience, budget or creative adjustments drove performance.
- Separating the impact of external factors from change-driven impacts.
- Reviewing granular conversion event history in relation to changes.
Without tying change history to observable results, it remains just a log of platform adjustments. Analyzing and learning from the changes is where real value is uncovered.
Troubleshooting with change history
Accessing Facebook ad change history can also help advertisers troubleshoot issues, such as:
- Sudden performance drop-offs – Review if recent optimization correlates.
- Spikes in cost per result – Check for budget, bid or targeting expansions.
- Decline in click-through rate – See if ad content changed.
- Inconsistent daily metrics – Look for timing tweaks like budget scheduling.
- Reports don’t match dashboards – Confirm changes align with data shifts.
Checking change history provides needed context and clues into what may have caused undesired performance fluctuations. This allows advertisers to quickly identify and correct the potential sources of issues.
Limitations to consider
While accessing Facebook ad change history provides value, advertisers should be aware of some inherent limitations:
- Not an exhaustive list of all changes made
- Only shows high level campaign, ad set and ad adjustments
- Previous image creatives are not stored
- Text changes may not always be recorded
- Detailed comparison limited to two dates at a time
- Change history expires after 13 months
Given these constraints, advertisers should view change history as helpful directional context, rather than definitive documentation of all optimization tweaks. Combining with other tracking and documentation provides a more complete view.
Conclusion
Facebook provides advertisers valuable visibility into their ads’ change history. Reviewing adjustments made over time enables connecting performance results to corresponding optimization actions.
Advertisers should leverage change history to identify beneficial updates to repeat and unsuccessful changes to avoid. At the same time, they must be aware of its limitations in completeness. Combining Facebook’s built-in capabilities with third-party tools provides the most robust change tracking.
Regularly monitoring ad change history, analyzing impact on performance, and applying learnings to future tests enables continuous improvement. It represents a best practice for optimizing Facebook ad accounts over time.