Campaigns

1Overview #

A campaign here is the thing you spent money on - a Meta campaign, a website push, a newspaper page - and this screen puts what it cost beside what it brought in: leads, qualified leads, deals, and the value actually won.

The spend arrives by itself. Meta's daily figures are read against the ad accounts you connect, so nobody keys them; anything Meta knows nothing about is keyed by hand and marked as such.

Nothing is written onto a lead. A campaign counts the leads whose arrival details match one of its sources, worked out when the figure is read. That is what lets you correct a mistake: point a source at the right campaign and every figure, back to the first day, is right.

2Who it is for #

Whoever answers for the advertising money - what it cost per lead, and whether it came back.
A sales manager who wants to know which campaign the good leads came from.

3What it is not for #

Running the ads themselves. Campaigns are created and paid for in Meta Ads Manager; this screen reads what they cost.
Working the leads - they arrive on CRM > Leads like any other.
Sending the bulk messages. They are sent on CRM > CRM Bulk Messages; a send can be tied to a campaign so it counts as part of it.

4Step by step #

Add the campaign. - Name it as you will look for it later; the status decides whether it is counted as live.
Tell it what counts as it. - Paste the Meta campaign id from Ads Manager, or the website form, or the WhatsApp number. This is the step that makes every figure work.
Connect the ad account once, on CRM > Ad Accounts. - After that the spend reads itself, daily.
Key any other spend by hand. - A newspaper, a hoarding, a sponsorship - anything Meta cannot tell us about.
Read the day-by-day table. - Spend on the left, what arrived on the right. A day with spend and no leads is the row worth looking at.

5The fields #

The campaign

What it is, and when it ran.

Name - What you will know it by in every report. Two campaigns cannot share a name. Required Everywhere it is listed.
Code - Your own short code, if you use one. Optional Nothing - it is a label.
Objective - What it was for: leads, awareness, sales, retention. Optional How the reports group it. It changes no figure.
Status - Draft, Running, Paused or Finished. Required Whether it is offered when tagging a send. Its figures are counted whatever the status.
Starts / Ends - When it ran. Optional Nothing is filtered by them - the figures follow the spend and the leads themselves. Ends cannot be before Starts.
Budget - What you meant to spend. Optional Shown beside what was actually spent. It limits nothing and stops nothing.
Owner - Who answers for it. Optional Nothing about who may see it.
Branch - The branch it belongs to. Only branches you may work in are offered. Optional
Channels - Where it runs, in your own words. Optional A label. What is counted comes from the sources.
Switched off - Leaves it out of the lists while keeping its history. Optional Use this instead of deleting a campaign that cost money.

What counts as this campaign

The sources. This is the attribution, and the most important part of the screen.

Kind - A Meta campaign, ad set or ad; a website form; a click-to-WhatsApp number. Required Which leads are counted, and which spend is filed here.
Value - The id itself, pasted from Meta Ads Manager or from CRM > Lead Intake. Required As above. One live value belongs to one campaign only.
Leads matched - How many leads that source has actually matched. Read-only Nothing - it is how you check the id is right.
Note - Anything worth remembering about it. Optional

Spend

What it cost, by day.

Day - The day the money was spent. Required The day-by-day table and every cost-per-lead figure. Not in the future.
Amount - What was spent that day. Required The spend, the cost per lead, and the return. Above zero.
What it was - A newspaper, a hoarding - what the money went on. Optional Nothing; it is for whoever reads it later.
Source - Meta (pulled) or Manual (keyed). Shown, never chosen. Read-only A pulled row cannot be typed over or deleted here.

6Rules and integrity #

Attribution is matched, not stamped - A lead is not marked with a campaign when it arrives. It is matched, every time a figure is read, against the sources. Correct a source and the history corrects itself - which is why a mis-typed id costs you nothing permanent.
The narrowest source wins - A Meta lead carries its campaign, its ad set AND its ad. If two of those are sources of different campaigns, the ad beats the ad set, and the ad set beats the campaign.
One source value, one campaign - The same id cannot belong to two campaigns - the database refuses it - so no lead is ever counted twice.
Pulled spend is Meta's record - It cannot be edited or deleted here. Meta restates recent days as conversions settle, so a re-pull CORRECTS a day rather than adding to it. Hand-keyed spend for the same day is allowed, because that is a different channel.
Adding a source re-files spend already pulled - Paste a Meta campaign id and the days already read under it move to this campaign at once - the message says how many.
Test leads are left out - Meta's own test leads do not count, so a test cannot flatter a cost per lead. Setting 274 changes that if you really want it.
Revenue is what the setting says - Setting 273 chooses between the amount of the deals won from the campaign's leads (works everywhere) and the invoices those leads led to (needs the voucher types to track the lead).

7Shortcut keys #

F5 - Save the campaign being edited.
Esc - Close the dialog, cancel the edit, or leave the page.

8If something does not work #

"That campaign is no longer there." / "That source is no longer there."

Why: It was deleted after the screen read it.
What to do: Refresh the list.

"Say which campaign the source belongs to." / "Say which campaign and which bulk message."

Why: A source or a bulk message is always added to a saved campaign.
What to do: Save the campaign first, then add it.

"That row is no longer there, or it was pulled from Meta - a pulled row is corrected by pulling again, not by hand." / "That row is no longer there, or it came from Meta - pulled spend is what Meta says was spent, and is not deleted here."

Why: Spend pulled from Meta is Meta's figure; only spend typed by hand can be changed or deleted here.
What to do: Pull again to correct a Meta row; change only the rows you typed.

"Value: paste the id this campaign is matched by."

Why: A source matches leads by an id (a Meta campaign id, a form id, a UTM value), and the value is empty.
What to do: Paste the id exactly as the source sends it.

"Marketing campaigns are not licensed for this company ... Contact your software vendor."

Why: The CRMCAMP add-on is not on this company's licence.
What to do: Ask your vendor to add it, then sign out and in.

"Campaigns are set up by an administrator or a sales manager."

Why: Adding and changing campaigns decides how the money is reported, so it is not open to everybody.
What to do: Ask an administrator or a sales manager; you can still read the figures.

A campaign shows no leads although it is running

Why: It has no source, or the id pasted is not the one the leads actually carry.
What to do: Check Leads matched beside each source - a source matching nothing is the wrong id. Meta ids are long runs of digits, copied from Ads Manager.

"'...' already belongs to the campaign '...'. One source belongs to one campaign ..."

Why: That id is already claimed. Two claims would count one lead twice.
What to do: Remove it from the other campaign first if it genuinely belongs here.

The banner says spend and leads belong to no campaign

Why: Money was spent, and leads arrived, under ids nothing has been told about.
What to do: Add those ids as sources. Both the leads and the spend are then counted, including everything already past.

A lead counted for the wrong campaign

Why: Two campaigns hold overlapping ids, and the narrower one won.
What to do: Look at which source matched it; remove the one that should not claim it.

Spend does not appear after connecting an ad account

Why: It is pulled by the server at the hour setting 275 names, and only for active accounts.
What to do: Press Pull spend now, then watch the pull log on CRM > Ad Accounts.

Today's spend looks low

Why: Meta reports the day as it stands and restates it later as conversions settle.
What to do: The next pull corrects it - that is what re-reading the last few days is for.

A pulled row cannot be edited or removed

Why: It is Meta's record of what was spent, not ours to tidy.
What to do: Correct it in Meta, then pull again. Key a Manual row for anything Meta does not know about.

"The spend cannot be saved yet:" with a numbered list

Why: A hand-keyed row needs a day that is not in the future and an amount above zero.
What to do: Work down the list.

The figures are in two currencies

Why: Meta reports in the ad account's own currency; hand-keyed spend uses setting 276, or the company's.
What to do: Keep the ad account and the company in one currency, or read the currency shown beside the figure.

"There is already a campaign named '...'."

Why: Campaign names are unique so a report can never be ambiguous.
What to do: Use the existing one, or name this differently.

"This campaign has ... spend row(s) against it ... Mark it Finished, or switch it off, instead of deleting it."

Why: It is part of what the company spent; deleting it would lose that.
What to do: Set the status to Finished, or switch it off.

The return (%) is blank

Why: Nothing has been spent on it yet, so there is no return to work out - dividing by nothing would say something untrue.
What to do: It fills in as soon as spend arrives.

Won value looks wrong

Why: Revenue follows setting 273 - won deals, or the invoices the leads led to.
What to do: Check which basis the company chose; the second needs the voucher types to track the lead.

9For an administrator #

Where the spend comes from - CrmCampaignWorker reads Meta's insights once a day, at the hour setting 275 names, re-reading the last setting-272 days. It writes one row per ad account per Meta campaign per day, and updates that row on a re-read.
What it never does - It never writes a campaign onto a lead. If you want the attribution changed, change the sources - the figures follow.

10Settings it uses #

271 - pull Meta ad spend automatically.
272 - days of spend to re-read each pull (Meta restates recent days).
273 - campaign revenue basis: WonDeals or Books.
274 - count Meta's test leads in campaign figures (off by default).
275 - the hour of day the pull runs.
276 - the currency hand-keyed spend is in.

Colour