How to See Post Engagement on Facebook Ad

Running Facebook ads is a constant cycle of monitoring clicks, cost-per-click, and conversions. But underneath those top-level metrics lies a goldmine of feedback: post engagement. Understanding how users are actually interacting with your ad creative gives you powerful insights into what’s resonating with your audience. This guide will walk you through exactly where to find and how to analyze your Facebook ad engagement.

We’ll cover the two primary methods for viewing this data inside Ads Manager, what each metric means, and how to use the information to make your campaigns better.

Why Bother Tracking Facebook Ad Engagement?

Before jumping into the “how,” it’s worth understanding the “why.” In a world driven by return on ad spend (ROAS) and conversion rates, it can be tempting to ignore so-called “vanity metrics” like likes and shares. That’s a mistake. Ad engagement is a powerful leading indicator of campaign health and provides clues that other metrics can’t.

It’s a direct feedback loop. Comments, reactions, and shares tell you precisely how your audience feels about your ad. Are they asking questions? Tagging friends? Expressing excitement? Or are the comments negative and confused? This qualitative data is invaluable for refining your messaging.
It can lower your ad costs. Facebook’s algorithm rewards ads that create a positive user experience. An ad with strong engagement signals to the platform that your content is relevant and interesting. This can lead to a higher relevance score, which often results in lower cost-per-mille (CPM) and cost-per-click (CPC).
It helps you identify your best creative. When you’re testing multiple images or videos, engagement metrics quickly reveal which creative variation grabs the most attention. An ad that gets tons of shares and saves is often your ticket to scaling a campaign.
It builds valuable social proof. An ad with hundreds of likes and positive comments is far more trustworthy and compelling than one with zero engagement. This social proof can significantly lift your click-through and conversion rates, as new viewers see that others have already validated your brand or offer.

Step 1: Navigate to Your Ad in Ads Manager

First things first, you need to get to the right place. Engagement stats are available at the ad level within Facebook Ads Manager. If you’re not already an expert navigator, here’s how to get there:

Log in to Meta Ads Manager.
You’ll start at the Campaigns tab. Click on the name of the campaign that contains the ad you want to analyze.
This will take you to the Ad Sets tab. Now, click on the name of the relevant ad set.
Finally, you are at the Ads tab. Here, you’ll see a list of an individual ad or multiple ads within that ad set. You’re in the right place to start digging into the data.

From here, you have two primary ways to view a specific ad’s engagement: by adding the right columns to your dashboard or by previewing the ad as a live post.

Step 2: Two Ways to View Post Engagement

Each method offers a different perspective on your ad's performance. The first method is quantitative, giving you raw numbers across all your ads for easy comparison. The second is qualitative, allowing you to see the actual content of the engagement.

Method A: Customizing Your Columns in the Ads Manager Dashboard

The default Ads Manager view prioritizes performance metrics like reach, impressions, and results. To see engagement data, you need to customize your reporting columns. This is the best way to get a high-level, sortable view of how different ads are performing against each other.

How to Customize Your Columns:

While on the Ads tab, look for the Columns dropdown button on the right side of the screen (it usually says “Performance” or “Performance and Clicks” by default).
Click the Columns button and select Customize Columns… from the menu.
A popup window will appear with a massive list of available metrics. On the left side, there's a search bar. This is your best friend. Type "engagement" into the search bar to filter the options.
Check the boxes for the metrics you want to add to your report. You can also reorder them on the right side by dragging and dropping.
Once you’re done, click the blue Apply button. It's also a good idea to click Save as preset and give your new column setup a name (like “Engagement View”) so you can quickly access it later.

Key Engagement Metrics to Add:

When you customize your columns, you'll see a lot of options. Here are the most important ones to start with and what they mean:

Post Engagement: This is a composite metric. It’s the total number of actions people took involving your ad. This includes everything: reactions, comments, shares, saves, photo views, video plays, link clicks, etc. It provides a quick, big-picture number for overall interaction.
Post Reactions: This tells you how many people gave a Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, or Angry reaction to your ad. It’s a pure measure of emotional response.
Post Comments: The number of comments on your ad. This is a very strong indicator of engagement, as it takes more effort than a simple reaction.
Post Shares: How many times users shared your ad on their own timeline, with friends, in a group, or on a Page. Shares are a huge vote of confidence and extend your organic reach.
Post Saves: The number of people who saved your ad to view later. A high number of saves suggests your ad contains valuable information or an appealing offer that users don’t want to forget.

With these columns enabled, you can now scroll to the right in your Ads Manager dashboard and see these statistics for every single one of your ads, making it easy to sort and identify your top performers at a glance.

Method B: Viewing the Ad as a "Facebook Post with Comments"

While columns give you the "what" (the numbers), viewing the ad itself gives you the "why" (the context). This method lets you see your ad exactly as users see it in their feed and, most importantly, read all the comments, shares, and reactions directly on the post.

How to View the Live Ad Post:

On the Ads tab, check the box next to the single ad you want to inspect.
A panel will slide out on the right side. In this panel, you will see a preview of how your ad looks in different placements. If you don't see it, click the Edit button and it will appear.
Above the ad preview, click the preview icon (it looks like a square with a small arrow pointing out). A dropdown menu will appear.
Select View on Facebook, then Post with comments.
A new browser tab will open, showing you the actual ad creative as a post on your Facebook Page. Now you can scroll through and read every single comment, see who reacted to it, and investigate who shared it.

Reading the comments is one of the most productive, yet underutilized, forms of ad research. Are people asking pre-sale questions you should add to your landing page FAQ? Are they tagging friends who might be interested? Are they complaining about a confusing part of your offer? This is customer feedback in its purest form.

Beyond the Numbers: How to Interpret Engagement Data

Finding the metrics is one thing, using them to get better results is another. Once you're comfortable pulling up engagement data, you can start asking more strategic questions.

Benchmark Your Own Performance

Don't get too caught up in "industry average" engagement rates. The most useful benchmark is your own historical performance. Add an "Engagement Rate" column to your report and look for trends. Which types of creatives consistently get higher engagement for your brand? Is it user-generated content, polished studio shots, or informative infographics? Double down on what works for you.

Segment Your Data for Deeper Insights

Ads Manager has a powerful "Breakdown" feature that lets you slice your data by different audience segments. Look for the Breakdown dropdown next to your columns menu. You can break down your engagement metrics by:

Age & Gender: Do younger audiences engage with your video ads more than older demographics? Do men comment more than women? This helps you refine your audience targeting.
Placement: Are you getting tons of reactions on the Facebook Feed but almost none on the Audience Network? This might suggest where you should concentrate your budget.
Platform: Compare engagement on Facebook versus Instagram to see how your creative performs on each platform and tailor your content accordingly.

Connect Engagement to Goals That Matter

The final step is to correlate engagement with your business objectives. Export your data to a spreadsheet or just analyze it in Ads Manager. Look for connections:

Do the ads with the most shares also have the lowest Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)? Do ads with high positive comment sentiment generate a better click-through rate?

Often, you’ll find that ads with high positive engagement perform better on conversion metrics as well. Identifying this pattern helps you create better ads from the start, moving beyond guesswork and toward a data-informed creative strategy.

Final Thoughts

Tracking post engagement on your Facebook ads is a crucial habit for any successful media buyer or marketer. By customizing your Ads Manager columns and regularly reviewing the live ad post with comments, you can get a complete picture of your performance - both quantitative and qualitative. This data helps you understand your audience on a deeper level, refine your creatives, and ultimately improve your campaign results.

As you've seen, getting to these insights can involve a lot of clicking, customizing, and exporting. We experienced this friction firsthand, which is why we built Graphed. Instead of manually creating reports to see how engagement impacts sales, our platform lets you connect your data sources like Facebook Ads and Shopify in one place. You can simply ask, "Show me a comparison of post shares vs. purchases for my ads last month," and get an interactive dashboard instantly. It automates away the tedious reporting work so you can focus on making smarter decisions, not just finding the data.