The optimisation event is one of the most important settings in a Meta campaign, and one of the least understood. It tells Meta's delivery system what success looks like, and Meta will find you more people who do exactly that. Choose the wrong event and the ads can look efficient while sales stay flat.
What is an optimisation event?
When you set a campaign's performance goal to maximise conversions, you also choose the conversion event, such as Purchase, Initiate Checkout, Add to Cart or Lead. Meta then shows your ads to people most likely to complete that event. It does not care about events you did not choose.
Which events can you choose from?
| Event | Closest to revenue? | Volume | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purchase | Yes | Lowest | Stores with steady sales |
| Initiate Checkout | Close | Medium | Stores with few purchases |
| Add to Cart | Further | Higher | New stores, temporary |
| Lead (form or instant form) | Close for lead gen | Medium | Service businesses |
| Contact / WhatsApp click | Depends | Medium | Businesses selling in chat |
| Landing Page Views | No | High | Rarely for sales |
| Link Clicks | No | Highest | Not for sales |
How do you choose for an ecommerce store?
Start with Purchase if you get a steady number of purchases each week, enough for your main ad set to leave the learning phase (Meta's guidance is around 50 optimisation events a week; see the Meta ads learning phase explained).
If you are far below that:
- Consolidate into one ad set optimised for Purchase first; consolidation often solves the volume problem.
- If that is still too few, temporarily optimise for Initiate Checkout.
- Use Add to Cart only as a short-term step for a brand-new store.
- Move back towards Purchase as volume grows.
Whatever you choose, the purchase event must carry value, currency and content IDs, so you can later compare revenue and test value optimisation.
How do you choose for lead generation?
For lead generation, the danger is optimising for an event that is easy to trigger but does not mean a real lead.
- Website form leads: fire the Lead event only after a successful submission, not on the button click.
- Instant forms: they are easy to fill in, so add a question or a review screen to filter low-intent leads.
- Qualified leads: if your CRM marks leads as qualified or won, send those back to Meta through the Conversions API so it can learn which leads are worth paying for.
What about businesses that sell on WhatsApp?
Many stores, especially in Bangladesh, take orders on WhatsApp or Messenger. You can run messaging campaigns, or website campaigns that track a WhatsApp click as a conversion. The important part is to also track which chats become orders, as explained in tracking cash on delivery and WhatsApp orders.
Common mistakes
- Optimising for link clicks or landing page views when the goal is sales
- Lead event firing on the button click, so failed or spam submissions count
- Purchase event without value, so revenue cannot be measured
- Different ad sets optimising for different events in the same small budget
- Changing the event every few days, restarting learning each time
Final thoughts
Pick the event closest to revenue that you can get often enough, make sure it is tracked accurately, and leave it long enough to learn. If you want help choosing and setting it up, see my Meta Ads management service.