Ad detail: see everything about one of your ads

The ad detail page shows one of your own ads in full. It puts the ad platform's numbers next to the profit from orders Nexus matched to the ad.

This page covers your own ads. For an ad from a competitor, see Competitor ad detail.

Problem and intended user

The media buyer (the person who runs your paid ads) needs to know which ads deserve more budget and which should stop. The ecommerce manager (the person who runs the store) wants to know what an ad earned after costs. The creative strategist (the person who plans and makes ad creatives) wants to know why a creative works. The ad platform reports its own revenue, which can differ from your store's orders. Without one view, budget can follow the platform's figure instead of the store's.

Current workflow

You read spend and return in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads. You export orders from Shopify admin, filter them by UTM tags in a spreadsheet and subtract product costs to estimate profit. A design tool or an agency judges the creative apart from those numbers.

Prerequisites

• Meta Ads or Google Ads, connected and synced. See Meta Ads and Google Ads.
• The ad id in the ad's link, for matched orders.
• Matched orders, for True Profit, Order margin and Predicted revenue. Without them these tiles show a dash.
• Credits, for Analyze and Re-analyze. The credit badge and the confirm dialog show the cost. The Billing page shows the current values.
• A picture Nexus can copy, for Create similar ad.

How Nexus works

Nexus syncs each ad's figures from the ad platform. It matches your store's orders to the ad with fixed rules and works out profit from those orders. Fixed cut-offs set the Scale, Hold, Reduce or Kill badge. Nexus's model estimates Predicted revenue. AI writes the creative analysis only when you run Analyze.

Open the page

1. Go to Performance > Ad performance.
2. Select By ad, or open a group with its arrow, to reach the ad rows.
3. Click the name of an ad.

Use the date picker above the header to set the period. It changes the platform figures, the profit figures, the Attributed orders list and the Performance tab.

Use the header actions

The header shows the ad name and its platform ad ID. The back arrow returns you to the previous page. When you open the ad directly, from a link or in a new tab, there is no previous page, so the arrow goes to Ad performance. For a competitor ad it goes to Competitors, and for an Inspiration brand's or industry peer's ad from the Inspiration Library it goes to Inspiration Library.

• Copy link copies the address of this page.
• Analyze or Re-analyze runs an AI analysis of the creative.
• Create similar ad starts a new ad from this one. It shows only when the ad has a picture, such as an image ad or a carousel ad. It never shows for a video ad or a text ad. It does not show for a Performance Max asset group. It opens the Similar Ad Wizard. See Clone an ad.

WARNING

Analyze and Re-analyze can use credits. A credit badge next to the button shows the cost. If your balance is too low, Nexus offers a top-up instead of running the analysis. Nexus can ask you to confirm the cost first. Retry after an Analysis failed message runs the same credit check again.

Set Concept and Angle, link products, write notes

In Creative Taxonomy, click the Concept or Angle label, search and pick a value. In Linked, use + Link Product or + Link Collection to add one, and the X on a row to remove it. In Notes, write with Post note. Matching and the badge run without your approval.

Your pick saves at once. Pick again to undo it. Pick Unclassified to clear a label. To hand a label back to Nexus, use the last item in the list: Let the system update this on the next analysis for the Concept, or Let the system manage this Angle for the Angle. That item shows only while a person owns the value. The ad then counts under that concept or angle in Concepts and Angles. The change also appears on Logs.

Exact output

The header and the left column

The left column stays in view while you read the tabs. It holds the ad preview, four tiles (Spend, ROAS, CTR, CPA) and a card with Status, Scaling, Launched and Format. Click the preview to enlarge it or play the video. A Google Performance Max row shows a summary of its asset group instead of a preview.

Scaling shows whether the ad's click-through rate has recently risen, fallen or held. It does not show what happens to the budget.

Overview

The Overview tab opens first. Its cards are:

• Reported by Meta (or Reported by Google). The platform's own figures, such as Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Conversions, ROAS and Revenue. A video ad also shows Thumbstops.
• Campaign. The campaign and ad set that pay for this ad.
• Profit & predicted revenue. Figures from your own store data.
• Creative Taxonomy. Seven labels for the ad.
• Ad Copy. The Headline, Body and CTA.
• The creative analysis. It reads Creative not yet analyzed until you run Analyze.

The platform card and the profit card measure different things. Each platform counts view-through conversions on its own. So its numbers can exceed the orders in your store.

The Profit & predicted revenue card counts only orders Nexus matched to this ad. Hover over the info icon on a tile for its meaning. The card shows:

• Spend, True Profit, Order margin, Platform revenue matched and Attributed orders.
• Customers won (their first-ever order from your store came through this ad) and Customers brought back (existing customers who bought again through this ad).
• A badge: Scale, Hold, Reduce or Kill. Hover over it to read the number that decided it and the cut-off points. Nexus judges the badge on profit over spend. It prefers what the ad's matched orders returned, and it falls back to predicted profit over spend only when no matched figure exists.
  • Scale means the ad returned well above its spend.
  • Hold means it returned clearly more than its spend.
  • Reduce means it returned about its spend or a little more.
  • Kill means it returned less than its spend.
  • No badge shows when the ad has too few matched orders or too little spend for a fair verdict, or when no matched figure exists for the dates you picked.
• Predicted revenue and Predicted revenue : spend, in a box labelled Predicted revenue · rolling ~90 days. This is a forecast, not revenue that has landed. It does not follow the date picker.

Performance and Segment Mix

The Performance tab shows a Placement breakdown, as a chart and a table. Each placement, such as FB Feed or IG Reels, has impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions and ROAS. A Daily performance trend chart follows when the ad has more than one daily snapshot in the selected dates. The placement breakdown and the daily trend follow the date picker.

The Segment Mix tab shows which customer segments the matched orders came from, as a donut chart and a table. It covers all matched orders of the ad, not only the selected dates.

Attributed orders

The Attributed orders tab lists the orders matched to this ad. A badge on the tab shows the count in the selected dates. A summary strip shows Matched orders and Attributed to this ad, the amount credited to the ad. A second column, This ad, all time, shows the same figures for the whole history. When Nexus has the figures, Profit from matched orders, Ad spend and Profit after ad spend show how the ad's True Profit adds up.

The table has Order, Date, Amount, Profit, Status, Match and Type columns. Search by order number, order ID or product. Filter by amount, status, Match and Type. Test orders are hidden until you click Include test orders. Click View order to open an order in a new tab. See Order detail.

Linked, Notes and Logs

• Linked. Lists Linked Products and Linked Collections. Each row shows how the link was found: URL, Carousel, Text or Manual.
• Notes. You can edit, delete and reply to notes.
• Logs. Lists the Concept and Angle changes people made on this ad, newest first. It does not list changes Nexus made itself.

Landing page

The Landing page tab shows the landing page Nexus wrote for this ad. When none exists, it reads "No landing page yet." and offers Generate landing page. That action uses credits, and the credit badge next to it shows the cost. Once a page exists, View landing page in the header opens it. See Landing Pages.

What to do with it

What you see	Decision or action	Owner
The Scale, Hold, Reduce or Kill badge	Raise, keep or cut the budget, or stop the ad. You do this in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads, outside Nexus.	media buyer
A negative True Profit or a low Order margin	Check the product's cost and the offer before you judge the creative.	ecommerce manager
A weak placement in Placement breakdown	Change the placements in the ad platform, outside Nexus.	media buyer
Customers won against Customers brought back	Decide whether the ad finds new buyers or wins back existing ones.	retention marketer (the person who runs email and repeat-purchase campaigns)
A wrong Concept or Angle label, or an ad that works	Click the label and pick the right value, or select Create similar ad.	creative strategist
No segment data for this ad, or an empty Attributed orders list	Read the cause the tab names. If it is the ad link, add the tag that the tab names.	media buyer
A row in Attributed orders	Select View order to read the order itself.	ecommerce manager

Expected value and measurement

This page can help you judge an ad on the profit from its matched orders, not only on the platform's own return. It can also help you spot creatives worth copying.

To check, change the date picker and compare the same ad's True Profit and Order margin across two periods. They follow the picker when the group heading reads This period. Then compare ads in Performance > Ad performance, where ROAS, CPA and Verdict show for each ad. Predicted revenue is a forecast, so judge a result by the figures that follow the date picker. When a budget, an offer or a season changed in the same period, you cannot isolate the effect of one ad.

Limitations and exceptions

• A Google Performance Max asset group shows a summary of its assets instead of a preview. The analysis card reads Creative analysis does not apply to an asset group. Analyze and Create similar ad do not show. The Attributed orders split tells you which orders matched the group id (Matched by asset group id) and which come from a modelled campaign spread (Campaign spread (modelled)).
• The AI analysis and the Concept and Angle labels it sets can be wrong. Correct them by hand.
• Predicted revenue is a forecast from Nexus's model. It does not follow the date picker. Predicted revenue : spend shows a dash whenever the profit group reads This period, which is the case for most ads. Its tooltip says why.
• Customers won and Customers brought back are partial when Nexus cannot read a customer's history. Subscription rebills are not counted in either.
• True Profit understates when matched orders have no recorded amount. Its tooltip says so.
• An empty list is not proof that the ad earned nothing. The tab names the likely cause, such as No orders have ever matched to this ad, This ad sends shoppers to another domain, No ad link on this store has ever been tracked or No matched orders inside the selected range. For the last one, widen the dates.
• If the tab reads No segment data for this ad, add utm_content to the ad's destination URL. The tab shows the tag for Meta and for Google, as in the block below.

Meta    utm_content={{ad.id}}
Google  utm_content={creative}

When you see a message, do this:

• Creative not yet analyzed. Select Analyze this creative.
• "Analysis failed". Select Retry. The analysis service may be unavailable.
• "No placement breakdown data available for this ad yet." Widen the dates, or check again after the next sync.
• Could not load attributed orders. Select Try again.
• "No products linked to this ad" or "No collections linked to this ad". Use + Link Product or + Link Collection.

In Demo Mode the figures and orders are sample data. Create similar ad opens its setup page, but Nexus does not generate a similar ad. See Clone an ad.

Related

• Ad performance
• Columns and verdicts, for the verdicts in the table. It does not describe the badge on this page.
• Landing Pages
• Order detail
• Competitor ad detail