The essentials
- The principle: the objective chosen in the platform decides who will see the ad; the algorithm looks for the people most likely to take the requested action, and only those.
- The rule: choose the objective that matches the final action (lead, sale), even with little volume, rather than an intermediate objective (traffic) that is cheaper but finds clickers, not customers.
- The families: awareness (reach), consideration (traffic, engagement, video views), conversion (leads, sales, messages).
- 2026 costs in France: CPM €5 to €12 (Meta); cost per lead €15 to €60 (Meta), €40 to €120 (LinkedIn); cost per purchase highly variable.
On Meta, LinkedIn or TikTok, the first question asked when creating a campaign is the objective. Many treat it as a formality and choose “traffic” because it is cheaper per click. That is a mistake: the objective is not a label, it is the instruction given to the algorithm about who to target. A “traffic” campaign finds people who click; a “leads” campaign finds people who fill in forms. This article explains what each objective optimises, how to link it to the business objective, the costs and the mistakes. Organic objectives are covered in the SMO objectives.
What the objective really changes
Platforms hold thousands of signals about each user, including their propensity to click, to watch a video, to fill in a form or to buy. When you choose an objective, the algorithm delivers the ad to the people in the audience most likely to take that precise action, and bids for them. The consequences: a “traffic” campaign gets a lot of cheap clicks from people who click on everything and buy nothing; a “sales” campaign gets fewer, more expensive clicks from people who buy. Cost per click is therefore not comparable between objectives; only the cost per final result is.
Objectives by platform
| Family | Meta | TikTok | What is optimised | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Awareness (reach, impressions, recall) | Brand awareness | Reach | Number of people reached |
| Consideration | Traffic; Engagement (video views, reactions, messages) | Website visits; Engagement; Video views | Traffic; Video views; Community interaction | Clicks, views, interactions |
| Conversion | Leads (forms, messages, calls, website conversions); Sales (website, catalogue, shop); App promotion | Lead generation (forms); Website conversions; Job applications | Lead generation; Website conversions; Product sales; App installs | Value actions: form, purchase, registration |
Linking the business objective to the campaign objective
| Business objective | Campaign objective | Optimisation event | Success metric |
|---|---|---|---|
| Get quote or appointment requests | Leads | Native form or Lead event on the site | Cost per qualified lead (validated in the CRM) |
| Sell online | Sales | Purchase with value; catalogue for dynamic ads | ROAS, cost per purchase |
| Recruit registrations (webinar, newsletter, trial) | Leads or Sales depending on the platform | Registration (CompleteRegistration, Lead) | Cost per registration, attendance rate |
| Build awareness for a brand or an opening in an area | Awareness | Reach, frequency 2 to 3 | Reach on the target, rise in brand searches |
| Warm up an audience for retargeting | Engagement or video views | 75% view, interaction | Size of the audiences built, cost per engaged person |
| Drive people to content | Traffic (landing page views, not clicks) | Landing page view | Cost per page view, time spent |
| Generate conversations | Leads or Engagement with Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram as destination | Conversation started | Cost per conversation, qualification rate |
The mapping is set out in the campaign brief; see writing an SMA brief.
Costs by objective in 2026
| Outcome | Meta (France) | LinkedIn (France) | TikTok (France) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 impressions (CPM) | €5 to €12 | €30 to €60 | €3 to €8 |
| Outbound click | €0.50 to €1.50 | €5 to €12 | €0.30 to €1 |
| Video view (ThruPlay or 6 s) | €0.02 to €0.10 | €0.10 to €0.30 | €0.01 to €0.05 |
| Lead (native form) | €15 to €60 | €40 to €120 | €10 to €40 |
| E-commerce purchase | €15 to €80 depending on basket; ROAS 2 to 5 | Rarely relevant | €10 to €50 |
These ranges vary widely by sector, season and creative quality. They are there to frame, not to judge: the only judge is the cost per customer set against your margin; see the SMA KPIs and the SMA budget.
Mistakes in choosing an objective
- “Traffic” to sell or generate leads: cheap clicks, no conversions; the most frequent and most costly mistake.
- “Engagement” to make an offer known: reactions and comments from people who interact with everything.
- Optimising on an event that is too rare: with fewer than 50 purchases a week, the ad set does not exit the learning phase; optimise temporarily on “add to basket” or “checkout started”, then move back up.
- Changing objective midway: impossible without recreating the campaign; the history is lost.
- An awareness objective judged on cost per lead: each objective is judged on its own metric, and awareness is measured by reach, recall and brand searches.
- Native form without qualification: the cost per lead is low, and so is the quality; measure all the way to the CRM.
A typical split for a small business
A balanced small business account generally combines: 60 to 70% of the budget on a conversion objective (leads or sales) with warm and lookalike audiences; 20 to 30% on consideration (videos, content) to build the remarketing audiences; 10% at most on awareness, except at launch. Objectives are read together as a funnel, not in isolation; the account structure that follows is in structuring a Meta Ads account.
How GreenRed helps
Rather than juggling several tools, GreenRed's social media tracking brings these metrics together in a single dashboard, compares them over time and tells you which actions come first. You can try it free, with no card, from the Pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Why not choose the “traffic” objective to sell?
Because the algorithm then delivers the ad to the people most likely to click, who are not the ones who buy. Clicks are cheap and plentiful, sales absent. Choose Sales or Leads: clicks cost more but come from people who take the action.
Which objective should you choose with a small budget?
The conversion objective that matches the final action, with an event frequent enough for the ad set to exit the learning phase (around 50 events a week): if purchases are too rare, optimise on “add to basket” or “checkout started” then move back up to purchase when volume allows.
Can you change the objective of a campaign that is already running?
No, on Meta as on LinkedIn and TikTok the objective is set at creation. You have to create a new campaign, which starts learning again from zero. Hence the importance of choosing the final objective from the outset rather than an intermediate objective “to get started”.
How do you judge an awareness campaign?
On its own metrics: reach on the target, frequency (2 to 3 over the period), cost per 1,000 people reached, estimated recall, and above all the indirect effect on brand searches (Search Console) and direct traffic in the following weeks. Not on cost per lead, which it is not designed to produce.