How to Track Organic 3-Second Video Views on Facebook by Removing Paid Views

In Databox, the 3-Second Video Views Metric from the Facebook Pages Integration includes both organic and paid views by default. However, some companies need to isolate organic views only for more accurate content performance tracking.

Since there isn’t a native metric for organic views alone, you can get an estimation by subtracting the paid portion using Data Calculations.

How to calculate organic 3-second video views

  1. Go to the Calculated Metrics page and create a new Calculated Metric.

  2. Select the 3-Second Video Views from Facebook Pages

  3. Subtract from it the 3-Second Video Views from Facebook Ads

  4. Name the Calculated Metric and save it.

This will return the estimated number of organic video views, excluding paid views from your ad campaigns.

Why totals might not match exactly

If the values don’t line up perfectly, here are a few reasons why discrepancies may occur:

  • Attribution windows or cross-posted videos may count views differently across the two Integrations

  • Facebook Ads may include views on videos that aren’t published to your Page (e.g., dark posts)

  • Boosted posts might overlap with both organic and paid reporting, depending on how Facebook classifies them

For more on how to create Calculated Metrics in Databox, visit: How to create a Data Calculation.