Most advertisers already encode a lot of useful information in their naming conventions. The campaign name might tell you what type of campaign it is, and the ad name might include the creator who made the video or the hook being tested. Custom breakdowns turn that information into structured data you can visualize and analyze.
What are custom breakdowns?
A custom breakdown groups your ads based on something that's already in your naming conventions. You define the groups, and Superads applies them across all your ads and shows you performance side by side.
For example:
If your ad names include the creator's name, you can create one group per creator and instantly compare their performance.
If your campaign names encode the type of campaign (prospecting, retargeting, brand), you can group by that.
Anything you track in your ad names, campaign names, or ad set names can become a breakdown.
Custom breakdowns work best when your naming convention is consistent. The more structured your naming, the more useful custom breakdowns become.
Three ways to use them
Depending on your naming conventions and how you want to work, you have three options:
Rule-based groups: Manually define groups based on rules. Best if you have a few meaningful values to compare—a handful of creators, two or three formats or a set of markets.
Formula-based groups: Use a formula to extract any segment from a structured naming convention automatically, without typing every possible value. Best if your names follow a consistent pattern like
Name_Audience_Hook_Format.AI assistant: Let Superads scan your existing naming conventions and suggest groups for you. A good starting point if you're not sure where to begin.
Create a custom breakdown from a report
This is the most common way to build a custom breakdown.
Open any report.
Select the Group by selector.
Select + Custom breakdown.
The custom breakdown panel opens inline. You'll see named groups (A, B, C…), each with its own set of rules, plus suggestions from our AI.Name each group and set its conditions.
Select Apply or Save and apply.
Note: Apply uses the breakdown just for this session. Save and apply stores it for reuse across reports.
Other ways to create custom breakdowns
From a new report: select Compare custom groups from the template options when you create a report. This opens the report with the custom breakdown editor already active.
From Settings: In your Superads account, select your account at the bottom of the sidebar and go to Settings > Custom breakdowns to view and manage all breakdowns saved in your workspace. From here, you can create, edit, rename or delete any saved breakdown.
Saved custom breakdowns are reusable across all reports in the workspace. Build your "Hook type" or "Partner" breakdown once and apply it anywhere.
Not sure where to start? Use the AI assistant (Professional plan only)
If you're not sure how to map your naming conventions to groups, let Superads do it for you. Inside the custom breakdown builder, our AI suggests groups based on your existing ad, campaign and ad set names.
Select any suggestion to apply it, or select the arrows to see more suggestions.
For each suggestion, you can use it as-is, edit it before applying, apply it immediately, or save and apply it to make it available across reports. It's a great starting point even if you plan to tweak the groups afterward.
Rule-based groups: grouping by rules
This is the most common approach. Each group has a name and one or more conditions. You choose what to match on (ad name, campaign name or ad set name) and whether it should contain or not contain a keyword, and Superads sorts your ads accordingly. You can combine multiple conditions with AND or OR to handle more complex naming patterns.
Example: comparing performance by creator
Say you're running ads with multiple creators, and each ad name includes the creator's name (for example, Caleb, Paul, Alex). You want to see which creator's ads perform best. Create one group per creator:
Caleb: Ad name contains "Caleb"
Paul: Ad name contains "Paul"
Alex: Ad name contains "Alex"
Superads also shows how many ads fall into each group, and you can dive deeper by selecting any of them.
The same approach works for any dimension you track in your naming convention: hook type, creative format, product line, market, audience, CTA and so on.
Any ad that doesn't match a group appears under "None." Check that group occasionally to catch typos or new ads that weren't named following your usual convention.
Formula-based groups: extracting from naming conventions
If your naming convention follows a structured format with a consistent separator (like underscores), you can use a formula to automatically pull out any segment, without typing out every possible value. This is especially useful when you have many values in a dimension, like dozens of hooks or product names.
You can find this option in your Superads account: select your account at the bottom of the sidebar, then go to Settings > Custom breakdowns > Create custom breakdown > Extract from naming convention.
How it works
The formula is called SPLIT_PART. You tell it which field to look at (ad name, campaign name or ad set name), what character separates the segments and which position to pull out. For example:
SPLIT_PART(#adName, '_', 2)
If your ad name is US_Hook_Video_Jan, this returns Hook, the second segment split on underscores. Change the number to get a different position: 1 gives US, 3 gives Video, 4 gives Jan.
Example: breaking down a full naming convention
Say your naming convention is Market_Audience_Hook_Format_Month. Instead of creating a rule for every possible hook or market, set up four separate breakdowns, one per dimension:
Market (US, UK, AU…):
SPLIT_PART(#adName, '_', 1)Audience (Retargeting, Prospecting…):
SPLIT_PART(#adName, '_', 2)Hook (Hook1, Hook2, PainPoint…):
SPLIT_PART(#adName, '_', 3)Format (Video, Static, Carousel…):
SPLIT_PART(#adName, '_', 4)
Each breakdown becomes a reusable filter you can apply to any report. Switch between them to look at creative performance from any angle, without rebuilding anything.
Troubleshooting
Many ads are showing under "None"
This means those ads don't match any of your defined rules. Common causes: inconsistent naming (typos, extra spaces), ads from a different campaign structure that doesn't follow the convention or conditions that are too specific. Review the ads in "None" to identify patterns and adjust your rules.
Breakdowns work for Meta and LinkedIn but return "None" for Google
Most Google Ads formats (Search, Display, Shopping, Performance Max) don't use ad names the same way paid social does. Ad-name-based breakdowns return "None" for those ad types. For Google, use campaign name or ad set name as the source field instead, or structure your campaign or ad set names to carry the breakdown information.
SPLIT_PART returns unexpected values
Check that the separator character and position number are correct, and that all ad names follow the same structure. If any names have more or fewer segments than expected, the formula extracts the wrong part or returns a blank value. A rule-based breakdown may be more reliable when naming is inconsistent.
Still need help? Chat with us using the icon in the bottom-right corner of your Superads account.