Outbound click
A click that took someone off Meta’s platforms to an external destination.
A link click can keep someone inside Meta, for instance opening an instant form or an in-app page. An outbound click means they left for your website. Every outbound click is a link click; the reverse is not true.
Why it matters for HVAC
The distinction matters whenever an account runs both instant forms and landing pages, which is most of them. Comparing the two on link clicks overstates the form campaign, because form opens count and nobody went anywhere.
It also matters for diagnosing landing pages. If outbound clicks considerably exceed the landing page views your pixel records, people are clicking and leaving before the page renders, which is a site speed problem rather than an advertising one.
How it is measured
Reported as its own field. The gap between outbound clicks and landing page views is one of the most useful diagnostics available and takes one report to read.
A worked example
A campaign records 620 outbound clicks and 410 landing page views. Around a third of the people who chose to visit never saw the page. No creative change fixes that; the page takes too long on a phone on mobile data in a driveway.
These figures are invented to show the arithmetic. They describe no real business.
Where this is demonstrated
The Instant form campaigns pillar scores every listed agency on what they document here, and gives you the questions that tell you which one you are being sold.