How to Audit Your Facebook Ad Account

When is the last time you audited your Ad Account?

A thorough audit helps identify inefficiencies, uncover hidden opportunities, and fine-tune your ad strategies for better results.

In this issue, we will walk through the essential areas to focus on during your audit process.

By the end, you'll have a clear understanding of how to enhance your Facebook ad campaigns and achieve your business goals more effectively.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

I audited many ad accounts over in the past 10 years.

Here are some of the most frequent pitfalls and tips on how to avoid them:

1. Wrong Campaign Objectives 

Many small businesses fail to align their campaign objectives with measurable goals such as sales, sign-ups, or lead generation.

Instead, they (or the previous marketing agency) optimize for Traffic or Engagement when their primary goal is sales.

(What a waste of money. Zuckerberg laughs at them while chilling on his yacht.)

Ensure that your campaign objectives are directly linked to your key performance indicators (KPIs).

2. Tracking Issues

Incorrect setup of tracking events, including standard events like purchases and add to cart, is a recurring issue.

Set up Meta Pixel (Dataset) and Conversions API to correctly measure your objectives.

Ensure that all relevant events are accurately tracked and recorded to gain insights into your campaign’s effectiveness.

3. No Naming Conventions 

Without straightforward naming conventions, managing and auditing campaigns becomes a chaos.

Adopt naming conventions that include the date, campaign objective, target audience, ads creative names and products/services.

This practice will streamline decision-making and facilitate quicker audits.

4. Wrong Ad Formats

Using inappropriate ad formats, such as landscape mode for static and video ads, can negatively impact performance.

Always use the ideal ratios (4:5 and 9:16) for both static and video ad creatives to ensure they display correctly on users' devices.

5. Wrong Ad Account Columns Setup 

Meta's standard column setup often prioritizes vanity metrics, offering little value to serious marketers.

Customize your columns to display key metrics at a glance, enabling you to make informed decisions quickly.

6. Not Using Custom Metrics 

Relying solely on default metrics can be misleading.

Incorporate custom metrics such as Average Order Value (AOV), Video Hook Rate, Video Hold Rate, Conversion

Rate, and Click-to-Landing Page Ratio to better analyze your campaign's effectiveness.

7. Wrong Campaign Setup 

Overcomplicated campaigns with numerous ad sets (5+) and ads (5+) can dilute your efforts.

Utilize Meta's new features like Flexible Ads to create multiple variations within a single ad, and use Advantage+ Audience in ad sets, to simplify your campaign structure.

8. Audience Segmentation 

The days of testing countless interest-based audiences and relying heavily on LookAlike (LAA) and Custom Audiences are over.

Instead, set up your "Existing Customers" and "Engaged Audience" segments in the Ad Account and leverage Meta's powerful algorithm to optimize targeting.

9. Insufficient Ad Creative Testing 

Failing to test ad creatives regularly is a major oversight.

Your ad creatives and copy are your new targeting tools. Ensure you test new creatives on a weekly or bi-monthly basis to keep your campaigns fresh and engaging.

10. Not Using Social Proof 

Social proof, such as reactions, comments, and shares, significantly boosts ad performance.

Leverage viral organic posts or high-performing ads by using their Post IDs to enhance conversion rates.

By addressing these common mistakes, you can significantly improve the performance of your Facebook ad campaigns and achieve better results.

In the next section, we will dive deeper into how to analyze and optimize various aspects of your ad account.

If you fixed the above mentioned pitfalls and everything is set up then you should audit your Ad Account preformace periodically.

Monthly review is a must, but I also recommend a weekly review.

Step-by-Step Framework for Auditing Your Facebook Ad Account:

Step 1: Monitor Key Metrics

Naming conventions (for campaigns, ad sets, and ads) and custom ad metrics column setup facilitate easy identification and analysis.

Account-Level Metrics:

Review overall spend, total conversions, and ROAS. These metrics provide a high-level view of your account’s performance and help you understand the big picture.

Campaign-Level Performance:

Analyze metrics like cost per result, conversion rates, Average Order Value (AOV), and ROAS.

These metrics help you evaluate the effectiveness of individual campaigns and identify which ones are driving the most value.

Ad-Level Performance:

Examine click-through rates (CTR), cost per click (CPC), Hook Rate (initial engagement with video content), and Hold Rate (sustained engagement with video content).

These metrics help you identify top-performing ads and pinpoint areas needing improvement.

Example: E-commerce store Facebook Ads Column Metrics Setup

Conversions | CPA | Conversions Value | AOV | Conversion Rate | ROAS | Initiated Checkouts | ATC | Spend | CPC | CTR | CPM | Frequency | Reach | Hook Rate | Hold Rate

Step 2: Audience Insights

Ensure audience segments (existing customers, engaged audience) are set up at the ad account level.

Understanding your audience segmentation and performance is crucial for effective targeting.

You have to this once, then you are all set.

Check how Meta allocates budgets to each audience segment in the breakdown and review key metrics for each segment.

This helps you understand which segments are most profitable and where to focus your efforts with ad creatives and ad copy.

Here's how you can check this:

Open up Breakdown in the Ads Manager, Select by demographics, and choose audience segments.

Check image below for reference:

Step 3: Check Ad Creatives and Ad Copy

Identify which ad creatives and ad copy bring in the most sales. Use these insights to create similar ads and iterate on successful elements.

Regularly test variations of high-performing ad creatives and ad copy to keep your campaigns fresh.

This helps you find new scaling opportunities and maintain audience engagement.

Save and reuse high-performing ads. Using Post IDs to retain social proof like likes, comments, and shares.

If something works, re-use it from time to time. Ads with a lot of engagement improve conversion rates by leveraging the credibility.

Step 4: Benchmarking

Benchmarking helps you understand performance over time and identify growth opportunities.

Compare current performance metrics against past performance to identify trends and areas for improvement.

This helps you set realistic goals and measure progress.

Always benchmark your performance to your own performance, not to the competition.

Adjust your goals and KPIs based on monthly, trimester and yearly benchmarks.

Step 5: Budget Allocation and Optimization

Optimizing your budget ensures that you are investing in the most profitable areas of your ad account.

Review how your budget is distributed across campaigns and ad sets.

Ensure that high-performing areas receive sufficient budget while underperforming campaigns are adjusted or paused.

Test different budget strategies (e.g., Highest Volume or Value, Bid Cap, Max. Cost per Result) to see which yields better results.

Conclusion

Conducting a comprehensive audit of your Meta ad account can uncover valuable insights and significantly enhance your campaign performance.

By regularly monitoring key metrics, understanding your audience, optimizing ad creatives, benchmarking performance, and wisely allocating budgets, you can ensure your advertising efforts are both effective and efficient.

Implementing these strategies will help you achieve your business goals and maximize your return on investment.