| name | facebook-ads |
| description | Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram) platform expertise. Audit campaigns, audiences, creative strategy, pixel tracking, and CAPI. Use when the user asks about Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Meta Ads, social media advertising, Advantage+ campaigns, or Meta pixel/CAPI setup. |
| license | MIT |
| origin | custom |
| author | Rebecca Rae Barton |
| author_url | https://github.com/thatrebeccarae |
| metadata | {"version":"1.0.0","category":"paid-media","domain":"meta-ads","updated":"2026-03-11T00:00:00.000Z","tested":"2026-03-17T00:00:00.000Z","tested_with":"Claude Code v2.1"} |
Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)
Expert-level guidance for Meta Ads — auditing, building, and optimizing campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and the Audience Network.
Install
git clone https://github.com/thatrebeccarae/claude-marketing.git && cp -r claude-marketing/skills/facebook-ads ~/.claude/skills/
Core Capabilities
Campaign Auditing & Optimization
- Full account audit: structure, objectives, audiences, creative, tracking, attribution
- Identify creative fatigue, audience overlap, and budget inefficiencies
- Diagnose performance drops (iOS privacy, audience saturation, creative burnout)
- Advantage+ Shopping and Advantage+ Audience recommendations
Campaign Objectives (Outcome-Based)
- Awareness — Reach, brand awareness, video views
- Traffic — Link clicks, landing page views
- Engagement — Post engagement, messages, conversions on-platform
- Leads — Instant Forms, Messenger, website lead gen
- App Promotion — App installs, app events
- Sales — Website conversions, catalog sales, Advantage+ Shopping
Audience Strategy
- Core Audiences — Demographics, interests, behaviors, location
- Custom Audiences — Website (pixel/CAPI), customer list, app activity, video viewers, engagement
- Lookalike Audiences — 1-10% based on custom audience seed (value-based LALs preferred)
- Advantage+ Audience — Meta's AI-driven targeting (audience suggestions as signals, not constraints)
- Broad targeting — No interests/LAL, rely on creative + pixel data + Meta's ML
Creative Strategy
- Ad format selection: single image, carousel, video, collection, Instant Experience
- Creative testing frameworks: concept testing vs iterative testing
- UGC (user-generated content) integration and creator whitelisting
- Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) vs manual A/B testing
- Creative fatigue signals and refresh cadence
- Platform-specific creative (Feed, Stories, Reels, Explore)
Tracking & Attribution
- Meta Pixel — Standard events, custom events, microdata, aggregated event measurement
- Conversions API (CAPI) — Server-side tracking for privacy resilience
- Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) — iOS 14.5+ handling, 8-event prioritization
- Attribution settings: 7-day click + 1-day view (default), 1-day click, 28-day click
- UTM parameter strategy for GA4 cross-reference
- Conversion lift studies and incrementality testing
Key Benchmarks
| Metric | Good | Great | Warning |
|---|
| CTR (Link Clicks) | 1-2% | 3%+ | <0.8% |
| CPC (Link Click) | $0.50-$1.50 | <$0.50 | >$2.00 |
| CPM | $8-$15 | <$8 | >$20 |
| Conversion Rate (Landing Page) | 3-5% | 8%+ | <2% |
| ROAS (ecommerce) | 3-4x | 6x+ | <2x |
| Cost Per Lead | Industry dependent | Below industry avg | Rising trend |
| Frequency (prospecting) | 1.5-2.5 | 1-1.5 | >3.5 |
| Frequency (retargeting) | 3-6 | 2-3 | >10 |
| Thumb-Stop Rate (video) | 25-35% | 40%+ | <20% |
| Hook Rate (3s video views %) | 30-40% | 50%+ | <25% |
Campaign Structure (Modern Best Practice)
Ad Account
├── Advantage+ Shopping Campaign (ecommerce)
│ ├── Broad targeting (Meta AI optimizes)
│ ├── Existing customer budget cap (10-20%)
│ └── Mixed creative (image, video, UGC, carousel)
├── Prospecting Campaign (Conversions/Sales)
│ ├── Ad Set: Broad (no targeting, trust the pixel)
│ ├── Ad Set: Lookalike 1-3% (value-based)
│ └── Ad Set: Interest stacks (if needed)
├── Retargeting Campaign (Conversions/Sales)
│ ├── Ad Set: Website visitors 1-30 days
│ ├── Ad Set: Engaged (video viewers, IG/FB engaged)
│ └── Ad Set: Cart abandoners
├── Lead Gen Campaign (if applicable)
│ ├── Ad Set: Lookalikes of converters
│ └── Ad Set: Interest-based
└── Brand / Top-of-Funnel (optional)
├── Video Views (awareness content)
└── Traffic (blog, resources)
Modern trend: Consolidate ad sets. Meta's algorithm performs better with fewer, broader ad sets and more creative diversity within each.
Workflow: Full Account Audit
When asked to audit a Meta Ads account:
- Pixel & CAPI Health — Event tracking, CAPI coverage, event match quality score, AEM config
- Account Structure — Campaign consolidation, objective alignment, naming conventions
- Audience Strategy — Overlap analysis, LAL seeds, audience size, Advantage+ adoption
- Creative Analysis — Format mix, creative fatigue (frequency + declining CTR), testing velocity
- Budget & Bidding — CBO vs ABO, budget allocation, bid strategy (lowest cost vs cost cap vs bid cap)
- Funnel Coverage — Prospecting vs retargeting balance, exclusions between funnels
- Attribution — Window settings, cross-platform reconciliation (vs GA4), CAPI deduplication
- Placement Optimization — Advantage+ placements vs manual, creative per placement
- Shopping / Catalog — Feed quality, product sets, dynamic ads setup
- Recommendations — Prioritized with expected impact and creative direction
Post-iOS 14.5 Best Practices
- Implement CAPI alongside pixel (aim for 90%+ event match quality)
- Prioritize 8 conversion events per domain in Events Manager
- Use value optimization when possible (Purchase over Add to Cart)
- Broader audiences outperform narrow (give Meta's ML room to optimize)
- UTM tracking + GA4 as secondary attribution source
- Creative is the new targeting — invest in creative testing over audience testing
How to Use This Skill
Ask me questions like:
- "Audit my Facebook Ads account performance"
- "My ROAS is declining — what should I investigate?"
- "Help me set up Conversions API (CAPI)"
- "Design a creative testing framework for my brand"
- "Should I use Advantage+ Shopping or manual campaigns?"
- "Build a full-funnel campaign structure for my DTC brand"
- "My frequency is too high — how do I manage audience fatigue?"
- "Plan a lead gen campaign for B2B on Facebook/Instagram"
For detailed Meta Ads API reference, pixel implementation, and advanced configurations, see REFERENCE.md.
Hard Rules
These constraints must never be violated in recommendations:
- Pixel + CAPI both required. Post-iOS 14.5, browser-only tracking loses 30-40% of conversion data.
- Event deduplication must be active (event_id matching) — without it, conversions are double-counted.
- Event Match Quality ≥8.0 for Purchase event. Below 6.0 is critical.
- Budget must be ≥5x target CPA per ad set — below this, the algorithm cannot exit learning phase.
- Never recommend edits during active learning phase — wait for ~50 conversions/week or intentional reset.
- Creative fatigue = action required. CTR decline >20% over 14 days with frequency >3 = replace creative immediately.
- <30% of ad sets in Learning Limited — above this threshold, consolidation is mandatory.
- Purchasers/converters must be excluded from prospecting campaigns.
- Special Ad Categories must be declared before campaign creation for Housing, Employment, Credit, and Financial Products.
Scored Audit
When performing an account audit, load skills/shared/scoring-system.md for the weighted scoring algorithm and CHECKS.md for the 46-check Meta Ads audit checklist. Produce a health score (0-100, grade A-F) with Quick Wins and a prioritized action plan.
