ads-meta

name	ads-meta
description	Meta Ads deep analysis covering Facebook and Instagram advertising. Evaluates 46 checks across Pixel/CAPI health, creative diversity and fatigue, account structure, and audience targeting. Includes Advantage+ assessment. Use when user says "Meta Ads", "Facebook Ads", "Instagram Ads", "Advantage+", or "Meta campaign".

Meta Ads Deep Analysis

Process

1. Collect Meta Ads data (Ads Manager export, Events Manager screenshot, EMQ scores)
2. Read ads/references/meta-audit.md for full 46-check audit
3. Read ads/references/benchmarks.md for Meta-specific benchmarks
4. Read ads/references/scoring-system.md for weighted scoring
5. Evaluate all applicable checks as PASS, WARNING, or FAIL
6. Calculate Meta Ads Health Score (0-100)
7. Generate findings report with action plan

What to Analyze

Pixel / CAPI Health (30% weight)

• Meta Pixel installed and firing on all pages
• Conversions API (CAPI) active (30-40% data loss without it post-iOS 14.5)
• Event deduplication configured (event_id matching, ≥90% dedup rate)
• Event Match Quality (EMQ) ≥8.0 for Purchase event
• All standard events configured (ViewContent, AddToCart, Purchase, Lead)
• Custom conversions created for non-standard events
• Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) configured for iOS
• Domain verification completed
• Server-side events include customer_information parameters
• Pixel fires with correct currency and value parameters

Creative (30% weight)

• ≥3 creative formats active (image, video, carousel, collection)
• ≥5 creatives per ad set (Meta recommendation)
• Creative fatigue detection: CTR drop >20% over 14 days = FAIL
• Video creative: 15s max for Stories/Reels, 30s max for Feed
• UGC/testimonial creative tested
• Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) tested
• Ad copy: headline under 40 chars, primary text under 125 chars
• Creative refresh cadence: every 2-4 weeks for high-spend

Account Structure (20% weight)

• Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) vs Ad Set Budget (ABO) intentional
• Campaign consolidation: ≤5 active campaigns per objective type
• Learning phase health: <30% ad sets in "Learning Limited" (FAIL >50%)
• Budget per ad set: ≥5x target CPA (minimum for learning phase exit)
• Ad set audience overlap <30% (Audience Overlap tool)
• Campaign naming conventions consistent and descriptive
• Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) active for e-commerce
• Simplified campaign structure (fewer, larger ad sets preferred)

Audience & Targeting (20% weight)

• Prospecting frequency (7-day): <3.0 (WARNING 3-5, FAIL >5)
• Retargeting frequency (7-day): <8.0 (WARNING 8-12, FAIL >12)
• Custom Audiences: website visitors, customer lists, engagement
• Lookalike Audiences: multiple seed sizes tested (1%, 3%, 5%)
• Advantage+ Audience tested vs manual targeting
• Interest targeting: broad enough for algorithm optimization
• Exclusions: purchasers excluded from prospecting, overlap managed
• Location targeting reviewed for relevance

Advantage+ Assessment

If Advantage+ features are in use:

• ASC (Shopping Campaigns): catalog connected, existing customer cap set
• Advantage+ Audience: performance vs manual audience compared
• Advantage+ Creative: enhancements enabled (text, brightness, music)
• Advantage+ Placements: enabled (let Meta optimize placement mix)
• Budget allocation: Advantage+ campaigns getting fair test budget

Special Ad Categories

If ads are in restricted categories:

• Special Ad Category declared before campaign creation
• Targeting restrictions verified (no ZIP, age 18-65+ only, no Lookalike)
• Creative compliance with category-specific policies
• Read ads/references/compliance.md for full requirements

EMQ Optimization Guide

EMQ Score	Status	Action
8.0-10.0	Excellent	Maintain current setup
6.0-7.9	Good	Add more customer_information parameters
4.0-5.9	Fair	Implement CAPI, improve data quality
<4.0	Poor	Critical: CAPI + Enhanced Matching required

Key parameters to maximize EMQ:

• em (email) — highest match rate signal
• ph (phone) — second highest match signal
• fn, ln (first/last name) — improves match accuracy
• ct, st, zp (city, state, zip) — geographic matching
• external_id — CRM/user ID for cross-device matching

Key Thresholds

Metric	Pass	Warning	Fail
EMQ (Purchase)	≥8.0	6.0-7.9	<6.0
Dedup rate	≥90%	70-90%	<70%
CTR	≥1.0%	0.5-1.0%	<0.5%
Creative formats	≥3	2	1
Creatives per ad set	≥5	3-4	<3
Learning Limited	<30%	30-50%	>50%
Budget per ad set	≥5x CPA	2-5x CPA	<2x CPA

Budget-edit safety (operational landmine)

When you edit a live campaign's budget mid-day, Meta treats the daily budget as a hard calendar-day cap. Setting it below what the campaign has already spent today halts ALL delivery until midnight — while the campaign still shows "Active" in Ads Manager.

Real incident (2026-06-11): trimming HV ASC Core 52639162668484 from $800→$300/day at 11:33 ET, after ~$396 had already spent that morning → zero delivery for ~3 hours, sales stalled. "Active" ≠ delivering.

Before ANY mid-day budget cut:

1. Pull date_preset=today spend for the campaign; the new cap must be comfortably ABOVE today's spend (today_spend + expected evening spend). Meta pacing can front-load 30%+ of the daily budget into one good auction hour, so weekly-average spend massively understates intraday spend.
2. Prefer applying cuts just after midnight ad-account time, when today_spend = 0.
3. After any budget edit, verify delivery within the hour via the hourly insights breakdown — not just the status field.
4. Check effective_status at all three levels (campaign, ad set, ad) after changes — someone may have manually paused a level in parallel.

Output

Meta Ads Health Score

Meta Ads Health Score: XX/100 (Grade: X)

Pixel / CAPI Health: XX/100  ████████░░  (30%)
Creative:            XX/100  ██████████  (30%)
Account Structure:   XX/100  ███████░░░  (20%)
Audience:            XX/100  █████░░░░░  (20%)

Deliverables

• META-ADS-REPORT.md — Full 46-check findings with pass/warning/fail
• EMQ improvement roadmap
• Creative fatigue alerts (any creative with CTR declining >20%)
• Quick Wins sorted by impact
• Advantage+ adoption recommendations