10 Things to Check When Auditing a Facebook Ads Account
Reading Time: ~5 Mins | Written By: Cheryl Goeres
With its detailed targeting options and powerful algorithm, Facebook is a great place for businesses to advertise. Since it’s so powerful, it’s important to ensure your campaigns, or your clients' campaigns are set up for success.
We’ve listed out 10 things you should check when auditing a Facebook Ads Account.
Campaign Structure
One of the first things to look at when auditing a Facebook Ads Account is the campaign structure. Ensure the goal of the campaign is chosen at the campaign level. At the ad set level, make sure each ad set has different targeting otherwise there will be overlap within the campaign.
It’s quite common that many people create ads via their Facebook Page and not Ads Manager. By doing so, they’ve missed out on additional detailed targeting options. An easy way to check if it was created in Ads Manager or not, is to go directly to the ad and click Edit. It’ll then tell you if the ad was created outside of the Ads Manager Platform.
Since it’s quite common that people create ads via their Facebook Page, each ad will then be its own campaign when you look in Ads Manager. This is a good opportunity to recommend a structured campaign style as they will have more targeting options and it will also be easier to manage.
Campaign Optimization
Facebook’s algorithm works very well which is why it’s important to make sure that the campaign is optimized for the goal it wants to achieve. For example, by choosing a Traffic Campaign that is optimized for Link Clicks, your ads are going to be seen by people who are more likely to click on your ads. Whereas if a Conversions Campaign is optimized for Purchases, your ads are going to be seen by people who are more likely to make a purchase (AKA, convert).
Location Targeting (living in)
When checking the location targeting of campaigns, check to see if ‘People living in this location’ is selected. If it’s not, ads may have been showing to people outside of the targeted locations.
Lookalike Audiences
Lookalike audiences are a very powerful targeting tool. You’re able to create these audiences from your most valuable audiences, such as people who have purchased your product or completed a contact form. Lookalike audiences will build an audience who look and act similar to those top performing audiences. Check the Ad Sets to see if any are using Lookalike audiences for their targeting. If not, they could be missing out on a valuable audience.
Event (Conversion) Tracking
Having proper event tracking is essential for running conversion campaigns. It allows you to track specific actions you want visitors to take when they click on your ads. Without proper event tracking, valuable data on ad campaigns performance won’t be available. Using Events Manager, check that events are set up correctly using Test Events. Important Note: Meta Pixel must be installed on the website in order to set up events.
Ad Creative
There are a few things to look at when checking ad creative. For both video and image ad creatives, check that they have been properly formatted for the 3 different placement options (stories, feeds, right column). If video creative is being used, check to see the length of the video. Ideally, it should be less than 30 seconds long for optimal performance. You’ll also want to ensure that the video creative tells the same story if the viewer doesn’t have their volume turned on. Most of the time, people are scrolling through their phones and have videos muted so it’s important that the ad creative can relay the same message. For image creatives, make sure it’s relevant to the ad copy, has minimal text in the image and remains consistent with the brand.
UTM Parameters
UTM parameters are a great way to override the default parameters in Google Analytics. By doing so, you’re able to differentiate website traffic that came from Facebook ads and website traffic that came from organic Facebook posts. This allows you to see how well your Facebook campaigns have performed in Google Analytics. Make sure all ad URLs have UTM parameters on them.
Budget
A campaign's budget can play a big role in how effective the campaign is in achieving its goal. For example, if a conversion campaign was running at $10 a day but the average CPA (cost per action or cost per lead) is $40, the budget may be too small to achieve optimal results. Ideally, your daily budget should be 5 times more than your CPA.
Time Period
For optimal performance, ads need to leave the Learning Phase. The Learning Phase is when Facebook’s ad delivery system is learning how to best optimize your ads within that ad set. To leave the Learning Phase, ads typically need to be running for at least 4 weeks or have 50 conversion events. If ads only ran for a brief period of time, they likely didn’t leave the Learning Phase, not achieving results that they could have if they ran longer. Be sure to take a look at how each ad campaign/ad set ran for.
CPAs
It is very important to check the Cost Per Action (CPA) of a campaign.You first want to understand what the ideal CPA is for your business or client. For eCommerce businesses this will be easier as you can compare the CPA to the purchase value. You’ll want to make sure that the CPA is lower than the purchase value. At a minimum, you want the CPA to purchase value (or conversion value) ratio to be 1:2, meaning the value you achieved from the ad is 2x more than the cost of it.
Auditing yours or your clients current marketing efforts allows you to identify any areas of improvement. By following these 10 things, you’ll have the tools to ensure your Facebook Ad Campaigns are set up for success.
To learn more about Facebook advertising and other advertising platforms, check out our Digital Marketing Bootcamp.
