How We Approach Meta Ads Audits: A Strategic Framework for Better Performance
A well-executed Meta ads audit can be the key difference between spinning your wheels and unlocking your next level of profitable growth. Within Foxwell Digital and the Foxwell Founders Membership, we’ve audited hundreds of Meta ad accounts, from surface level audits to true deep dives. Keep reading to find our 5 basic components to a successful audit:
Not a member? If you’re a Meta ad buyer, or do TikTok ads, Google/YouTube ads, any PPC ads, email/SMS, or are a brand founder, agency owner, and more, this is the place for you. We’d love to have you!
1. Understanding the Context
One big learning we’ve had in doing all those audits is, the difference between mediocre and exceptional impact often comes down to asking the right questions up front to understand the context of the account you will be auditing. Typically these fall into 4 buckets:
a. Struggling accounts: The most common use case. Oftentimes clients ask for Meta ads audits because their account is struggling…whether that be to hit a target ROAS, hit new customer growth goals, or in some cases just get anything to work.
b. Optimization audits: The performance is fine, but the client feels there is more growth potential being left on the table and wants to determine a strategy for reaching it.
c. Second opinion audits: The client is happy with how things are going, but wants a fresh set of eyes on the account to see if there are small changes they could make that could lead to incremental improvements.
d. Discrepancy investigations: When the numbers don’t add up.
Here are some common discrepancy patterns and the most common solutions:
The Great Platform Results, Poor Revenue: In this case, platform numbers look terrific, but if they were really that great the client would expect to see a bigger impact in their primary KPIs – typically MER (marketing efficiency ratio, or the ratio of total ad spend to total revenue), revenue, new customer revenue and new customer growth.
Typically when we see this the first things we look at are the Audience Segment breakdowns and the Attribution Settings comparison. When in-platform numbers are strong but overall growth is weak quite often it is because too much of your budget (and purchase behavior) is going towards existing customers, and/or too much of your attribution is view through and likely non incremental. It is most commonly one of those two issues. Note: It’s OK to have some view attribution, and I am in fact a fan of running 7 day click/1 day view optimization, but if you are overly indexed on 1 day view that is a problem.Poor Platform Results but Strong Revenue: The opposite scenario, less common but we do see it…platform numbers look low, but overall business metrics are strong so the client isn’t sure whether to pull back spend or not. In this case we look at overall ad spend to revenue (or new customer revenue) and try to identify patterns…does revenue go up or down commensurate with ad spend? If so Meta is likely driving top of funnel activity that is resulting in purchases being attributed to other platforms.
We also encourage the use of post purchase to get another perspective on the efficacy of the program. Finally, we will look at common troubleshooting scenarios such as ensuring the pixel is firing correctly and, particularly for higher AOV/longer consideration products, what do longer attribution windows such as 28 day click look like in-platform?
2. Account Structure Analysis
Once we’ve established the context with which we are undertaking the audit, the next step is an overview of the account structure. Is there a logical structure to the account, or is there more of a chaotic, throw things at the wall structure?
There are many different ways to structure a successful Meta ads account, but here are some common ones we see that may be inhibiting performance:
a. Too many campaigns/ad sets/ads. Back in 2019 this was great, nowadays greater consolidation typically leads to better results.
b. Too much specific targeting. Some strategic use of interest targeting can still be helpful in some cases, but over targeting – particularly layering interests, using interests with lookalikes (or really, lookalikes at all nowadays) or doing a lot of audience testing tends to inhibit results.
c. Too much (or in some cases, any) re-targeting. In the last few years, due to privacy issues impacting re-targeting audiences sizes, there are diminishing returns from dedicated re-targeting campaigns. Also, check your audience segment breakdown, as you are likely doing a lot of re-targeting already, just not in dedicated campaigns.
d. Not using proper exclusions. There are many strategies around audience exclusions. At the very least you should be excluding existing customers in most cases, both via a pixel custom audience and, ideally, a synced customer list.
e. Is there a creative testing strategy? There are many different ways to implement a testing strategy…but there should be a logical strategy in place that the account structure is supporting.
f. Budget allocation: At the end of the day, is the most money flowing towards the most impactful campaigns/ad sets/ads?
3. Performance Deep Dive
Here is where we identify what is actually working and what isn’t. What we are looking for:
a. Which campaigns/ad sets/ads are showing the strongest CPA and ROAS. We are less concerned with soft metrics like CTR and CPM unless we determine they are inhibiting performance. When we look at CPA and ROAS we focus more on campaigns and ad sets vs individual ads, as some ads in an ad set could be driving more upper funnel activity, leading to other ads in the campaign or ad set getting the attributed revenue.
b. What types of creatives are performing the best? Is there sufficient creative diversity and volume? Does whatever testing strategy the client has chosen to implement appear to be effective at identifying new winning ads? If not, why not?
c. In cases where performance is poor, can we look at a period where things were going well and identify what worked then and if there are learnings we can apply today?
d. Are there areas of wasted spend? Are there campaigns that are getting significant budget but don’t appear to be driving business growth?
e. Are there scaling opportunities that are being missed? Are there campaigns that are doing well but for whatever reason aren’t getting as much budget as other campaigns that are not?
f. Are there bidding strategies, structures or creative formats or angles that we have seen work well in other accounts that could be applied here?
g. Are there factors outside of ads manager that could be impacting results, such as site conversion rate, landing page testing, product/market fit and quality of offer?
Focusing on getting new creative for your digital ads? Check out the Foxwell Founders’ sister community, the Hive Haus – a one-stop shop to connect brands and creators for performance driven User-Generated Content (UGC). Creators are vetted and ready to shoot content to help scale your brand.
4. Business Impact Assessment
This is where we go beyond Meta ads manager to assess how the overall Meta program is impacting the business. Some of the things we will look at:
a. MER – the ratio of marketing spend to business revenue. Has it changed recently, and if so can we track it back to changes made to the Meta ads? Should we have expected changes we are not seeing, such as a revenue lift after scaling spend?
b. New Customer ROAS – what does that look like versus historical baseline? Are Meta ads impacting this number in a positive way?
c. Cross channel impact – Can we see the impact of the Meta ads program in other channels such as organic search, direct traffic, or Google ads? If the client has a 3rd party attribution system we will look closely at that.
d. What does the overall landscape look like? Are there factors outside of Meta that could be impact performance? Is there seasonality in the business? How do the year over year numbers look?
5. Action Items Going Forward
Here is where we advise the client on actions or strategies they can implement as a result of this audit. Some common pieces of advice include:
a. Any structural changes we can recommend, either opportunities we see to get more budget flowing to campaigns having the highest impact on the business, or structures we see working in other ad accounts we have access to.
b. Feedback on what creative formats and hooks we think can provide the most future value to test or implement.
c. Advice on any budget changes we’d recommend based on the results of the audit in combination with the client’s overall business goals.
d. A plan for next steps and how best to measure the success of those next steps.
Meta ads audits have become one of the most valuable exercises we regularly conduct for businesses, and one of the many benefits that come with being a Foxwell Founders community member. We’ve seen firsthand how helpful a strategic audit can be, whether it’s a more high level overview or a real deep dive.
A Meta ads audit can be many things: it can be a reinforcement that what the client is doing is working, a guiding hand to help them squeeze out a bit more performance, a search for what is broken in the account, or an uncovering of what is possible. Whether an account is struggling or performing well there’s real value in having a second set of eyes on it, looking for ways to improve real business outcomes.