How To Audit Your Own Facebook Ads Account: Free Checklist

You do not need to hire an agency to know whether your Facebook Ads account is performing. A solid self audit takes about 90 minutes and usually uncovers enough waste to pay for itself within 30 days. This is the exact checklist we run through on every free audit we do for Thousand Oaks businesses, translated into a format any business owner can execute.

Open Meta Ads Manager in one window and this guide in another. Work through it top to bottom.

Section 1: Account Structure And Tracking

Before touching campaigns, verify the foundation is right. Bad foundations waste every dollar of ad spend that follows.

Check 1: Is the Meta Pixel firing on your site? Go to Events Manager. You should see PageView events in the last 24 hours. If the number is zero or far below your real traffic, the Pixel is broken. Fix this first, because without it no optimization is happening.

Check 2: Are conversion events firing? You should see at least one of: Lead, CompleteRegistration, Purchase, Contact. If only PageView fires, Meta has no signal to optimize toward. Set up a custom conversion for whatever your primary goal is.

Check 3: Is Conversion API active? The Events Manager shows a CAPI badge if it is. Without CAPI, you lose 15 to 30 percent of conversion signal to iOS tracking restrictions. This is a big deal.

Check 4: Is the domain verified? Go to Business Settings then Brand Safety then Domains. Your domain should be listed with a green verified status. Unverified domains lose Aggregated Event Measurement capabilities.

Section 2: Campaign Settings

Now open your active campaigns. These settings are where most waste hides.

Check 5: What is the campaign objective? For lead generation businesses the objective should be Leads or Sales. Traffic and Engagement objectives are almost always the wrong choice for a local service business and signal a campaign that was set up by someone who did not know what they were doing.

Check 6: Is bid strategy set to Cost Cap or Highest Volume? Highest Volume is fine for small budgets but can run unprofitable. Cost Cap protects against overpaying per result. Bid Cap is for advanced users. Never use manual CPM bidding for lead gen.

Check 7: Is the campaign running with Advantage Campaign Budget on? For most local businesses this is good because Meta can allocate across ad sets automatically. Turn it off only if you want manual budget control per ad set.

Section 3: Audience Targeting

Open each ad set. These are the biggest budget leaks we find in audits.

Check 8: Is location targeting set to People living in this location? If it says People in or recently in this location, you are wasting 20 to 40 percent of budget on tourists, truck drivers, and people who drove through once. Switch it immediately.

Check 9: Is the location radius appropriate? For a local service business, 10 to 20 miles is usually right. Wider than 30 miles on a local business typically signals wasted spend.

Check 10: Is Detailed Targeting Expansion on for cold audiences? Turn it off. Meta expands targeting when it thinks it will help, but for cold local traffic it usually broadens your audience into people who will never convert.

Check 11: How many detailed targeting criteria are stacked? More than three or four interests narrows the audience too tightly and spikes cost per lead. Keep interests broad, let the algorithm find the converters.

Check 12: Is Advantage+ Audience enabled? For warm audiences this can work well. For cold, test both and compare cost per lead.

Section 4: Ad Creative

Now look at the ads themselves.

Check 13: How many ad variations are running per ad set? Less than three means Meta has nothing to test. More than five means each ad does not collect enough data to optimize.

Check 14: What is the age of the oldest active ad? Anything older than 30 days is almost certainly fatigued. Frequency above 4 confirms fatigue, time to refresh.

Check 15: Are you using the Advantage+ placements? For most local businesses yes. Automatic placements let Meta distribute ads across Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed, Reels, Stories, and Marketplace to find the cheapest conversions.

Check 16: Does each ad have 5 headline variations loaded in Advantage+ Creative? If not, you are leaving performance on the table. Meta tests headline combinations automatically if you give it multiple to work with.

Check 17: Is the creative native to the platform? Recycled TV commercials and heavily produced corporate videos underperform compared to phone shot, authentic creative on social. Authenticity almost always beats polish on paid social.

Section 5: Performance Metrics

Now look at the numbers. Open the Campaigns tab with these columns visible: Results, Cost per Result, CTR, Frequency, CPM, ROAS.

Check 18: Cost per Lead target. For a local service business, $30 to $100 per lead is typical depending on industry. Over $150 per lead signals the campaign is not working, unless lifetime value is extremely high.

Check 19: CTR. Above 1.5 percent is healthy. Below 0.8 percent means the creative is not landing.

Check 20: Frequency. Over 3 in a 7 day window means creative fatigue is already hurting performance.

Check 21: CPM (cost per 1000 impressions). $15 to $35 is typical for local service businesses. Over $45 usually signals targeting is too narrow or creative is suppressing reach.

Section 6: Retargeting

Check 22: Do you have a retargeting campaign running? Cold traffic rarely converts on the first touch. Without retargeting you are leaving 30 to 50 percent of conversions on the table.

Check 23: Is the retargeting audience properly segmented? Site visitors in last 30 days excluding converters is the minimum. Better setups segment by page visited and time on site.

What To Fix First

If your audit surfaces 10 or more issues, prioritize like this:

Fix tracking first (Checks 1 through 4). Nothing else matters without signal.
Fix location targeting (Check 8). Biggest single waste fix available.
Refresh creative older than 30 days (Check 14). Fastest performance lift.
Add retargeting if missing (Check 22). Adds 30 to 50 percent more conversions at lower cost.
Everything else in order of cost impact.

Want An Expert Audit?

If you work through this checklist and find more than 5 issues, consider a free audit from Landon Scales. You will get a written report with the specific issues on your account, the exact fixes, and an estimated lift from each one. Free, no obligation, usually delivered within 48 hours.

Most audits find at least 20 percent wasted spend on the first pass. Fix those leaks and the budget immediately works harder without adding a dollar.

How To Audit Your Own Facebook Ads Account: Free Checklist