AdChat

What the checkup looks at

The six problems we see most in small business ad accounts. Each one comes with the exact ad or ad set, the money involved, and a one-click way to fix it.

Wasted spend

Ads that spent real money and brought in no sales, leads or messages.

Tired ads

Ads the same people have seen too many times, or whose click rate is falling.

Stuck in learning

Ad sets marked “Learning limited”, which never settle into steady results.

Budget spread too thin

Too many small ad sets, each with too little money to learn from.

Expensive ads

Ads that get results, but at twice your average cost or more.

Active but not spending

Ads that say Active but haven’t spent a cent, and why that usually happens.

What is a Facebook ads audit?

A Facebook ads audit is a check of your ad account to find where money is being lost. It answers three questions: which ads bring in sales or leads, which ones don't, and what is stopping the rest from working. Agencies often charge a few hundred dollars for one. The basic version takes about a minute when a tool reads your numbers for you.

Most small accounts don't fail because of one big mistake. They lose money in small ways that add up: an ad that kept running after it stopped working, a budget split across too many ad sets, an audience that has seen the same ad six times. Ads Manager shows all the numbers, but it doesn't tell you which ones matter.

How to audit your Facebook ads yourself

If you'd rather do it by hand in Ads Manager, here's the order we use:

Check that results are being recorded.Set the date to the last 14 days and look at the Results column. If it's empty while you're spending money, fix your pixel or campaign goal before anything else.
Sort ads by amount spent. Look at your top spenders. Any ad that spent more than one and a half times your normal cost per result with zero results is a candidate to pause.
Add the Frequency column. Above about 3.5 in two weeks, people are getting tired of the ad. Click rates fall and costs rise.
Look at the Delivery column for ad sets.“Learning limited” means Facebook can't get the roughly 50 results a week it needs to learn who to show your ads to.
Compare daily budgets with your cost per result.If an ad set's daily budget is less than one result costs you, it can't get enough results to learn.
Count ads per ad set. With more than about six, Facebook spends most of the money on one or two and the rest barely get tested.

That's exactly what the free checkup does, using your real numbers, and it names the ads and ad sets involved.

How to read your grade

Your grade starts at 100. Each problem takes points off, with bigger ones costing more, and so does the share of your budget that went to ads with no results. A (85+) means small tweaks only. C (55–69) means real problems are costing you money. Fusually means something basic is broken, often tracking. Fix the items at the top of your report first. They're ordered by how much money is involved.

What to do after the checkup

Every finding has a Fix this in AdChatbutton. It opens AdChat's chat with that exact problem filled in. AdChat looks deeper, explains what it would change in plain English, and only makes the change after you say yes. New campaigns and ads start paused, so nothing spends by surprise. Run the checkup again in two weeks to see if your grade went up.

Questions

Is the Facebook ads audit really free?

Yes. The checkup is free and you don't need a credit card. It creates a free AdChat account so we can connect to your ad account. If you later want AdChat to help every day, it's free for 7 days, then $19/month.

Will the audit change anything in my ad account?

No. The checkup only reads your numbers. AdChat starts read-only and only changes things when you ask it to and say yes. You can disconnect any time.

Why does Facebook ask for permission to manage my ads?

Facebook shows one permission screen for apps that can read and, later, make changes you ask for. Approving it doesn't let AdChat change anything on its own. Changes stay off until you turn them on.

What period does the checkup look at?

The last 14 full days, compared with the 14 days before that. That's long enough to spot real problems and short enough to reflect what's running now.

How is my grade worked out?

You start at 100. Each problem takes points off (more for bigger ones), and so does the share of your budget that went to ads with no results. A is 85 or more, F is below 40. If no sales or leads are being recorded at all, the grade can't go above F, because nothing else can be judged.

Can AdChat fix the problems it finds?

Yes, when you ask. Each finding has a “Fix this in AdChat” button that opens the chat with that problem. AdChat explains what it would change and waits for your yes before doing anything.

Find out what's wasting your Facebook ad budget