The Free Ad Account Audit Checklist: 12 Things to Check Before You Blame Your Targeting

Whenever an ad account underperforms, targeting gets blamed first — new audiences get built, old ones get paused, and the actual issue often goes untouched because nobody checked for it. Here's the checklist we run through on every account audit, in the order that actually finds problems fastest.

Tracking (check this first, always)

• Is Conversions API (CAPI) set up alongside the pixel, with deduplication confirmed working?
• Do the conversion numbers in the ad platform roughly match what's in your actual sales/CRM system?
• Are you tracking the conversion that matters (a completed purchase or qualified lead), not a proxy like a form start or add-to-cart?

Account structure

• Are you running so many overlapping campaigns/ad sets that they're competing against each other in the auction?
• Is there a negative keyword list (Google) or exclusion audience (Meta) actually being maintained?
• Has budget been sitting unchanged for 90+ days without being revisited against current performance?

Creative and offer

• How long has your current best-performing ad been running without a fresh variant? (Fatigue is real, usually after 3-6 weeks at meaningful spend.)
• Does the ad's promise match what the landing page actually delivers?
• Are you testing enough genuinely different concepts, or just minor variations of the same one idea?

The landing page itself

• Does the page load in under 3 seconds on mobile?
• Is the call-to-action visible without scrolling on a phone screen?
• Is there anything on the page (a popup, a broken form, unclear pricing) that would make you personally hesitate to buy?

If you go through all 12 and everything genuinely checks out, then it's a real targeting or bidding problem — and worth digging into. Our experience is that most accounts never make it past the first section before finding something worth fixing.

Want a second set of eyes on this instead of doing it yourself? Our Ad Account Audit gig covers exactly this process with a written report of what to fix first.