--- title: "Meta Ads Audit Checklist: 20 Self Scored Checks, Free" description: "A free Meta ads audit checklist: 20 checks across incrementality, retargeting overlap, attribution windows and offer margin that show where paid social leaks." url: https://marginfix.ai/meta-ads-audit-checklist/ lastmod: 2026-10-10 --- Your number See this page in your own figures: industry, spend and the estimated leak. [Run the estimator →](/estimator/) [Home](/) › [Marketing audit checklist](/marketing-audit-checklist/) › Meta ads audit checklist Guide · 20 checks · no email required # Meta ads audit checklist: 20 checks, scored in the browser Tick each check you cannot answer from your own Ads Manager today. Your score stays in this browser, and an audit starts from the areas you flag. - 4 min read - 4 areas, 20 checks - Median finding $58k a year across 74 audits ![Portrait photograph of Cristian Bragau](/assets/founder/cristian-bragau-2026-10.jpg) **[Cristian Bragau](/about/cristian-bragau/)** Founder & Lead Auditor · Reviewed Oct 2026 [Download CSV](/meta-ads-audit-checklist/meta-ads-audit-checklist.csv) On this page 1. [Incrementality](#incrementality) 2. [Retargeting](#retargeting) 3. [Attribution](#attribution) 4. [Offers and margin](#offers) 5. [Published cases](#cases) 6. [Questions](#questions) **The short answer.** A Meta ads audit checks whether the sales Meta reports would have happened anyway, whether retargeting pays for buyers who were already at checkout, how much of the reported return is view through credit, and whether the products advertised earn enough margin to pay for the click. The 20 checks below cover all four. Your score Tick the checks you cannot answer with confidence. Each flagged area shows what the published audits found there. [Have all 20 checked →](/book/) 01 ## Incrementality and lift Paid social is good at reaching people who were going to buy. The question is how many of them it actually moved. [Non incremental paid spend](/glossary/non-incremental-spend/) appeared in 68% of the 74 audited budgets. [Every finding, ranked.](/findings/) Incrementality and lift: 5 checks **1.1** Have you run a conversion lift study or a geo holdout on Meta in the last 12 months, or is every reported purchase assumed incremental? **1.2** Does Meta claim sales that would have happened in your stores or through retail partners anyway? **1.3** Would total revenue, not Meta reported revenue, drop if prospecting spend paused for two weeks? **1.4** Are Advantage+ shopping campaigns allowed to spend most of their budget on existing customers? **1.5** Is reported ROAS compared with blended MER for the same period before budget moves? 02 ## Retargeting and audience overlap The best looking campaign in the account is often the one closest to the checkout. Two published cases found retargeting paying for warm buyers, or paying twice across two platforms, $31k to $53k a year. [The cases, below.](#cases) Retargeting and audience overlap: 5 checks **2.1** How much of your best performing campaign’s spend reaches people who were already in checkout or bought recently? **2.2** Are retargeting audiences on Meta and on Google built from the same visitors, with both platforms claiming the sale? **2.3** Are recent purchasers excluded from prospecting, and from retargeting where they should be? **2.4** Do frequency reports show the same warm audience reached many times a week? **2.5** Are lookalike and broad audiences seeded from profitable customers, not from every purchaser? 03 ## Attribution windows and reporting Meta counts a sale when someone clicked within days or only viewed an ad, so its number is a ceiling, not a measurement. [Attribution inflation](/glossary/attribution-inflation/) appeared in 54% of the 74 audited budgets. [Every finding, ranked.](/findings/) Attribution windows and reporting: 5 checks **3.1** Do you know which attribution setting your Meta results use, and how much of the total is view through? **3.2** Are one day view conversions reported apart from click conversions when you judge a campaign? **3.3** Do Meta reported purchases, added to every other platform’s, exceed your actual orders? **3.4** Is the Conversions API deduplicated against the pixel, so one purchase is not counted twice? **3.5** Is creative judged on contribution margin per order, not on reported ROAS alone? 04 ## Offers, creative and margin A campaign can hit its ROAS target and still lose money on every order it wins. Mispriced offers appeared in 47% of the 74 audited budgets, discount habits in 34%. [Every finding, ranked.](/findings/) Offers, creative and margin: 5 checks **4.1** Are discount codes in ads reaching buyers who would have paid full price? **4.2** Does the product advertised most carry enough margin after shipping, returns and fees to pay for the click? **4.3** Is cost per purchase compared with the contribution margin of the products sold, not the average order value? **4.4** Is creative refreshed on evidence of fatigue, rising frequency and a falling click rate, rather than a fixed calendar? **4.5** In a regulated category, are claims and targeting reviewed so ads do not attract cohorts that churn? 05 ## Meta ads findings in the published audits Published cases whose audit traced the leak to paid social, each with the audited annual figure. - /cases/online-ads-were-paying-for-in-store-demand/Retail ### Online ads were paying for in store demand - −$88k a year, findings in 7 days. - Read the case → - /cases/the-agency-s-winning-campaign-was-the-biggest-loser/DTC / Ecommerce ### The agency’s ‘winning’ campaign was the biggest loser - −$53k a year, findings in 7 days. - Read the case → - /cases/retargeting-was-paid-twice-for-the-same-customer/DTC / Ecommerce ### Retargeting was paid twice for the same customer - −$31k a year, findings in 5 days. - Read the case → The 3 published Meta ads cases above run from $31k to $88k a year. To size your own leak before an audit, run the [wasted ad spend calculator](/estimator/), or score the [Google Ads checklist](/google-ads-audit-checklist/) next. [74 cases](/findings/) Cite this figure In 74 audited SMB marketing budgets, non incremental paid spend appeared in 68%, attribution inflation in 54% and mispriced offers in 47%. MarginFix, marginfix.ai/meta-ads-audit-checklist/ 06 ## Meta ads checklist questions ### How do I know if my Meta ads are incremental? Run a conversion lift study or a geo holdout: withhold ads from a matched group and compare total sales, not Meta reported sales. If revenue barely moves, most reported purchases were demand you already had. One published retail case found much of its paid social was not incremental to its stores. [Read the retail case →](/cases/online-ads-were-paying-for-in-store-demand/) ### Why do Meta’s numbers not match my orders? Meta credits a purchase to an ad someone clicked days earlier or only viewed, so it claims sales that other channels claim too. Add every platform’s conversions and the total often exceeds real orders: attribution inflation, found in 54% of the 74 audited budgets. ### What does an audit add to this checklist? The checklist shows where to look. An audit tests each flagged item against your own numbers: Meta reported sales against a holdout, retargeting reach against recent buyers, margin per order against cost per purchase. Every finding is priced in dollars a year, in 5 to 7 working days, for a fixed fee. ## Have all 20 Meta ads checks run. Every check against your own account, in 5 to 7 working days. $10k to $50k of findings, or your money back. [Request the audit](/book/) [Book the fit call](/book/call/) Fixed fee. No retainer. NDA first. Go deeper ## Read on from the Meta ads checklist - [Marketing audit checklist 30 checks across paid media, attribution, pricing, retention and reporting.](/marketing-audit-checklist/) - [Google Ads audit checklist 25 checks for search and PPC, scored in the browser.](/google-ads-audit-checklist/) - [Wasted ad spend calculator A modeled range for your own spend and revenue, in about a minute.](/estimator/) - [Attribution inflation Why every platform claims the same sale, and how to measure the overlap.](/glossary/attribution-inflation/) - [Non incremental spend Spend that buys conversions you would have had anyway.](/glossary/non-incremental-spend/) - [All 74 findings Ranked by annual value, $58k median, each one a real case.](/findings/)