The most important part of pre-launching Meta campaigns is making sure that everything is properly set up. Mistakes can lead to having to reset your campaign learnings or hit pause in frustration.

I’ve got you! Follow this checklist and you'll be able to avoid the most common errors and ensure that you're ready to press play without the anxiety. Vamos allá!

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Event QA

Let’s start by ensuring that your tracking works correctly:

Check that your campaign conversion is firing. You can do this by using the Meta Pixel Helper plugin or the “Test Events” section in Events Manager.

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Confirm that your conversion has been reporting signals for a few days to ensure Meta understands what you want to achieve with your campaign.

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Campaign QA

Now let’s make sure your campaigns are set up for success:

• Check your naming conventions. (*Tip: if you need to edit your campaign/ad set/ad name after the campaign has been published and you’re using UTMs, duplicate the campaign. Otherwise, the UTMs will refer to the original name set.)

• Check that you’re optimizing for the desired goal.

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• If you’re running a Sales Campaign: Confirm whether you have set an Advantage+ shopping campaign or a Manual Campaign. Meta sets up ASCs by default atm unless you have chosen not to. Double check whether this is what you want to do. If unsure, go manual.

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• Is Advantage Campaign Budget+ turned ON? Sometimes it comes off as default, but Meta recommends turning this ON. We’ve seen this work best.

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• Double check that your daily or lifetime budget is set with the right amount.

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• Confirm that you’re using the desired campaign bid strategy.

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• If you choose to use manual bidding, don’t forget to check (at ad set level) that your bid is set where you want it to be.

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Ad set QA

Time to dive into ad set and audience setups.

Let’s start with your audiences. Go to the audiences section and check the following:

• Audience set up: Is it using the right demographics, location, etc?
• Availability: Is it ready to be used?
• Estimated audience size: Is the audience sample good enough for your budget and objectives?

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Now let’s go back to your setup:

• Confirm both your conversion location, and that you selected the right conversion event.

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*Tip: If you see the message below or anything similar when selecting your conversion event, it will mean that your campaign will have issues reporting IOS conversions. Don’t worry. Here’s what you need to do.

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• Review your schedule.

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• Check the right audience has been added to the right ad set.
• Check the right exclusions have been added too.
• Double check your audience settings at ad set level to make sure you’re targeting the right audience. 

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• Are you using Advantage+ Placements? We recommend leaving this ON but remember to manually edit this if needed, as it default setting is ON.

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• Check your Attribution Settings. If you’re not sure what to choose, we recommend having the largest attribution window possible after clicking, and 1 day after viewing.

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Ad QA

Now it’s time to QA the setup of your ads. Equally important are the creatives.

Let’s look at your creatives first:

• Check for typos or spelling mistakes in the asset copy.
• Review the composition to make sure everything looks good.

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• If you’re using video with a voice-over, include captions!
• Listen to the audio and music. Is it in time with the captions? Do the music and volume sound good?

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The final check is for the ads setup:

• Choose the correct FB and IG pages.

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• Did you upload the image corresponding to the correct ad?
• Review the primary text, headline and description.
• Ensure that the URL is working.
• Check that the UTMS are there with the right structure in place.

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Bonus QA Tip

Create a QA view in your ads manager to be able to quickly review most of the above! Simply choose the columns that display the information in the checklist, and save your columns for use in the future.

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Listo!! Time for Meta to do its magic. Let’s press play!