Facebook and Instagram ads checklist

This is the list I work through before a Facebook and Instagram ad account spends its first pound, and again in the weeks after launch. It is for UK business owners and in-house marketers who run their own Meta ads, or who want to review an account someone else built. Every item can be checked in Meta Business Suite, Events Manager or Ads Manager.

How to use this checklist

Sections 1 to 8 come before launch, in the order I do them, because each depends on the one before. Sections 9 and 10 cover the first fortnight and the routine after it. Mark each item yes, no or not relevant, and clear every “no” in sections 1 and 2 before spending anything. If the account is already live, start with sections 1, 2 and 7.

This page is the list to tick. For the reasoning behind each step, see my guide to setting up and running Meta ads.

1. Who owns the account and its assets

Ownership problems surface at the worst moment: a freelancer leaves and the ad account goes with them, or one locked profile cuts the business off from its own Page.

• The business owns the portfolio. Your Page, Instagram account, ad account and pixel sit in a Meta business portfolio (formerly Business Manager) that belongs to the business, not to an agency or an employee. The Page and Instagram account are both connected to it.
• Two people inside the business have full control. Two trusted admins, both using two-factor authentication. Outside help is added as a partner, or given access to specific assets, and removed when the work ends.
• The ad account uses pounds sterling and UK time. Both are set when the ad account is created and are awkward to change later. London time keeps daily budgets and reports in line with your working day.
• Billing is complete. Business name and address, your VAT number if you are registered, and a backup payment method so a declined card does not halt delivery.
• Your domain is verified. This proves you control the site your ads link to and stops other businesses editing how your links appear.
• Business verification is done if Meta asks. Use your legal name and address exactly as they appear on official records, such as Companies House. Mismatches are the usual reason it fails.

2. Pixel, Conversions API and consent

Meta decides who sees your ads largely from the results you report back. Missing, duplicated or mislabelled events send it after the wrong people and make the reports misleading, so this section deserves the most care.

• One pixel, installed once. A pixel added by a website plugin and again through Google Tag Manager counts every event twice.
• The right events, at the right moment. Use standard events where they fit: Lead for an enquiry, Purchase for a sale, Schedule for a booking. Fire each on the confirmed action, such as the thank-you message, not the button press before it.
• Purchases carry a value and currency. Each Purchase event sends the order value and GBP, so return on ad spend can be measured and optimised for.
• The Conversions API is connected and deduplicated. The Conversions API sends events from your server or shop platform alongside the pixel, recovering events lost to ad blockers and short-lived cookies. Shopify and WooCommerce have official integrations; a custom site needs a developer. Browser and server copies of an event share an event ID so Meta counts it once, and Events Manager shows whether that matching works.
• Nothing fires before consent. The pixel stores and reads cookies on the visitor’s device, which under PECR needs their agreement first. Your consent management platform should keep it off until someone accepts advertising cookies, keep it off if they decline, and make declining as easy as accepting.
• Server events respect the same choice. Sending a declining visitor’s details from your server works round their decision, which is hard to defend under UK GDPR.
• Event match quality has been checked. A low score in Events Manager usually means lead and purchase events carry no hashed email or phone number. Add them where your privacy notice covers it.
• A real test has been run. Submit an enquiry yourself, watch it arrive once in Test Events, confirm it reached your inbox or CRM, then delete it. My post on testing whether conversion tracking records real enquiries and sales covers the full routine.
• Ad links carry UTM tags. Without them GA4 mixes paid visits in with organic social or referral traffic. The URL parameters field in Ads Manager can add them to every ad automatically.

3. Audiences

Meta now favours broad targeting: you set the outer limits and the system finds buyers inside them. The few limits you do set matter more as a result.

• Location matches where you can serve. The whole UK for most online businesses, or a radius around your postcode for a local service. If you only deliver to mainland Britain, exclude the rest rather than paying for clicks you cannot convert.
• Hard limits sit in audience controls. With Advantage+ audience on, the interests and lookalikes you add are only suggestions. Anything that must not be crossed, such as a minimum age of 18, belongs in the audience controls, which Meta treats as fixed.
• Exclusions are in place. Existing customers are kept out of campaigns for new ones, and recent converters out of offers they have already taken up.
• Customer lists are uploaded lawfully. Uploading customer emails or phone numbers is processing personal data under UK GDPR. Your privacy notice should say you do it, and anyone who has objected to marketing should be removed first. Meta hashes the list before matching, but that does not replace a lawful basis.
• A special ad category is declared if one applies. Ads about housing, jobs, credit and financial products, or social issues, elections and politics, must be declared as a special ad category, which restricts targeting. Check before planning the audience, not after a rejection. Political and social issue ads also need authorisation and a “paid for by” disclaimer.

4. Campaign structure and objective

• The objective matches the result. Leads for enquiries and bookings, Sales for purchases. Traffic and Engagement campaigns buy clicks and interactions, which are cheaper and rarely come from the people who buy.
• Each ad set optimises for the event you tested. The conversion event is the Lead or Purchase event from section 2, not landing page views.
• Fewer ad sets, each properly funded. An ad set that cannot gather enough results stays in the learning phase, with higher costs and erratic results. Divide its weekly budget by the most you would pay for one result: if a lead is worth up to £40 and the ad set has £150 a week, it can buy three or four at best, far too few to learn from. Merge ad sets until each can buy a meaningful number.
• Names follow one pattern. Objective, audience, offer, format and launch month, so reports can be filtered months later.
• Placements are a decision. Advantage+ placements usually find cheaper delivery if the creative suits each placement. After launch, check where results come from and exclude Audience Network if its leads never become customers.
• Attribution settings match. Use the same setting, such as 7-day click and 1-day view, across campaigns you compare, and note which one you chose.

5. Creative

Each ad tends to find its own audience on Meta, so several genuinely different ads reach more kinds of buyer than one ad shown to several audiences.

• Several distinct concepts. I launch with at least three ads built on different ideas, such as the customer’s problem, the product in use and the reason to choose you. Five versions of one image with new headlines count as one concept.
• Sized for each placement. Vertical 9:16 for Reels and Stories, 4:5 or square for feeds, with text and logos kept clear of the top and bottom of vertical video where the app’s buttons sit.
• Video works fast and silently. Show the product, the problem or a person talking in the opening seconds, and add captions for people scrolling with the sound off.
• Readable on a phone. If you have to squint at the price or offer at real phone size, customers will scroll past.
• Automatic enhancements reviewed. Advantage+ creative can alter images, add music, generate backgrounds or rewrite text. Switch off any enhancement that changes the meaning or adds a claim you could not support.
• You hold the rights. A licence for every photo and music track, and permission from anyone who appears in the ad.

6. Copy, offer and destination

• The offer is clear before the text is cut off. The first line of the primary text says what you offer and to whom. My ad copy character counter checks headlines and text against Meta’s limits.
• Prices include VAT. Consumer prices show the full amount with VAT and compulsory fees, and a “from” price is one a fair share of buyers can get.
• Every claim can be backed up. The CAP Code, the UK’s rulebook for non-broadcast advertising, requires evidence for objective claims before the ad runs. “London’s most trusted” or “results in two weeks” need proof you could hand the Advertising Standards Authority.
• The landing page matches the ad. Same offer, price and wording, quick on mobile data, one obvious next step. Run the landing page checklist over it before launch.
• Instant forms are built for quality. Link your privacy policy, which Meta requires, ask one or two questions that show genuine interest, and consider the higher intent form, which adds a review screen before submission. If leads will receive marketing emails, add a clear, optional consent box rather than treating an enquiry as agreement.
• Leads reach a person quickly. Connect the form to your CRM or inbox, or download leads daily, and agree who calls back and how soon. Messaging ads need someone replying during the hours they run.

7. Budget, bidding and policy

• You know what a result is worth. Write down the most you can pay for a lead or sale and still make money. For a shop that is your break-even return on ad spend; for a service business, roughly the profit from a new customer multiplied by the share of leads who become one.
• Budget sits at the right level, on purpose. A campaign budget moves money towards whichever ad set is working; ad set budgets give each a fixed share.
• An account spending limit is set. It protects you from a mistyped budget or a lifetime budget entered as daily.
• Bidding starts simple. Highest volume suits most new campaigns. Add a cost per result goal or bid cap only once you know what results really cost, or delivery can stall.
• Ads meet Meta’s rules. The most common refusals for UK advertisers: copy implying something personal about the reader (“Struggling with debt?”), before-and-after images in health and beauty, and regulated products advertised without Meta’s permission.
• UK sector rules are covered. Prescription-only medicines, botulinum toxin included, cannot be advertised to the public, which catches many aesthetics clinics. Financial promotions must follow FCA rules, and Meta runs its own verification for UK financial services advertisers. Gambling ads need Meta’s prior approval and a Gambling Commission licence; alcohol ads must not be aimed at under-18s.

8. Launch day

• Every ad has been seen on a real phone in the feed, Stories and Reels, using the preview options in Ads Manager.
• Every link opens the right page, with UTM tags surviving any redirect, on mobile data as well as office Wi-Fi.
• Ads have passed review. Read the reason for any rejection before editing; sometimes a request for another review is enough.
• Spend and events have started. A few hours in, every ad set is spending; within a day or two, Events Manager shows events from real visitors. An ad set spending nothing usually has too narrow an audience, too low a bid cap or an ad stuck in review.
• Someone owns the comments. A named person answers comments and messages, and Page moderation hides profanity and spam.
• Launch when someone is watching. A weekday morning, not a Friday afternoon, so faults are caught within hours rather than after a weekend of spend.

9. The first two weeks

The first fortnight is for catching faults, not judging performance. New ad sets are still learning, and edits restart the process.

• Daily, check for faults only. Spend going out, ads delivering, events arriving, leads reaching whoever calls them. Leave budgets, audiences and ads alone unless something is broken.
• Know which edits restart learning. Changing the audience, optimisation event or bid strategy, adding an ad, a large budget change or pausing for a week or more. Make any necessary changes in one go.
• Compare link clicks with landing page views. A big gap means a slow page or accidental clicks, often from one placement.
• Call a sample of leads. If people do not remember enquiring, or the details are fake, fix the form or placement before adding budget.
• Compare Meta’s count with your own. Set Ads Manager’s figure beside what your CRM or GA4 attributes to paid social. Some gap is normal; a large one needs fixing before you scale.
• Judge on enough data. I decide whether an ad set works once it has spent several times the target cost per result, not after one slow day.

10. Weekly and monthly checks

Once the account is running, this is the rhythm I use to catch problems while they are still cheap.

If results fall and none of these checks explains it, my post on why Facebook ads stop working goes through the likely causes in order.

When to bring in a second pair of eyes

Most of this list needs only admin access and a free afternoon. People usually get stuck on section 2, where the Conversions API, deduplication and consent settings affect one another in ways Ads Manager does not show.

If you would rather someone checked the account and then ran it every month, my Facebook and Instagram ads management starts with the ownership and tracking checks above. Or book a consultation, tell me what you sell and what the ads should achieve, and I will tell you which parts of this list I would fix first.

Updated 6 October 2026