The Meta Ads Diagnostic Checklist: What to Check When Performance Changes

Why a Checklist Matters

Most media buyers diagnose performance issues by gut feel. They see CPA increase and immediately blame creative, or assume it's "the algorithm." This leads to:

Wasted time on wrong optimizations
Missed root causes that compound over time
Inability to explain changes to clients
Repeated mistakes

A systematic checklist ensures you catch the actual cause — not just the first thing you notice.

The Diagnostic Checklist

Work through this checklist whenever performance changes significantly (±15% on key metrics).

Step 1: Isolate the Change

□Which specific metric changed? (CPA, CPM, CTR, CVR, ROAS)

□What time period? (Yesterday vs. last week, this week vs. last week)

□Is it account-wide or specific campaigns/ad sets?

□Quantify the change (e.g., "CPA increased 25%, from $40 to $50")

Step 2: Check for Structural Changes

□Did you make any changes? (Budget, creative, audience, bid strategy)

□Did anything pause, enable, or enter learning phase?

□Did budget allocation shift between campaigns?

□Check the Activity Log for any automated rule triggers

Step 3: Decompose the Funnel

CPA = CPM ÷ (CTR × CVR × 1000). If CPA changed, one of these changed.

□CPM: Did cost to reach people change?

□CTR: Did click-through rate change? (Creative/audience issue)

□CVR: Did conversion rate change? (Landing page/offer issue)

Step 4: Check Mix Effects

Often, nothing got worse — just the allocation changed.

□Placement mix: Did Feed vs Stories vs Audience Network shift?

□Campaign mix: Did high-CPA campaigns get more budget?

□Audience mix: Did retargeting vs prospecting ratio change?

□Creative mix: Did winning creative lose share to worse performers?

Step 5: Check Saturation Signals

□Frequency: Is it over 2.0 for prospecting? Over 5.0 for retargeting?

□Reach saturation: Has reach plateaued while spend increased?

□Creative fatigue: Is CTR declining on specific ads over 7+ days?

Step 6: Check External Factors

□Day of week: Is performance naturally lower on weekends?

□Seasonality: Is this period historically different?

□Market events: Holiday, competitor sale, industry news?

□Website issues: Check for downtime, slow load times, or tracking issues

Step 7: Document and Action

□Write down the diagnosed root cause

□Identify the specific action to take (or decision to wait)

□Set a check-in date to evaluate the action's impact

Common Misdiagnoses

What You Think	What It Often Is
"The algorithm is broken"	Learning phase, mix shift, or frequency saturation
"Creative is fatigued"	Audience saturation (same people, not same creative)
"CPM is too high"	Placement mix shifted to Feed; individual CPMs are fine
"Landing page is broken"	Traffic quality changed (audience or placement shift)
"We need more budget"	Current budget isn't optimized; more won't help

Automate This Checklist

SENTRUM runs this diagnostic process automatically, every day, for every campaign. When something changes, you get the root cause — not just the symptom.

See how Sentrum applies these diagnostics for lead generation teams, e-commerce brands, and agencies managing multiple accounts.

Try SENTRUM free