Meta & Facebook Ads Audit
Our Meta ads audit connects your ad account, every creative you have run, and your Shopify numbers. You see what is driving CAC, what is wasting spend, and the rules to scale without breaking efficiency.
Free for qualified brands · Read-only access · No obligation
Sample Audit Summary
Apparel brand
+50%
Cost per new customer
in 12 months
~1 in 3
Sales Meta didn't cause
by its own model
~2x
CAC after 50%+ budget jumps
8 to 14 days later
~20K
Recent buyers missing from exclusions
still being prospected
What drives CAC here
How We Audit
Most audits are a checklist of settings. Ours starts with a question: what has your account already proven, and what is it telling you to do next?
01
An audit is a research project, not a settings review. We ask what your own data says about who buys, what they respond to, and what a customer really costs.
02
Your account and your market have already shown you where buyers come from. We find those grooves first and build from what is working before adding new ideas.
03
Every dollar should teach you something you can use next. We look at whether your testing is set up to learn, or just to spend.
“Marketing is an exercise of research. And water goes wherever it flows most freely. The market has already defined a lot of the grooves for you. Maybe they're not doing everything right, but they've found enough success that they've shown you where to start.”
Sample Report
Real findings from a recent audit of an apparel brand. Numbers are rounded and identifying details removed. None of these would have shown up in a standard settings review.
Meta Ads Audit
Apparel Brand, Meta + Google
Prepared by Sweat Pants Agency
$2M+
Annual ad spend reviewed
88
Video and static ads analyzed
175
Ad sets checked
12 mo
Of account and Shopify data
Finding 01
Measurement
What we saw
Meta's own incremental model credited only about two thirds of the purchases the account reported, and almost 3 in 10 purchases were 1-day view.
Why it matters
Budget decisions were being made on a ROAS number that overstated what the ads were doing.
What to do
Manage to Shopify cost per new customer and treat Meta-reported ROAS as a directional signal only.
Finding 02
Efficiency
What we saw
New-customer cost went from roughly $58 over twelve months to roughly $89 in the last thirty days. New customers per day fell by about a third on the same spend.
Why it matters
Strong returning-customer revenue was hiding a weakening acquisition engine.
What to do
Report new-customer cost weekly, separately from blended numbers, and set the target from 6-month LTV.
Finding 03
Creative
What we saw
CTR was the same in the best and worst weeks. Conversion rate and add-to-cart rate were what moved cost per customer. The losing videos actually had higher hook rates.
Why it matters
The team was picking winners by the metric that predicted the least.
What to do
Judge creative on cost per purchase and add-to-cart rate. Use hook rate to diagnose, not to decide.
Finding 04
Scaling
What we saw
Budget increases above 50% were followed by cost per customer nearly doubling 8 to 14 days later.
Why it matters
The damage showed up long after the change, so nobody connected the two.
What to do
Raise budgets 15 to 20% at a time, every 3 to 4 days. We backtested the rule against the account's own history.
Finding 05
Structure
What we saw
Static ads did best with 1 to 3 per ad set and video with 4 to 6. Above 6 ads, cost per customer roughly doubled.
Why it matters
Spend piled onto a few ads while the rest never got a fair test.
What to do
Consolidate into fewer ad sets with a capped number of ads, sized by format.
Finding 06
Audiences
What we saw
Customer exclusion lists were one-time uploads. The newest one was months old and missed about 20,000 recent buyers.
Why it matters
Prospecting budget was quietly going to people who had already bought.
What to do
Replace static uploads with audiences that sync from the email platform automatically.
Finding 07
Landing pages
What we saw
A collection page converted at roughly twice the homepage's rate, yet the homepage still received most of the paid traffic.
Why it matters
Sending cold traffic to the homepage was costing conversion rate, the metric that mattered most.
What to do
Route prospecting ads to collection and product pages matched to the ad's promise.
Finding 08
Creative
What we saw
"10% off" headlines were among the most expensive ads. A spoken URL at the end beat a "SHOP NOW" end card by more than 2x on cost per purchase. Statics with 10+ words of text cost about 3x more.
Why it matters
The brand was leaning on the creative choices that converted worst.
What to do
An editor brief: hooks to use and avoid, words and phrases that sell, CTA style, and what to stop making.
From the report
Every threshold came from this brand's own data. Your rules will be different, which is the point.
What We Check
The same questions we answer for every account. Each one is answered with your data, not a best-practice rule of thumb.
The Pattern
Mistake 01
Meta grades its own homework. When we compare platform numbers to Shopify, the gap is almost always bigger than the brand expected.
Mistake 02
Attention metrics feel like progress. In account after account, conversion rate and add-to-cart rate are what actually move CAC.
Mistake 03
A large budget increase can look fine for a week and then lift CAC for the next two. Few teams look far enough out to see it.
Mistake 04
Old customer lists and generic landing pages leak spend in ways that never show up in Ads Manager.
What You Get
Plain-English findings with charts, numbers, and screenshots of the actual ads we cite.
Meta's numbers reconciled against Shopify, so you know what a customer actually costs.
Hooks to use and avoid, words that sell, CTAs, opening shots, offers to lead with, and what to stop making.
Budget, cost cap, and culling rules tested against your own history before you turn any of them on.
What to fix first, what it should be worth, and what to test next.
We go through the findings with you and answer questions. The report is yours either way.
The Process
01
Tell us about your brand and your Meta spend so we can confirm the audit will be useful.
02
Partner access to your ad account, plus read access to Shopify. We never change anything in your account.
03
Account data, every creative you have run, and your store data, analyzed together.
04
A call to go through the report, the rules, and the 90-day plan. No obligation.
“Great at what you do.”
Performance is the goal. You guys are great at what you do, and I trust you to keep doing what's best for the brand.
Pavan Bapu
Founder, Houndsy
“I promise you!”
We are moving all of our media buying back to Sweat Pants Agency. Eric managed our account for our first four years. You are going to really enjoy working with him. I promise you!
Chad Kauffman
Founder, Kitty Poo Club
“Best growth team I've ever seen.”
If you have a chance to hire Sweat Pants Agency, you need to. They spend the time getting to know your customers and turn that into efficient and effective marketing.
Ryan Hogan
Co-Founder, Hunt A Killer
Want the bigger picture? See our Meta advertising services and our Meta ads benchmark research.
A Meta ads audit is a review of your Facebook and Instagram ad account that explains what is driving your results and what is wasting money. Ours goes past settings: we connect your ad data, every creative you have run, and your Shopify numbers to find what actually lowers your cost per new customer.
It is free for qualified brands. We use it to show how we think and to earn a conversation. There is no obligation to work with us afterward, and the report is yours to keep.
Read-only partner access to your Meta ad account and read access to Shopify. We do not make changes to your account during an audit.
Meta's recommendations are built to help Meta's delivery system, and they grade results with Meta's own attribution. We judge everything against your store data and your cost per new customer, and we test our recommendations against your account's history before suggesting them.
Both. Creative is usually where the biggest wins are. We analyze every video and static ad that spent meaningful money: hooks, opening shots, words, CTAs, length, personas, and offers. You get an editor brief your team can use the same week.
Yes. We use our own creative analysis tool to transcribe and tag every ad so nothing gets skipped. Senior strategists read the results, check them against the numbers, and decide what matters.
Yes. When Google is a meaningful share of spend, we include it, with a focus on separating brand from non-brand results and finding wasted spend.
You can take the plan and run it yourself, or have us run it. Many brands start working with us once they see the findings, but that is your call.
We'll show you where it is pointing, what it is costing you to ignore it, and the rules to scale what is already proven.
