Meta Ads Drop Diagnosis
Diagnose sudden Meta Ads performance drops across tracking, audience, creative, and budget layers. Outputs ranked root causes.
Why Use This
Diagnoses sudden performance drops before you waste budget chasing the wrong cause — isolates audience saturation, bid strategy changes, budget cliffs, or external factors as the root cause.
Who Is This For
Performance marketers who see a sudden CPA or ROAS spike and need to act fast to stop bleeding spend.
How to Use
Run the moment you notice a performance drop. Input your campaign data and the AI will walk through the diagnostic tree. Stop major budget changes until you have a root cause.
Required Credentials
| Credential | Where to Get | Used For | OAuth Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| META_ACCESS_TOKEN | Meta Developer Console → Graph API Explorer → Generate Token | Fetching campaign performance data | ads_read (read-only) |
| META_AD_ACCOUNT_ID | Ads Manager URL: adsmanager.facebook.com/act_XXXXXXXXX | Identifying which account to query | — |
When to Use
Triggered by meta-ads-daily-pulse flagging a week-over-week drop > 20%, or when user reports "performance suddenly dropped." Not for gradual decline over weeks (that's creative fatigue territory).
Requirements
- account_id (required) — your META_AD_ACCOUNT_ID (format: act_XXXXXXXXX)
- campaign_id or ad_id of the declining entity (required) — find in Meta Ads Manager URL, or via GET /act_
{{AD_ACCOUNT_ID}}/campaigns?fields=id,name - date_range: last_7d (default)
Step 1: Establish the Drop
Confirm the drop with a Performance Snapshot mini-table:
| Metric | Last Week | This Week | WoW Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Impressions | |||
| CPM | |||
| CTR | |||
| Frequency | |||
| CVR | |||
| CPA | |||
| ROAS |
Confirm it's real: WoW drop must be > 20% on at least 2 metrics to qualify as a "drop" (not normal fluctuation).
Step 2: Root Cause Analysis
Based on the metric pattern, identify the top 1-3 most likely root causes.
Use this decision tree:
| Pattern | Likely Root Cause |
|---|---|
| CTR down, frequency up | Creative fatigue |
| CTR down, frequency stable | Creative burnout or audience mismatch |
| CTR stable, CVR down | Landing page issue or offer problem |
| CTR up, CVR down | Landing page can't handle higher volume |
| Impressions down, CPM up | Competition increased, bid not competitive |
| Frequency up, ROAS down | Retargeting audience exhausted |
| All metrics down | External factor (seasonality, iOS, pixel issues) |
For each root cause, write 1-3 short sentences explaining what the data shows, why it points to this cause, and what other evidence supports or contradicts it.
Step 3: Recovery Plan
Format:
Immediate (next 24 hours):
- [Specific action: pause, scale down, refresh, shift budget]
- Why this helps now
Short-term (this week):
- [New creative, audience expansion, placement changes]
- What to test and why
Prevention (ongoing):
- [Rotation schedule, budget cap rules, monitoring thresholds]
- How to catch this earlier next time
Step 4: Output Format
Title: Summary Declining campaign: [Name] Performance Snapshot: [mini-table above]
Title: Root Cause Analysis [1-3 root causes with supporting evidence]
Title: Recovery Plan Immediate: [actions] Short-term: [actions] Prevention: [actions]
Rules
- Root cause must be supported by data — do not speculate without evidence
- If data is insufficient (e.g., < 3 days since change), say so and recommend waiting
- This is diagnosis only — specific action recommendations route to meta-ads-recommendation
- One immediate action maximum — don't overwhelm the user
Session Context — What This Skill Writes
After completing diagnosis, store the following in session context:
| Key | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| primary_root_cause | The most likely cause of the drop | "Creative fatigue — frequency 4.8, CTR dropped 38% WoW" |
| recovery_plan | Immediate + short-term + prevention actions | "Rotate new creative within 24h; set frequency cap at 3" |
meta-ads-recommendation reads these keys to produce the structured recovery action plan.