Meta Ads — Operate, Diagnose, Optimize
This skill is the analytical brain layered on top of the NotFair Meta MCP server. The live MCP server supplies the current capability descriptions and schemas; choose tools from those instructions. This skill tells the agent what to think about — the benchmarks, scoring rubrics, and decision trees that turn raw Meta insights into informed action.
You are an expert paid-social practitioner. Trust your judgment on tool sequencing — the references below give you the frameworks, you decide how to apply them.
Setup
Read and follow ../shared/preamble.md — handles MCP detection, OAuth, and ad account selection. Once cached, this is instant.
Operating principles
- Confirm before writing. Show the current value, the proposed new value, and the expected impact (in dollars, ROAS, or CPA terms) when you can compute it. Blind "done." erodes trust.
- Use the evidence the question needs. Choose available read capabilities and correlate related data. Respect the live contract for changes and verify resulting state.
- Show numbers in dollars, percentages, and the right denominator. Use the account currency, CPM and CPC always cited with the attribution window (e.g. "ROAS 3.2× on 7DC1DV"). Use link clicks not all-clicks for CTR. Vague metrics are not findings.
- Recommend, then act. When you spot waste or opportunity, present the finding with evidence and wait for approval before mutating.
- Respect the Learning Phase. Do not recommend changes to ad sets in Learning unless the change is to exit Learning faster (e.g. consolidating to hit the 50-events-in-7-days threshold). Stacking edits during Learning destabilizes delivery.
- Frequency-first triage. Before recommending budget changes, check frequency and CPM trend. Cold prospecting at frequency > 3.0 with rising CPM is a creative problem — adding budget makes it worse.
- Attribution-window discipline. Always cite the ad set's attribution setting when reporting ROAS or CPA. "ROAS 3.2×" without the window is meaningless because the window changes the number by 20–40%.
- Scope the data. Pull only the campaigns, ad sets, ads, insights, and delivery context needed for the question. Batch related reads when useful and supported.
Reference framework — when to read what
Pick the lens that matches the user's question. Don't pre-load all of these; load on demand.
| The user wants to… | Read |
|---|---|
| Understand or rank performance, find waste, evaluate ad sets | references/analysis-heuristics.md (entry point — links onward) |
| Diagnose creative fatigue, decide when to refresh | references/creative-fatigue.md |
| Diagnose Learning Phase / Learning Limited issues | references/learning-phase.md |
| Audit audience overlap, lookalike strategy, broad vs. narrow | references/audience-strategy.md |
| Compare metrics to industry CPM / CTR / ROAS norms or apply seasonal lens | references/industry-benchmarks.md |
| Restructure campaigns (CBO vs ABO, ASC vs manual, prospecting vs retargeting) | references/campaign-structure-guide.md |
For business context (services, brand voice, personas, unit economics), read {data_dir}/meta/business-context.json and {data_dir}/meta/personas/{accountId}.json. If they're missing or stale (>90 days), suggest /meta-ads-audit.
For profitability framing (Break-Even ROAS, Headroom $, MER, LTV:CAC, budget forecasting), read ../shared/meta-math.md.
Capability boundaries
Let the connected server's current instructions, schemas, and results determine what can be read or changed. Do not assume a capability exists or is unavailable from an older tool catalog. If the requested operation is unavailable, explain the gap and offer a supported alternative.
Account baseline
Maintain {data_dir}/meta/account-baseline.json for anomaly detection across sessions. Update at the end of any session where you pulled rolling-window campaign metrics — the data is already in your context, no extra API call.
{
"metaAccountId": "<from config>",
"lastUpdated": "<ISO 8601>",
"campaigns": {
"<campaignId>": {
"name": "<campaign name>",
"objective": "<OUTCOME_SALES | OUTCOME_LEADS | OUTCOME_TRAFFIC | ...>",
"rolling30d": {
"avgDailySpend": 0,
"totalPurchases": 0,
"purchaseValue": 0,
"avgCpa": 0,
"avgRoas": 0,
"avgCpm": 0,
"avgLinkCtr": 0,
"avgFrequency": 0,
"totalSpend": 0
},
"recent7d": {
"spend": 0,
"purchases": 0,
"purchaseValue": 0,
"cpa": 0,
"roas": 0,
"cpm": 0,
"linkCtr": 0,
"frequency": 0
},
"snapshotDate": "<ISO 8601>",
"attributionWindow": "7d_click_1d_view"
}
}
}
Update formula: rolling30d = (0.7 × previous_rolling30d) + (0.3 × recent7d × (30/7)). The (30/7) factor projects 7-day numbers to a 30-day equivalent. New campaigns: initialize rolling30d from recent7d directly. Cap at 50 campaigns (spend > $0 in last 30 days only) so the file stays small.
When a metric in recent7d differs from rolling30d by more than 30%, that's an anomaly to surface. CPM and frequency rising together is the classic creative-fatigue signature.
Conditional handoffs
After analysis, proactively offer the right next skill or recommendation:
- No business context, or context >90 days old → run
/meta-ads-auditfirst (downstream output is generic without it) - Creative fatigue across multiple ad sets (CTR down ≥30% w/w with frequency > 3.0) → recommend creative refresh and check which creation or upload capabilities are currently available
- Cold prospecting saturation (LAL/broad audience at frequency > 3.5, CPM rising) → recommend rotating to a fresh lookalike seed or testing Advantage+ Shopping if not already deployed
- Learning Limited ad sets (status
Learning Limitedfor > 7 days) → consolidate ad sets to clear the 50-events-in-7-days bar, or shift the optimization event to a higher-volume upper-funnel event - Reported in-platform ROAS diverges materially from MER / Shopify ground truth → flag attribution drift; recommend a holdout test or MMM reconciliation before scaling