Meta Ads

---
name: meta-ads
description: "Build and verify Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ad campaigns end to end via the Marketing API — account/app/system-user permission chain, Special Ad Category constraints, crop-safe story creative, campaign creation, and conversion tracking that is actually proven to work. Use when launching or debugging Meta campaigns, Meta pixel, or Conversions API. Encodes the exact API rejections, permission gotchas and false-negative verification traps hit in production."
---

# Meta Ads — launch and verification

Everything here was learned by getting it wrong in production first. The API
rejections are real rejections, the permission chain is the one that actually
unblocks, and the verification section exists because measuring the wrong thing
produced three confidently-wrong conclusions in a single session.

---

## 1. Verification comes first, because it is where the damage happens

**Read this before believing any test result.**

Three separate false negatives in one launch. Each looked like a real bug. Each
was the instrument, not the system.

| Trap | What happened | What to use instead |
|---|---|---|
| **Testing on localhost** | Verified the pixel and an embed on `localhost`. Both were blocked in production by a CSP that localhost does not have. | Always verify against the **deployed** URL. A localhost pass proves nothing about production headers. |
| **`performance.getEntriesByType('resource')`** | Concluded "the Lead never fires" because no beacon appeared. fbevents uses `navigator.sendBeacon` when an `eventID` is present, and **sendBeacon never appears in resource timing**. | Meta's **Test Events** tool. It is Meta's own instrumentation and it ends the argument. |
| **"Received From: Browser" in Test Events** | Concluded the server-side CAPI was broken because no server rows appeared. **Test Events only shows server events if the server sends a `test_event_code`.** | Have the server return its own send result (see §6). Absence of display ≠ absence of delivery. |

The pattern: **absence of evidence was read as evidence of absence, from an
instrument that structurally could not observe the thing being measured.**
Before concluding something is broken, ask what the instrument can actually see.

**Confounded variables.** One "isolation test" removed two variables at once and
the wrong one got the blame. Change one thing.

---

## 2. The permission chain (the part that actually blocks you)

To create ads via API you need **four separate grants**. Missing any one gives a
different, unhelpful error.

1. **A Meta app** — you almost certainly already have one; don't create a new one.
2. **The system user has a ROLE ON THE APP.** Business Settings → Apps → *app* →
   Assign people → pick the system user → **Develop app**.
   Skipping this gives `No permissions available — assign an app role to the
   system user` at the token-generation step, with no hint about which grant.
3. **The system user has the ASSETS.** System Users → *user* → Assign assets:
   - Ad account → **Manage campaigns** (not "Manage ad accounts", which is
     finances and permissions)
   - Page → **Ads** only
   - Pixel/dataset → **Use events dataset**
4. **Generate the token** — System Users → Generate token → app → **Never**
   expiry → tick `ads_management`.

**Two more that only surface at ad-creation time:**

- **Instagram account connected to the ad account.** Advantage+ placements
  include IG, and creation fails with *"Ad account has no access to this
  Instagram account"*. Fix: Business Settings → Instagram accounts → *account* →
  Connect assets → the ad account.
- **The app must be Live, not Development.** *"Ads creative post was created by
  an app that is in development mode"*. Publishing needs a Privacy Policy URL and
  a Category, then Publish. Development mode blocks creative creation only — the
  rest of the API works, so this fails late.

Expiry: prefer **Never** for a system-user token you control. A time-boxed token
lapses silently and takes the integration with it.

---

## 3. Special Ad Category (Employment, Housing, Credit)

Employment strips the targeting you would normally rely on:

- no age or gender targeting — Meta forces 18–65, all genders
- no detailed interest or behaviour targeting
- **minimum 15-mile radius** on location targeting
- **no earnings claims anywhere** — "$2k/week", "/hr", "$X per job" are
  rejection risk even when true

**Consequence: the creative IS the targeting.** With no interest targeting, the
only thing making the right person recognise themselves is the ad itself. Put
the audience identifier in the image as literal words — `SAVANNAH DIESEL
MECHANICS` — not a clever hook.

Guard the money rule in code, in every place copy can be edited, and fail loudly:

```js
const MONEY = /\$\s?\d|\b\d+\s?(k|dollars|usd)\b|\bper hour\b|\/hr\b/i;
```

Avoid "now hiring" for contractor work — it pulls W2 job seekers who click, fail
qualification, and cost money on the way through.

---

## 4. Creative: the crop-safe zone

**A 1080×1920 asset is cropped for feed placements.** 4:5 removes ~285px from
each end; 1:1 removes ~420px. Anything near the top or bottom is destroyed in
exactly the placement where most impressions land.

**Keep every critical element inside the 1:1 safe band: y 420 → 1500.** Stack
the identifier, caption and CTA as one block centred in that band, so the whole
message survives any crop.

Verify by simulating the crops rather than trusting the full-size render:

```js
for (const h of [1350, 1080]) {
  await sharp(file).extract({ left: 0, top: (1920 - h) / 2, width: 1080, height: h })
    .toFile(`crop_${h}.jpg`);
}
```

Then **look at the ad preview in Ads Manager**, which renders each placement for
real. That is what caught the cropped identifier.

**Native caption look:** IG/TikTok put a rounded box behind *each individual
line*, not one flat band — a single band reads as a slide. Heavy bold-italic in
a system sans, not a brand face. No fake platform chrome (progress bars, reply
boxes, swipe-up arrows) — Meta rejects creative that mimics its UI, but a plain
caption band is fine.

**Auto-fit rather than trusting copy length.** SVG cannot size a rect to its own
text, so estimate width and shrink until it fits. Italic overhangs its advance
width — widen horizontal padding when italic is on.

**Opt out of Advantage+ creative enhancements.** They auto-crop and overlay text.
The API field `standard_enhancements` is deprecated with a moving per-feature
replacement, so set it in the UI. Check `degrees_of_freedom_spec` on the creative
to confirm `advantage_plus_creative: OPT_OUT`.

---

## 5. Campaign creation — the rejections, in order

Each of these is a real 400 that stops creation. Fix them up front.

```js
// CAMPAIGN
{
  objective: 'OUTCOME_LEADS',
  status: 'PAUSED',
  special_ad_categories: ['EMPLOYMENT'],
  buying_type: 'AUCTION',
  is_adset_budget_sharing_enabled: false,  // required when budget is on the ad set
}

// AD SET
{
  daily_budget: 3000,                       // CENTS
  billing_event: 'IMPRESSIONS',
  bid_strategy: 'LOWEST_COST_WITHOUT_CAP',  // required; a cap throttles a cold pixel
  optimization_goal: 'OFFSITE_CONVERSIONS',
  promoted_object: { pixel_id, custom_event_type: 'LEAD' },
  targeting: {
    geo_locations: { custom_locations: [{ latitude, longitude, radius: 25, distance_unit: 'mile' }] },
    age_min: 18, age_max: 65, genders: [1, 2],
  },
}
```

Errors and their causes:

| Error | Cause |
|---|---|
| `must specify True or False in is_adset_budget_sharing_enabled` | budget on ad set, flag absent |
| `Bid amount or bid constraints required` | no explicit `bid_strategy` |
| `daily budget must be greater than $0` | budget arrived as `null` — see below |
| `Ad account has no access to this Instagram account` | IG not connected to ad account |
| `created by an app that is in development mode` | app not published |
| `standard_enhancements has been deprecated` | drop the field, set it in the UI |

**The `null` budget was a caller bug worth remembering:**
`argv[argv.indexOf('--flag') + 1]` returns `argv[0]` when the flag is absent,
because `indexOf` gives `-1`. `Number('--apply')` is `NaN`, which
`JSON.stringify` turns into `null`. Guard the flag's presence and range-check
before sending.

**Always create PAUSED**, verify, then enable deliberately.

**Clean up orphans.** A failed run leaves a campaign or ad set behind; delete it
before retrying or you accumulate duplicates.

---

## 6. Conversion tracking that is actually proven

**Both paths, one event id.** Browser pixel and server CAPI send the same
`event_id`; Meta collapses them into one conversion. The server path survives ad
blockers — roughly a third of an audience — so it is not optional.

The browser must forward what the server cannot know:

```js
meta: {
  event_id: evId,
  event_source_url: window.location.href,
  fbp: cookie('_fbp'),   // first-party cookies on YOUR domain; the function
  fbc: cookie('_fbc'),   // runs elsewhere and never receives them otherwise
}
```

**Make the server report its own outcome.** A CAPI call is correctly non-fatal —
losing an attribution event must never fail a form submission — which means it
can rot silently forever. Return the result:

```ts
return jsonResponse({ success: true, id, meta_capi: result.ok ? `sent:${n}` : `failed:${err}` })
```

One `curl` then proves the whole server path in isolation. This is the only
thing that definitively settled it.

**Fire events on what you mean.** A `Schedule` fired when a calendar *renders*
means "someone saw a calendar", not "someone booked" — optimising toward it
trains Meta to find people who arrive and leave. Use the embed's own success
callback (`bookingSuccessful` for Cal.com) and make the rendering a custom event.

**Optimise for volume, measure on truth.** Meta needs ~50 conversions/week per
ad set to leave learning. If the true outcome is rarer than that, bid on the
higher-volume upstream event and keep the real one for reporting.

**Watch for automatic events.** Meta's automatic event detection invents events
(e.g. `Subscribe`) from form interactions. They can pollute optimisation —
disable in pixel settings.

---

## 7. CSP will silently break all of it

If the site sends a Content-Security-Policy, these must be allowed or the pixel
and any embed die with no visible error:

```
script-src   https://connect.facebook.net  https://app.cal.com
connect-src  https://www.facebook.com  https://connect.facebook.net
frame-src    https://www.facebook.com   (+ any embed origin)
```

Blocked `fbevents.js` leaves `fbq` as the inline stub: it queues events and
sends nothing, forever.

**The check that detects it:**

```js
typeof window.fbq.callMethod === 'function'   // real library loaded
window.fbq.queue.length                        // >0 and growing = stub, blocked
```

`fbq.loaded` and `fbq.version` are set by the **inline stub** and prove nothing.

---

## Launch checklist

- [ ] System user has app role, ad account, Page, pixel
- [ ] App published (not Development)
- [ ] Instagram connected to the ad account
- [ ] Token `ads_management`, Never expiry
- [ ] Copy contains no money figures — guarded in code
- [ ] Creative content inside y 420–1500; crops simulated
- [ ] Advantage+ creative enhancements OPT_OUT
- [ ] Created PAUSED; ad previews checked in Ads Manager
- [ ] `fbq.callMethod` is a function **on the deployed site**
- [ ] Lead confirmed **Processed** in Test Events
- [ ] Server CAPI confirmed `sent:N` via its own response
- [ ] Test records deleted from the database afterwards
- [ ] Token revoked/rotated if it appeared in any transcript or log