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Free checklist · About 15 minutes

Is your ad account learning from real customers?

The Signal Check is 12 plain checks you can run yourself in about 15 minutes, with view access and no developer. Each one says where to look, what broken looks like, and what it costs you.

Free · Work email only · No call booked

Why it matters

The platforms learn from what you tell them.

Google Ads and Meta do not decide who your best customers are. You tell them, one conversion at a time. When that signal is missing, doubled, or worth nothing, automated bidding learns from the wrong people and spends accordingly. None of it shows up as an error. It shows up as campaigns that slowly get more expensive.

21¢

Of every media dollar wasted because of poor data quality, by marketers’ own estimate.

Forrester Consulting, 2019

What is inside

12 checks. Five questions.

Grouped in the order a signal travels: the action, its value, the trip to the platforms, what the platforms report, and whether it respects the visitor.

  1. 01

    The conversion

    Is the action that makes you money being counted, once?

    3 checks

  2. 02

    The value

    Does each conversion carry what it is worth?

    2 checks

  3. 03

    The handoff

    Does the signal survive the trip from your site to the platforms?

    3 checks

  4. 04

    The platforms

    Do the platforms themselves say the signal is healthy?

    2 checks

  5. 05

    The privacy

    Does the signal respect the visitor, and survive the consent banner?

    2 checks

Three of the checks, in full

Run these three now.

The other 9 follow the same pattern: where to look, what broken looks like, and why it costs money.

  1. Check 01

    Tag Assistant · GA4 DebugView

    Does a real conversion show up at all?

    Look at
    The one action that makes you money: a purchase, a booked appointment, or a submitted enquiry.
    How
    1. Go to tagassistant.google.com, add your site address, and connect. Your site opens in a new tab with debugging switched on.
    2. In that tab, complete the action yourself: a test enquiry, a test booking, or the cheapest order you can refund.
    3. In GA4, open Admin and find DebugView. Your visit appears as a device. Find the conversion event in its timeline.
    Broken looks like
    The event never appears, appears under a name nobody on the team recognises, or appears on one browser and not another.
    Why it costs money
    Google and Meta can only look for more people like the customers they hear about. If the sale never reaches them, they optimise toward what they can see instead, which is usually clicks and page views, and you pay for the clicks.

  2. Check 03

    Google Ads Goals · Meta Ads Manager

    Is the conversion you bid on the one that pays?

    Look at
    Which actions the platforms have been told to chase.
    How
    1. In Google Ads, open Goals, then Conversions, then Summary. Note which actions are marked Primary. Primary actions are the ones automated bidding works toward.
    2. In Meta Ads Manager, open an active ad set and read the conversion event it is optimising for.
    Broken looks like
    Page views, button clicks, scroll depth, or newsletter sign ups marked Primary beside purchases or booked appointments. Or a Meta ad set optimising for landing page views when the business runs on bookings.
    Why it costs money
    Automated bidding treats every primary action as a win. If a button click counts the same as a sale, it buys the cheapest button clicks it can find.

  3. Check 06

    Store admin or CRM · GA4 · Meta Events Manager

    Does one day of real customers match what the platforms report?

    Look at
    One complete recent day: your own count of customers next to each platform’s count of conversions.
    How
    1. Pick yesterday, or the last full business day. Count the real orders in your store admin, the booked appointments in your booking system, or the new enquiries in your CRM.
    2. In GA4, open Reports, then Engagement, then Events. Set the same date and read the count for your conversion event.
    3. In Meta Events Manager, open the dataset overview for the same date and read the count for Purchase or Lead.
    4. Compare those totals, not the campaign columns in the ad platforms. Campaign columns only count conversions credited to ads, so they will always be lower. Check that every tool uses the same time zone first.
    Broken looks like
    A platform reporting clearly fewer conversions than you actually got, which means signal is being lost, or clearly more, which means duplicates or test and spam submissions are being counted. A gap you can explain line by line, such as one refunded order, is fine.
    Why it costs money
    This is the check that tells you whether every other number is real. When the count is off, every cost per lead and every return on ad spend built on it is off too, and budget follows the wrong number.

Free checklist · About 15 minutes

Get all 12 checks.

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