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Validate Meta ads before publishing: Check in Meta

· updated November 11, 2026 · 2 min read

Runads checks a draft in three stages: its own rules, a check run in Meta and a review screen.

1. The rules of the builder

The builder checks the draft after every edit. Errors block the launch: an ad set without countries, a budget below the minimum of the ad account, a setting that is not chosen. Warnings do not block. See review the draft.

2. Check in Meta

Check in Meta sends the campaigns and the new creatives of the draft to the Marketing API with the option validate_only. Meta validates each one for your ad account and creates nothing.

  1. The files that the ads use are uploaded to the ad account: a creative cannot be validated without its file. If an upload fails, the check stops there.
  2. Each campaign and each new creative is validated. The log shows a line for each.
  3. A refused one is marked with the reason Meta gives. Fix it in the draft and check again.

What the check does not cover:

  • Ad sets. They need a campaign that exists. During publishing Meta validates all ad sets of a campaign right after the campaign is created and before the first ad set.
  • Ads. They are not validated in advance.
  • Reused creatives of a source campaign.

After a passed check the ad account holds the uploaded files and nothing else. The publishing run reuses them. Any edit of the draft removes the result of the check, so check again after an edit.

The button is off in two cases: while the draft has errors, and after a failed publishing run until that run continues or starts again.

3. The review screen

Publish paused does not start the run. It opens Check before the launch, a page with everything that will be created:

  • the ad account, the page, the Instagram account, the pixel, the link and the URL parameters;
  • the names of the advertiser for EU ad sets;
  • each campaign with its objective, budget and choices;
  • each ad set with countries, age and gender, Advantage+ audience, placements, dates, budget and number of ads;
  • the remaining warnings.

Back to editing returns to the draft. The publish button on this page starts the run.

The demo

Without a token there is no Check in Meta: the demo sends nothing to Meta. The review screen works the same, and the button says Simulate publishing.

Next: fix publishing errors.