---
name: pre-pause-analysis
description: Full-funnel check before pausing, cutting, or killing a paid campaign — confirm the problem is real and the platform has had enough time before stopping any spend. Use before pausing anything, or when a user wants to cut a campaign that looks like it is underperforming.
---

# Pre-Pause Analysis

Pausing is easy and often wrong. A campaign that looks like a loser is frequently a tracking gap, a geo leak, or an ad set the platform has not finished learning. Run this before any pause so you stop the right thing for the right reason. Reads do not require approval; pausing is a change and waits for explicit approval.

Confirm the account: `list_connected_accounts`.

## 1. Is the data even real

- Confirm conversion tracking is firing and attached to the right action (`ga4_get_conversions`, `get_pixel_health`). A campaign with broken tracking looks dead when it may be converting. See the **conversion-tracking** skill.
- Check the destination: does the final URL resolve and match the ad's promise. A broken or mismatched landing page kills conversion rate independent of the campaign.

## 2. Has it had enough time and volume

- New ad sets need a learning window before their numbers mean anything. On Meta, an ad set in the Learning Phase has not stabilized. On Search, a handful of clicks is noise.
- Require a real spend and conversion count over enough days before judging. State the window and the volume you are judging on.

## 3. Where in the funnel is it actually failing

Diagnose the level, do not just read the top-line CPA:

- **Delivery:** is it spending and serving. Low impression share or a tiny audience is a setup problem, not a performance one.
- **Click:** impressions but no clicks points at creative or relevance. Clicks from the wrong geography point at a targeting or fraud leak, not a bad offer. Validate click geography against intent.
- **Conversion:** clicks but no conversions points at the landing page, the offer, or tracking, before the campaign itself.

## 4. Decide and confirm

- If the problem is fixable (tracking, geo, negatives, creative, landing page), fix that first rather than pausing.
- If it is a genuine loser with enough evidence, pause on the user's clear go with `pause_campaign`, and report the evidence behind the call.

Pair with **kill-scale-rules** for the kill-or-scale decision once the data is trustworthy.