# The persona sharpness test

Run this before a persona ad set goes live, and again whenever a group stops working.
It takes about five seconds per ad and it catches most of the problems that make a
sequence fail.

## The one-ad-set test

For every ad in the group, ask: could this ad sit comfortably in another one of my
persona ad sets?

- Only fits here. Good. The language is doing the targeting.
- Fits in two. The idea is probably not sharp enough yet. Rewrite it to the person.
- Fits anywhere. It is speaking to no one in particular. Cut it or start again.

## The persona test

Run the same test on the personas themselves.

- Can you say what this persona wants that the next one does not?
- Could you write the first line of an ad to them without hesitating?
- Is this a person, or is it an occasion? A gift-buying push is a moment, not an
  audience. Occasions arrive and leave. The people you sell to stay.

If you cannot separate two personas in a sentence, you have written one persona twice
under different names, and splitting budget between them halves the delivery of both.

## The composition check

A persona ad set wants a mix, not fifty versions of one ad. Confirm the group has:

- Creative made for this persona, in their language, across a few formats
- Some ads pointing at a landing page written for the same person
- A dynamic product ad inside the same ad set, so the sequence has a way to close
- Enough format variety that the run does not feel like the same ad five times

## Before you change anything

- Where does the budget sit in this account? That is your unit of judgement.
- Are you about to prune inside a group that is working? Do not.
- Is the ad you want to pause a first step, or a runaway? High spend with few
  purchases is normal. High spend with a climbing frequency and a broken cost per
  thousand impressions is not.
- Are you reading a three to seven day window, or today?