Founding verification pricing now open
Published Standard Ver 1.1

Ad IntellX Verification Methodology

The clinical framework and objective standards used to compute the A-Score. Designed for institutional diligence and forensic accountability.

Effective: June 2026
Public Diligence Standard

Scope & Purpose

This methodology governs the independent verification of ad spend integrity, derived directly from authentic Meta Marketing API data. It establishes the clinical baseline for generating an advertiser's A-Score.

The objective of the A-Score is to provide a standardized, immutable metric representing the structural health, security, and operational efficiency of a given ad account prior to or during capital deployment. It removes subjective agency reporting and replaces it with cryptographically verifiable platform truth.

The A-Score, Defined

What is the A-Score?

The A-Score is an independent 0–100 score of a business’s Meta advertising account, produced by Ad IntellX. It measures how much confidence an advertiser can place in their ad spend by evaluating the account across six domains: ownership and control, spend efficiency, optimization activity, tracking and attribution health, delivery quality, and platform reliance risk. The score is computed from read-only Meta Marketing API data, cross-validated by the Ad IntellX Data Intelligence Engine, under this published methodology (currently v1.2).

What is a good A-Score?

An A-Score of 70 or above is considered good. Scores of 85–100 fall in the Verified Strong band, indicating clean tracking, protected ownership, and efficient delivery. Scores of 70–84 fall in the Stable band. Scores below 70 indicate elevated risk to ad spend: 50–69 is At Risk, 30–49 is High Risk, and 0–29 is Critical.

What do the A-Score bands mean?

The A-Score has five bands. Verified Strong (85–100): the account shows strong integrity across all six domains. Stable (70–84): minor issues, no structural risk. At Risk (50–69): meaningful inefficiencies or delivery anomalies are reducing spend confidence. High Risk (30–49): structural problems — such as tracking failure or loss of account control — are actively compromising spend. Critical (0–29): the account’s spend cannot be verified as protected and requires immediate attention.

How is the A-Score calculated?

The A-Score is calculated in a fixed pipeline: account data is pulled read-only from the Meta Marketing API, cross-validated against the Ad IntellX Data Intelligence Engine’s signal layers through an integration gate, scored across six weighted domains (Ownership & Control 20%, Spend Efficiency 25%, Optimization Activity 20%, Tracking & Attribution Health 15%, Delivery Quality 10%, Platform Reliance Risk 10%), and then subjected to hard caps. Hard caps set score ceilings for structural failures — for example, an account without verified tracking cannot score above 49 regardless of other domain performance. The lowest applicable cap always wins.

Is the A-Score free?

The A-Score Preview is free. It requires no credit card, uses read-only access through Meta’s official OAuth, and completes in about 60 seconds. The full A-Score Verification Record — the complete findings document behind the score — is a one-time paid report priced by the account’s monthly ad spend tier, starting at $99.

Is the A-Score affiliated with Meta?

No. Ad IntellX is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Meta Platforms, Inc. The A-Score is computed from data returned by Meta’s official Marketing API under read-only permissions: Ad IntellX cannot view private content, cannot modify campaigns, and cannot spend budget. The A-Score documents what independently computable signals show; it does not constitute a determination regarding platform conduct.

What is Estimated Monthly Waste Exposure?

Estimated Monthly Waste Exposure is a computed dollar range estimating the portion of an account’s monthly ad spend allocated to structurally compromised or inefficient delivery — for example, spend affected by broken conversion tracking, overlapping audiences bidding against each other, or delivery anomalies. It is an engagement- and signal-derived estimate produced by the scoring engine, not a confirmed or audited loss figure, and it is always presented as a range with a stated confidence level.

The Six Evaluation Domains

The A-Score is computed across six distinct domains. Each domain aggregates dozens of API signals into a weighted sub-score.

Domain
Measurement
Key Signals
Weight
Tracking Integrity
Fidelity of data connection and attribution flow.
Pixel coverage, CAPI health, event match quality, offline conversion loss.
Critical (15%)
Spend Efficiency
Capital allocation drag and platform delivery waste.
Auction overlap, high-frequency non-converting spend, bid cap constraints.
High (25%)
Account Ownership & Access
Administrative security and asset custody.
Business Manager structure, unauthorized administrators, dormant partners.
Critical (20%)
Reach Verification
True audience penetration and saturation.
First-time impression ratio, frequency velocity, delivery pacing anomalies.
Medium (10%)
Optimization Activity
Algorithmic learning stability.
Significant edit cadence, learning phase resets, test cycle duration.
High (20%)
Campaign Structure
Architectural hygiene and consolidation.
Ad set fragmentation ratio, naming convention compliance, active asset limits.
Medium (10%)

The Data Intelligence Engine

The six evaluation domains are not computed through a direct API query. They are the output of a five-layer proprietary detection engine — the Ad IntellX Data Intelligence Engine — which processes API-retrieved account data through sequential signal layers before domain subscores are computed.

Layer 1 (Core Detection), Layer 2 (Compound Signals), Layer 4 (Predictive Signals), and Layer 5 (Autonomy Signals, read-only in verification mode) each contribute distinct signal classifications. An integration gate cross-validates engine outputs against API data before any scoring computation begins. This gate is the mechanism that ensures the A-Score is produced from verified, integrated data — not from either source in isolation.

Engine Signal Summary
5
Detection Layers
24
Active Signals
1
Integration Gate
Live
API Cross-Validation

Platform Signal Integrity

Elevated from a standalone reporting metric to a core methodological checkpoint, Platform Signal Integrity evaluates how well the ad account leverages machine-learning optimization capabilities native to the platform.

This includes auditing Advanced Matching parameters, Conversion API (CAPI) redundancy, and server-side latency. An account that fails to pass sufficient deterministic data back to the platform suffers a severe signal integrity penalty, crippling the A-Score regardless of top-of-funnel engagement metrics.

Hard Caps & Score Ceilings

Certain critical risk conditions trigger an immediate ceiling on the maximum achievable A-Score. These overriding rules ensure that foundational flaws cannot be masked by strong performance in secondary areas.

Tracking Failure Cap

If active campaigns are utilizing ad sets without an attached pixel or conversion event, the account exhibits critical data loss.

Max A-Score: 40

Access Risk Cap

If an unauthorized domain or unverified secondary Business Manager holds full admin rights over the primary ad account.

Max A-Score: 65

Proof of Diligence & Verifiability

Every generated A-Score is backed by a cryptographically signed JSON export. This allows institutional buyers, auditors, and M&A teams to verify the authenticity of the report independently of the Ad IntellX interface.

// Verification Endpoint GET https://api.adintellx.com/v1/verify/record?id=AX-471983
Requires valid API token or public record hash. View Documentation

Data Sufficiency & the Dormant Account Provision

Every account is first classified for data sufficiency before scoring. This gate exists so that a low-activity or newly-connected account is never scored against an empty window and mistaken for a low A-Score.

  • Sufficient: The account has enough recent spend and delivery activity in the current window to score every domain directly. This is the standard path.
  • Dormant: The current window is empty or too thin, but the account has a genuine recent history of spend. Under the Dormant Account Provision, the record scores the account's most recent 30-day window that actually contains spend — not the empty current window. Time-series signals (delivery quality, reach, purge-pattern detection) run over that scored window; domains that don't depend on recent spend (ownership and control, tracking and attribution setup) still reflect current account state. The scored date range is disclosed prominently in the record itself, next to every finding it produced.
  • Insufficient: The account has no meaningful spend history in any recent window — current or past. A baseline record is issued: ownership, tracking, and structural findings that don't require spend history, with the domains that require it explicitly disclosed as not yet available rather than scored as zero or missing.

Dormant and Insufficient records are priced and checked out identically to a standard Verification Record, but are framed distinctly at checkout as an A-Score Baseline Verification Record, and are excluded from the aggregated benchmark panel until the account has enough activity to contribute a representative data point.

Records generated in the Dormant or Insufficient state carry a one-time, free re-verification entitlement: within 30 days of the original record, the buyer may re-run the full verification once at no charge, producing a new, linked record for direct before/after comparison. The entitlement expires after 30 days or after first use, whichever comes first.

What This Methodology Does NOT Determine

In accordance with institutional verification standards, Ad IntellX strictly bounds its claims. The A-Score and accompanying forensic reports do not claim to determine:

  • Platform Intent: We do not assert that the advertising platform intentionally suppresses traffic or maliciously throttles delivery. We only report the mathematical reality of the delivery patterns.
  • Wrongdoing Attribution: A low A-Score indicates structural or operational failure. It does not legally establish negligence, intentional misconduct, or deliberate malpractice by an agency or employee.
  • Campaign Performance Prediction: A high A-Score means the account is structurally sound and effectively managed. It does not guarantee consumer demand, product-market fit, or profitable ROI.

Version History

v1.2 July 2026
  • Data Sufficiency Gate: Every account is classified Sufficient, Dormant, or Insufficient before scoring, rather than scoring an empty current window.
  • Dormant Account Provision (Section 2.4): Dormant accounts score their most recent 30-day window with real spend; the scored date range is disclosed prominently against every finding it produced.
  • A-Score Baseline Verification Record: Dormant and Insufficient records are framed distinctly at checkout, priced identically, and excluded from the aggregated benchmark panel.
  • Re-verification entitlement: Dormant and Insufficient records carry a one-time, free 30-day re-run producing a linked before/after record.
v1.1 June 2026
  • Reach Verification sub-entry explicitly added to Domain mapping.
  • Platform Signal Integrity elevated to a named methodology section rather than report output.
  • Signed JSON export capability and verification endpoints fully documented.
  • Integration Gate (Section 2.1): Mandatory API↔DIE consistency check runs before every domain score. Cross-validates CPM, frequency, reach, pixel volume, optimization event count, and spend field parity. Mismatches are recorded per-field in chain-of-custody metadata and downgrade the confidence label. Layer 5 read-only enforcement asserted on every scoring pass.
  • Reach Gap sub-signal (Section 2.2): 4th Delivery Quality sub-signal at 40% weight. Objective-aware thresholds: awareness 4.0×, traffic 2.5×, conversion 2.0× expected frequency. Flags audience saturation independent of absolute frequency level.
  • Purge-Pattern Cluster cap (Section 2.3): Compound event detector requiring a 14-day window with simultaneous DoD reach anomaly (>30% single-day drop), sustained contraction (second-half avg >15% below first-half), and frequency escalation (>15% above first-half). Cap ceiling 69 applies only when cluster and Reach Gap both fire. Stability exceptions: awareness objective, budget cut >15%, or >20% intentional campaign reduction.
v1.0 January 2026

Initial publication of the Ad IntellX A-Score independent verification methodology.