Rule Preview (Dry-Run) — Test Before You Activate

The Rule Preview feature lets you simulate any automation rule against your live data without making a single change. Think of it as a safety net: you see exactly which campaigns, ad sets, or ads would be affected, what conditions they matched, and what actions would fire — all without touching your ad accounts.

Prerequisites

• At least one Meta ad account connected and synced in Wevion.
• An active subscription with access to the Rules Engine.
• Existing campaigns, ad sets, or ads to evaluate against.

Why You Should Always Preview

Automation rules are powerful. A single misconfigured condition can pause your best-performing campaigns or double the budget on underperformers. Preview mode eliminates that risk entirely.

Here is what can go wrong without previewing:

• A condition threshold set too loosely matches hundreds of entities instead of the handful you intended.
• A rule targeting "all ad accounts" accidentally affects accounts managed by other team members.
• A logical operator (AND vs OR) produces matches you did not anticipate.

By running a dry-run first, you catch these problems before they have any real-world impact.

How It Works

When you trigger a preview, Wevion creates a temporary evaluation of your rule. It runs through every entity that falls within the rule's scope (based on entity level, account selection, and any entity filters), checks each one against your conditions, and produces a detailed report. No actions are executed. No budgets change. No campaigns pause.

The preview evaluates against your current live data — the same metrics your rule would see if it ran right now.

Step-by-Step Guide

Option A: Preview an Existing Rule

If you already have a saved rule and want to verify what it would do on next execution:

1. Navigate to Automation > Rules from the sidebar.
2. Find the rule you want to test in your rules list.
3. Click the rule to open its detail view.
4. Click the Preview button (or Dry-Run depending on your interface version).

5. Wait for the evaluation to complete. This typically takes a few seconds, depending on how many entities fall within scope.
6. Review the results (see "Reading Preview Results" below).

Option B: Preview While Creating a New Rule

You do not need to save a rule first. While building a new rule in the creation form:

1. Navigate to Automation > Rules and click Create Rule.
2. Configure your rule parameters:
   • Entity level — Campaign, Ad Set, or Ad
   • Conditions — the metrics and thresholds that trigger the rule
   • Ad accounts — which accounts to evaluate
   • Entity filter — optional name-based or status-based filtering
   • Condition logic — AND (all conditions must match) or OR (any condition matches)
3. Before clicking Save, click Preview.

4. Wevion evaluates your in-progress rule configuration against live data.
5. Review the results to decide if the rule behaves as expected before saving and activating it.

Reading Preview Results

The preview returns a structured report with four key numbers and a detailed entity list.

Summary Metrics

Matched Entities Detail

Below the summary, you see the list of every entity that would be acted upon. Each entry includes:

• Entity ID — the Meta ID of the campaign, ad set, or ad
• Entity Name — the human-readable name from Meta
• Ad Account ID — which ad account this entity belongs to
• Metrics — the current metric values that triggered the match (e.g., CPA = $12.50, Spend = $340, CTR = 0.8%)

Practical Examples

Example 1: Pause High-CPA Campaigns

You want to pause any campaign where CPA exceeds $15 over the last 3 days.

1. Create a rule with entity level = Campaign.
2. Add condition: CPA > 15 (lookback: 3 days).
3. Click Preview.
4. The results show 3 out of 47 campaigns matched. You review the three campaign names and their CPA values ($16.20, $18.90, $22.10). These are indeed the underperformers you wanted to target.
5. Confident the rule is correct, you save and activate it.

Example 2: Budget Increase on Winners

You want to increase daily budget by 20% on ad sets with ROAS above 3.0 and at least $50 in spend.

1. Create a rule with entity level = Ad Set.
2. Add condition 1: ROAS > 3.0 (lookback: 7 days).
3. Add condition 2: Spend > 50 (lookback: 7 days).
4. Set condition logic to AND.
5. Click Preview.
6. Results show 8 ad sets matched out of 120 evaluated. You verify the ROAS and spend values for each. One ad set has ROAS = 3.01 with spend = $51 — technically matching but barely. You decide to tighten the threshold to ROAS > 3.5 and preview again. Now 5 ad sets match, all with strong performance.

Example 3: Catch Overly Broad Conditions

You set a rule to reduce budget on campaigns with CTR below 2%. Preview shows 38 out of 40 campaigns matched — nearly everything. This tells you the threshold is too aggressive. You adjust to CTR below 0.5% and preview again. Now 4 campaigns match, which is a reasonable scope.

Tips and Best Practices

• Always preview before activating a new rule. There is no cost to previewing, and it takes only seconds.
• Preview after editing an existing rule. Even small changes to conditions or account scope can dramatically change which entities match.
• Use preview to learn. Not sure what CTR or CPA values your campaigns typically have? Set a broad condition, preview it, and study the metrics column.
• Check the "Entities Evaluated" count. If it is lower than expected, your account selection or entity filter may be too restrictive.
• Check the "Entities Skipped" count. If entities are being skipped, it may be due to cooldown from a recent rule execution. See the execution history for details.

Rule Execution History and Troubleshooting

FAQ

Q: Does preview cost anything or use API calls? A: No. Preview evaluates against data already synced to Wevion. It does not make any calls to Meta's API and does not count against any rate limits.

Q: Can I preview a rule that is currently paused? A: Yes. The preview evaluates the rule's conditions regardless of whether the rule is active or paused. This is useful for testing adjustments before reactivating.

Q: How current is the data used in preview? A: Preview uses the same data that your Dashboard and insights display. This data is refreshed every 15 minutes.

Insights Data Freshness — How Often Data Updates

Q: What happens if I preview and zero entities match? A: This means none of your campaigns, ad sets, or ads currently meet the conditions you set. Either your thresholds are too strict, your date range is too narrow, or your entity filter is excluding everything.

Related Articles

• Rule Execution History and Troubleshooting
• Creating Your First Automation Rule
• Conditions and Metrics — Building Smart Triggers
• Dashboard Overview — Your Daily Command Center