The Scenario
You are an account manager. You just inherited a client's Meta Ads account. The previous manager left and there are 150+ ads across the account — some active, some paused, some from campaigns that ended 18 months ago.
Your first call with the client is Friday morning. They want to know what is actually running, what is sitting paused that should be archived, and whether the account is as chaotic as they think it is.
You have Thursday to build an answer.
The bad version of Thursday:
- Open Ads Manager, switch to Ads view, set filters to show all statuses
- Scroll through 150 rows in the UI
- Manually note down paused ads you think should be archived
- Try to export the full list — the export only shows the columns currently in your UI view
- Realize the creation date column was not in the view, re-export
- Come to the Friday call with a partial picture and a lot of "I need to check on that"
One prompt gives you the full inventory before lunch.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent inside your Google Sheet that can pull every ad in an account regardless of status, so you get the complete picture without configuring Ads Manager views.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
List all ads in our Meta Ads account and write ad ID, ad name, ad set name, campaign name, status, and creation date into columns A through F. Sort by status so ACTIVE ads appear first, then PAUSED, then ARCHIVED.
SheetXAI fetches the complete ad inventory, writes every ad with its lineage (campaign → ad set → ad), and groups by status. You have a 150-row sheet sorted by what matters most for the Friday call.
What You Get
A full ad inventory sorted for action:
- Active ads at the top — what is currently running and billing
- Paused ads in the middle — the conversation about what to archive
- Creation dates in column F — paused ads from 18 months ago are immediately obvious
The account picture is clear before you talk to the client. You know how many active ads are running, you know how much dead weight is sitting paused, and you have IDs ready if they want to make changes on the call.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
A large inherited account has layers of complexity beyond status.
When you want to focus specifically on paused ads for the archive review
The active ads can wait. The immediate question is what to clean up.
Fetch all Meta Ads ads with status PAUSED. Write ad name, campaign name, ad set name, and date last edited into columns A through D. Sort by date last edited ascending so the oldest paused ads appear first.
When the client wants the list grouped by campaign
The audit conversation is easier if the inventory is organized the way the client thinks about the account.
List all ads in this Meta Ads account. Group them by campaign name. Within each campaign group, sort by status (ACTIVE first, then PAUSED). Write campaign name, ad set name, ad name, status, and creation date into columns A through E. Leave a blank row between campaign groups.
When you need to flag ads that have been paused for more than 60 days
The definition of "should be archived" is ads paused for more than 60 days.
Fetch all PAUSED ads in this Meta Ads account. Write ad name, campaign name, ad set name, and date last edited into columns A through D. In column E, write "archive candidate" if the date last edited is more than 60 days ago. Sort by column E so archive candidates appear first.
When you want the full picture: active status, spend last 30 days, and pause age all in one view
The comprehensive account health sheet for the client call.
List all ads in this Meta Ads account. For each ad, write ad name, campaign name, status, and creation date into columns A through D. Then fetch last 30 days spend for each ad and write it into column E (write 0 if no spend). In column F, write "no recent spend" for any ACTIVE ad with zero spend in the last 30 days — those are the ones worth flagging. Sort by status, then by column E descending within each status group.
The pattern: the account audit that was going to take all of Thursday happens before lunch. You walk into the Friday call with data, not impressions.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and ask it to pull a complete ad inventory into any Google Sheet you have open. The Meta Ads integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For related work, see how to do bulk status updates from a sheet or the Meta Ads in Google Sheets overview.