Meta ads troubleshooting
Why aren’t my Meta ads working?
Find your problem, check the likely causes in order, and fix it. Plain-English guides for Facebook and Instagram ads, checked against Meta’s own documentation.
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What’s going wrong?
Most common
Where most people start.
- Spend stays far below the budget Meta ads active but not spending
- Cost per result jumps and stays up Meta cost per purchase suddenly doubled
- Clicks keep coming, sales don’t Facebook ads spending money but no sales
- Sales happen, Meta stops seeing them Meta pixel not tracking purchases
- A strong start that slowly fades Meta ad fatigue: how to tell an ad is worn out
- Delivery stops without warning Meta ad account disabled or restricted
Not spending or delivering
Ads stuck in review, not spending, or spending less than the budget.
- Meta ads active but not spending The campaign says Active and the spend stays at zero. The causes in the order to check them, from the one that stops every ad to the ones that slow a single ad set.
- Meta ad stuck in review Most Meta ads are reviewed within a day. When one sits in review for longer, these are the reasons and what you can actually do about it.
- Meta ad rejected: why, and how to get it approved The reasons Meta rejects ads most often, how to find the exact policy it flagged, and when to fix the ad or ask for another review.
- Learning limited on Meta: what it means and how to fix it Learning limited means the ad set is unlikely to get about 50 results a week. The budget arithmetic, and the fixes in the order Meta suggests.
- Meta ads not spending the full budget Your daily budget is $200 and Meta spends $60. Why Meta underspends, and how to tell a cap problem from an audience problem.
- Meta ads spending more than the daily budget Meta can spend up to 75 percent over your daily budget on a single day. What is normal, what is not, and how to cap spend for real.
Costs too high
CPM, CPC or cost per result higher than it was or should be.
- Why is my CPM so high on Meta? CPM is what you pay for 1,000 impressions. What pushes it up, which part you control, and when a CPM jump is your problem rather than the market’s.
- Meta cost per purchase suddenly doubled Your CPA was stable for weeks and doubled overnight. How to tell a real problem from reporting delay, and the five causes to check in order.
- Why is my cost per click so high on Meta? CPC is CPM divided by how often people click. So a high CPC is either expensive impressions or ads people scroll past. How to tell which.
- Why did my Facebook ads ROAS drop? ROAS is purchase value divided by spend, so it falls when costs rise, when fewer people buy, or when tracking misses sales. A step-by-step way to find which.
- Meta costs went up after raising the budget You doubled the budget and the CPA got worse. Why scaling raises costs, and how to scale Meta ads without losing efficiency.
Clicks but no sales
People arrive, but purchases and leads don’t follow.
- Facebook ads spending money but no sales Clicks and spend but no purchases. First rule out tracking, then work through the offer, the page and the audience, in that order.
- Meta ads get add to carts but no purchases People add to cart and leave. Where the checkout loses them, and how to tell a checkout problem from a tracking problem.
- Meta link clicks much higher than landing page views 500 link clicks, 150 landing page views. Where the other visitors went, and what a normal gap looks like.
- Meta lead ads bring low-quality leads Cheap leads that never answer the phone. Why instant forms attract them, and the settings that trade a higher cost per lead for real prospects.
Tracking and reporting
Pixel, conversions and numbers that don’t add up.
- Meta pixel not tracking purchases Orders come in, Meta shows none. How to find where the Purchase event breaks: the pixel, the Conversions API, the checkout or consent.
- Why Meta and Shopify sales don’t match Meta says 40 purchases, Shopify says 28, or the other way round. The reasons the two numbers will never match exactly, and when the gap means something is broken.
- Meta counting purchases twice (pixel and Conversions API) Meta reports more purchases than you had orders. How deduplication works, and how to check that the pixel and server events share an event ID.
- Why Meta Ads Manager numbers keep changing Yesterday had 12 purchases, today it shows 19. Why recent days fill in late, and how long to wait before judging them.
- Why Meta and Google Analytics don’t match Meta shows hundreds of clicks and dozens of purchases, GA4 shows a fraction. The reasons, and how to make the two comparable.
Ads that stopped working
Results that faded after a good start.
- Meta ad fatigue: how to tell an ad is worn out Frequency up, CTR down, CPA creeping. The signs of creative fatigue on Facebook and Instagram, and when to refresh instead of waiting.
- Facebook ads CTR dropping Fewer people click than last week. How to tell creative fatigue from a placement shift or a changed audience.
- New Meta ad worked for a few days, then stopped A new ad starts strong and collapses after a few days. Why early results flatter new ads, and how to know whether to wait or replace it.
- Meta ads stopped working after an edit You changed the budget, the audience or an ad and performance fell apart. Which edits restart learning, and how to recover.
- Meta ads performance up and down every day Great Monday, terrible Tuesday. How much day-to-day swing is normal, and how to stop reacting to noise.
Account, billing and rules
Restrictions, payments, spending limits and automated rules.
- Meta ad account spending limit reached All ads stopped and the campaigns still say Active. How the account spending limit works, and how to raise, reset or remove it.
- Meta ads stopped because a payment failed Meta could not charge your card and paused the account. How to pay the balance, avoid a restriction, and keep it from happening again.
- Meta ad account disabled or restricted Your ad account is disabled or restricted. What the common reasons are, where to see the exact one, and how to request a review.
- Facebook automated rules not working Your rule should have paused an ad and did not. The usual reasons Meta’s automated rules do not fire, and how to test a rule safely.
- Meta ads still spending after being paused You paused a campaign and spend still went up. Why a little spend appears after a pause, and when it means something is still running.
Not sure what a metric means? The Meta ads glossary defines every term these guides use.
See what your Meta ads are really doing
These guides help once something has gone wrong. IQuly checks your Meta ad accounts around the clock and tells you in plain words before it costs you.