Facebook Ads Not Delivering: Why It Happens and How to Fix It

Are your Facebook ads not delivering the expected results? You're not alone: many advertisers face the frustrating issue of their Facebook ads not delivering even when everything is seemingly fine. 

 

This is by far one of the most common problems you can encounter in your Facebook Ads Manager when you check the Delivery column. Let’s get to business and learn how to fix it, and start getting real results with your ads. 

 

Why your Facebook ads aren't delivering 

When you see that your Facebook ad is active but not delivering, it means that the ad should be technically running, but it’s not reaching potential customers and thus not helping you achieve specific objectives like generating leads or driving website traffic. It is just one of the several Facebook ad statuses you can see in the Ads Manager, but it may be the trickiest one to deal with since it can be caused by multiple things. 

 

Here are several reasons why your Facebook ads may be active but not delivering:

 

1. Targeting mistakes

If the targeting criteria for your Facebook ads are too narrow or specific, this can limit their potential reach and audience size and even prevent the ads from being delivered or spending your budget in the first place. 

 

Checking the estimated daily reach and audience size at the Ad Set level of your campaign can help you make sure that your ads will reach enough people. If the size is unavailable or you see that your reach is very low, this means that it’s time to do some tweaks and fix the situation.

 

How to fix it

• Start with broad targeting: skip targeting filters you’ve applied before or select options that will help you reach more people (e.g., choose more interests and behaviors); 
• Try lookalikes: if you have a specific narrow audience that you’ve targeted in the past and got good results from it, you can create a lookalike based on it and use it for your new ad sets. This can help you target more people and avoid delivery issues due to a narrow audience;
• Merge several audiences: if your audiences are too narrow but you still want to target them, you can combine them for one ad set. For example, you can combine several customer lists you were using separately for your retargeting campaigns; 
• Raise your budget: if your audience is too large, on the other hand, you might need to spend more money to ensure that your ads will be delivered and get the results you want.   

The target audience is possibly the most important aspect that determines the success of your Facebook ads, so you should make sure you know how to choose it right to achieve the desired results.  To do this, follow the recommendations above and check out our guide on Facebook ad targeting basics to learn about the key options you have for reaching the right people with your Facebook ads. 

 

2. Audience overlap 

When you create multiple campaigns or ad sets targeted at a similar audience, there's a risk that multiple ads may enter the same ad auction, leading to auction overlap.  In this case, some of your ad sets can perform well on the ad auction, while others won’t be delivered at all to prevent inefficient budget spending.

 

How to fix it

• Check for potential audience overlap: you can do this in the Audiences section by clicking “Show audience overlap” and seeing the percentage of similarity between the two audiences; 
• Change the target audience: if the overlap percentage is high, it’s best to switch to a different audience for one of the ad sets; 
• Pause ad sets: if you still decide to run several ad sets with similar audiences, you can monitor their results and pause the ones with poor performance; 
• Merge ad sets: you can also combine several ad sets into one if they have similar audiences to avoid auction overlap. 

Audience overlap can cause more than just ad delivery issues, so pay attention to it when choosing the target audiences for your ads. For more tips, check out our article on how to fix audience overlap on Facebook.

 

3. Daily spending limit reached

Your Facebook ads may not be delivering because of the issues with Facebook’s Daily Spending Limits. Essentially, it is a limitation Facebook can place on how much money you can spend every day across all your campaigns or accounts in the Business Manager. 

 

Facebook will set limits for daily ad spending based on your history, and a low limit can be caused by the following reasons:

• You’ve just started advertising on Facebook; 
• You’ve violated Meta’s Advertising Standards or other rules; 
• Your ads have poor ad quality rankings; 
• Your Page or app has low feedback scores. 

For example, if Facebook decides to limit your daily spending to $100 per day, your ads won’t be delivered or spending your budget once this limit is reached. If you try to increase your daily budget, you’ll see an error message that says "Budget Exceeds Account Spend Limit". 

 

If you’re just starting out and testing your ads with a small budget, this may not be such a big issue. But if you’re an experienced advertiser and want to reach a significant audience to get enough results, this can negatively impact your ad performance and cause your ads to stop delivering. 

 

How to fix it

• Pay on time: to increase how much Facebook allows you to spend on ads, make sure you pay your bills on time to make your spending limit up gradually;
• Comply with Facebook rules: Facebook will check if you're following their advertising standards and other rules before you’ll be approved to spend more. If your ads were rejected or your account was restricted in the past, make sure to follow all the necessary rules; 
• Verify your business: completing business verification can help you raise your daily spending limit faster, so consider this option if you want to be able to spend more on your ads. 

When working with limits imposed by Facebook, you have to follow its rules and make sure you do everything you can to overcome them if you want to get better results from your ads. 

 

4. Low budget, bid caps, or spending limits 

As we’ve said, daily spending limits are a limitation imposed by Facebook. But you can also set your own limits on how much you’re going to spend by setting specific budgets, spend limits, or bid controls.  However, that’s where the ad delivery issues may arise. 

 

If your ad sets or Ad Account have spend limits and you’ve set them too low, it can stop your ads from being delivered. A low ad budget can also cause problems, and in this case, it might lead to a higher CPA and negatively affect the ROI of your campaigns. 

 

The same goes for the Cost per result goal or Bid controls: when they are too low, the delivery of your ads might be compromised. 

 

Here’s another thing to keep in mind: if you set a Maximum spend limit, it will limit how much money Facebook can spend on your ad sets. Facebook will stop spending money when this limit is reached, which means that your ads won’t be delivered.

 

How to fix it

• Try running ads without spending limits: if the restrictions you’ve set are causing ad delivery issues, it’s a good idea to check this by removing the limits for some time and seeing how your ads will perform. This is especially true for campaigns with Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO), as too many spend limits can cause problems for Facebook algorithms. 
• Raise your spending limit if you increase the campaign budget: if you don’t do that, Facebook won’t be able to spend the extra money you’ve added, causing potential poor delivery. In general, Facebook recommends choosing the same amount for your ad set spend limit and campaign budget.
• Make sure you’ve set an appropriate spending limit: Facebook recommends setting a maximum spend limit of at least $1 if you’re using a daily budget, a lowest cost bidding strategy, or an impression as the action you’re bidding for. 
• Remove bid caps or cost per result goals: as with spend limits, you can try running ads without these restrictions to check if they are causing ad delivery issues.
• Raise bid caps or cost per result goals: if you know that you need them to control your budget spending, you can try increasing them to make sure your ads can reach the goals you’ve set. 
• Be mindful when you pause or delete ad sets: this can cause a decrease in the total maximum spend for your campaigns even if you don’t change the budget itself. If you pause one ad set within a campaign that has five of them, your maximum spend can decrease by 20% while the campaign budget will remain the same. 
• Spend enough money daily: you can set your daily budget based on your expected cost per performance goal. Facebook recommends setting a daily budget as the cost of your performance goal x10. For example, if you want to get clicks on your ads and each click costs you $3 on average, you can set a $30 budget as your daily budget. 

Getting good advertising results requires spending money, and following the tips above can help you make sure that Facebook can spend enough to let you get all the ad clicks or conversions that you want. 

 

5. Ads disapproved or rejected

Facebook can check your ads several times to see if they comply with all of their advertising standards and policies. Sometimes, your ads can get through the initial review process but get flagged during the next check after they’ve started running. 

 

Your ads can get disapproved for reasons like having too much text, violating  Facebook's advertising policies or community standards, and so on. In this case, your ad delivery will also be restricted. 

 

How to fix it

• Check all Meta policies: this includes Meta’s Advertising Standards, Community Standards, and self-regulatory advertising codes. Complying with all of them is necessary if you don’t want to get your ads disapproved or rejected. 
• Avoid using misleading language: if you promise something unrealistic in your ads, Facebook can reject them. Make sure that your ads don’t make any claims you can’t back up or state facts you can’t prove. 
• Be more neutral: ad copies or visuals that promote products or services too aggressively can also cause your ads to have issues. It’s better to choose ad creatives that focus on providing value to your audience and use a respectful tone of voice.

Sticking to guidelines is crucial for improving your ads and avoiding getting them rejected or, worse, having your Ad Account disabled for violations. If you don’t want to encounter ad delivery issues or other negative consequences, follow Meta’s rules – it’s as simple as that. 

 

6. Low ad relevance and quality

Low ad relevance and quality can lead to ad delivery issues on Facebook. This can happen because Facebook's algorithms prioritize ads based on their perceived relevance and quality to users. 

 

If your ads lack in this department, they won’t be able to compete with the ads of other advertisers and thus will be less likely to be shown to users, which negatively impacts their delivery and performance. Ads with low relevance and quality may also cost you more due to lower engagement and conversion rates. 

 

How to fix it

• Make sure your ads don’t have mistakes: check your ad copies for grammatical issues and your ad visuals for poor-quality elements to increase the relevance score; 
• Shorten your ad copy or headline: social media users don’t like to read long ad texts, so it’s better to keep the length of your copies or headlines within specific limits while getting the main message across. 
• Switch your ad creatives: in some cases, it might be best to simply make new ad creatives for your ads. As Facebook is a quite competitive platform, you need to put enough effort into creating visuals and writing copies that can differentiate you from the competition. 
• Test different options: if you’re not sure what ad creatives will deliver the best results, run A/B tests to figure this out. Experiment with different images, copies, CTAs, and other ad elements to fix ad delivery issues caused by poor creatives. 

Poorly designed or ineffective ad creatives won’t be able to capture users' attention and drive engagement, and you’ll be left disappointed by the results you get. 

 

To paraphrase a famous marketing catchphrase, ad content is king, and improving the quality and relevance of your Facebook ads is the best strategy when it comes to ensuring that they will perform well. 

 

7. Wrong optimization goal

The performance goals you set for your campaigns can also cause delivery issues because they influence how Facebook optimizes your ads for delivery.  If your performance goal is unrealistic or misaligned with your campaign objectives, Facebook may struggle to deliver your ads effectively to the right audience.

 

For example, if you set a performance goal that requires a high volume of conversions but your campaign is not generating enough traffic or engagement to meet that goal, Facebook can prioritize other ads over yours. Your performance goal can also be too expensive for your current ad budget, which will lead to limited ad delivery as well. 

 

How to fix it

• Choose an appropriate performance goal: if you see that your ads can’t achieve the desired results, consider switching to an optimization goal that will be less expensive for you and require less commitment from your audience. For example, you can change the goal from conversions to clicks to make it easier for your ads to be properly delivered. 
• Raise your budget: if you’re sure that your ads have to be optimized for a specific goal, check your budget to see if it’s high enough. If not, calculate the minimum amount you have to spend (you can follow the tip for setting the daily budget earlier) and increase your current budget. 

Adjusting your performance goals to be more realistic and aligned with your campaign objectives can help you improve ad delivery and overall performance. Plus, it can cost you less to get enough results. 

 

8. Wrong ad schedule

A wrong ad schedule can also be a culprit for why your Facebook ads are not delivering because it determines when your ads are shown to your target audience.

 

If your ad schedule is not aligned properly with the times when your audience is most active or likely to engage with your ads, you may miss out on opportunities to reach them effectively. This can result in lower ad delivery, reduced engagement, and ultimately, poor performance of your ad campaigns. 

 

How to fix it

• Check your current ad schedule: sometimes, you can set a schedule for running your ads and then forget about it, wondering why your ads are not delivering later. If this is the case, go to the Budget and schedule section and check when your ads are scheduled to run. 
• Switch to a less restrictive schedule: if you’ve set a specific ad schedule and see that your ads have some delivery issues, you might want to relax your restrictions a bit to see if the situation improves. 
• Research your audience: monitoring ad performance and detecting patterns in it can help you learn more about when your target audience is more likely to engage with your ads. If you run your ads full-time for a while and see that your ads perform better during specific hours or day, analyze why it happens and adjust your ad schedules accordingly. 

Choosing optimal running schedules for your Facebook ads can help you fix delivery issues, get better results, and spend your budget more efficiently. 

 

What if nothing helps? 

There can also be a situation when you’ve tried everything above, but your Facebook ads are still not delivering or spending after more than 48 hours have passed. What should you do in this case? 

 

Sometimes, there is no clear reason for this problem, so the best you can do is to try running the same campaign or ad set with different settings. For example, you can adjust your targeting parameters or try new ad creatives; this might be just enough to fix the issue.  You can also delete the ad and recreate it with the same parameters, which is what Facebook recommends.

 

Finally, if none of it helps and you’ve got more than one ad not delivering, it may be time to contact Facebook’s support team to get the necessary assistance. 

 

Recap

Troubleshooting Facebook ads that aren't delivering requires some patience and a bit of detective work. By understanding the common issues like low ad set spend limits, incorrect performance goals, low ad relevance, and so on, you can take the necessary steps to fix them and get your ads back on track.

 

Remember to regularly monitor your ad campaigns, make adjustments as needed, and always keep your audience in mind.  With a little effort and attention to detail, you can maximize the effectiveness of your Facebook ads and achieve your advertising goals. So don't get discouraged if your ads aren't delivering; use these tips to troubleshoot and optimize your campaigns for success. 

 

Finally, remember that you can always leverage ConvertBomb to automate your Facebook ads and address potential problems you can encounter on your advertising journey. Using automated rules for your ads can help you improve Facebook ad performance and spend less time managing your ads because ConvertBomb will handle all the basic tasks for you.