Why did my Facebook ads stop working? 7 things to check, in order

Check these, in order

1. Is it still delivering? Look at the Delivery column in Ads Manager. A rejected ad can't run: Meta emails you the reason, and you can edit the ad, make a new one or ask for another review.
2. Did you just change something? Pausing an ad set or changing its optimisation event, audience or creative is a significant edit, and a big budget or bid change can be too. A significant edit sends the ad set back into the learning phase, where Meta says results are less stable and usually cost more.
3. Is it stuck in Learning limited? An ad set usually leaves the learning phase after about 50 results in the week after its last significant edit. When that's unlikely, the Delivery column reads Learning limited. Meta lists the usual causes: a small audience, a low budget or bid, too many ads at once, or a result that happens too rarely to optimise for.
4. Has the creative worn out? When people have seen the same ad too many times, Ads Manager shows Creative limited, or Creative fatigue once the cost per result reaches twice what your past ads cost. Meta's fix is a new ad with a materially different image or video, or a bigger audience.
5. Has your audience run dry? Audience saturation is when a high share of your audience has seen your ads without acting. Meta suggests a larger audience.
6. Is tracking still counting results? If the Meta pixel or Conversions API stops sending events, ads can look like they stopped working when the results just aren't being counted. The Diagnostics tab in Events Manager shows setup problems, and the test events tool checks each event.
7. Has anything changed after the click? A slower landing page, a new form or an offer that ended can lower results even when the ads are fine. Open your ad on a phone and go through it the way a customer would.

Read Meta's own diagnostics

For ads with at least 500 impressions, Ads Manager shows three rankings, each compared with ads competing for the same audience: quality, engagement rate and conversion rate. A low quality ranking points at the creative. Good engagement with a low conversion rate ranking points at what happens after the click. Meta notes these rankings aren't inputs into the ad auction: they're a diagnosis, not a score to chase.

What not to do

• Don't make several big edits at once: each significant edit restarts learning
• Don't judge results during the learning phase: Meta says they aren't necessarily a sign of future performance
• Don't pause a working ad the moment you add a new one: Meta notes that keeping the original running may get more results
• Don't raise the budget on a campaign whose tracking you haven't checked

When to get help

If you've been through these and still can't see the cause, a second pair of eyes is faster than guessing. Our $99 Meta Ads Account Audit reviews structure, audiences, budget, creative and tracking, and gives you a prioritized written fix list. If one campaign has clearly stopped working, Campaign Rescue ($249) fixes and relaunches it. Start with the Audit and the $99 comes off Rescue or Setup & Launch if you go ahead within 30 days.