Why is my campaign not spending?

If you see a crash in your campaign performance graph, or if conversions suddenly drop to zero, it could mean that your campaign isn't spending money. If your Facebook ads are not delivering (that is, you’re not getting any impressions on your ads), there is likely one or more issues with delivery.

The first place to check for issues with your ads is the All Ads page of your campaign. You can see error messages issued by Facebook, including why an ad was disapproved, and suggestions from Legacy Hootsuite Ads for improvements.

1. On the Legacy Hootsuite Ads home page, select Your campaigns, then select Search a campaign, and select the campaign from the list.
2. Select the All ads tab. Errors are displayed at the top of this page. Red messages are failed delivery checks, and orange messages are recommendations from Legacy Hootsuite Ads that don't necessarily require action.
   
3. To view the error details for a specific ad, select Show <n> ads in the adset section.
   
4. In the status column, point to "Ad has errors/warnings" to display the full explanation.
   

Common ad delivery issues

• An ad was disapproved or is still in review
• Your ad account has reached its spend limit
• An image violates the 20% rule
• Your bid is too low
• Your campaign's budget is too low for the number of running ads
• Your optimization goal is hard to reach
• Your audiences overlap

An ad was disapproved or is still in review

Facebook reviews all ads before they're run, to ensure they follow Facebook's advertising policies. See Facebook's help article Advertising policies for a list of prohibited content that could result in your ads being disapproved. If your ad is rejected, Legacy Hootsuite Ads displays the reason it was disapproved in your campaign's dashboard, on the All Ads tab. Facebook also sends a notification to the email address you have registered with them.

According to Facebook, most ads are reviewed within 24 hours. During busy periods, however, it may take longer, so your ad may not be delivering because it’s still stuck in review. It’s a good idea to publish your campaign in advance with a future start date to avoid any delays.

To resolve this issue
If your ad has been disapproved, make the required changes to the ad (see Edit, clone, or delete an ad for more information). After you save your changes, Legacy Hootsuite Ads resubmits the campaign to Facebook for review. You can also choose to submit an appeal to Facebook. See the Facebook help article Appeal a suspension for more information.

Your ad account has reached its spend limit

It’s a good idea to set a spend limit on your Facebook ad account so that no campaign spending goes overboard by accident. However, it’s easy to forget that a limit is in place, so over time that limit could be reached. When that happens, ads will no longer spend and Facebook doesn't show them to your audience.

To resolve this issue
Navigate to your Facebook Ads Manager payment settings to change, remove, or reset your ad account's spend limit.

An image violates the 20% rule

Facebook generally does not allow images in ads to exceed an image to text ratio of 20%. Facebook often restricts reach for ads that have too much text in their images, including logos, watermarks, and slogans. The more text an image contains, the lower the ad’s reach will be. In fact, the ad may not run at all, without any warning from Facebook. See the Facebook help article About text in ad images for more information.

Exceptions to this rule can include images of book or album covers, games, product images, and event posters.

To resolve this issue
Use Facebook’s text overlay tool to check your ads, and then make the necessary adjustments.

Your bid is too low

Facebook delivers ads based on three factors: the bid (what you're willing to pay for the desired action), how likely your audience is to take the desired action, and the relevance and quality of the ad.

Placing a cap on your bid could keep it too low and result in delivery problems.

To resolve this issue
Raise your bid, or switch to lowest cost without a bid cap.

Your campaign's budget is too low for the number of running ads

To ensure your campaign runs as expected, allocate at least the minimum budget per ad per day. The amount depends on your campaign type and bidding strategy, but is generally at least $2 per ad per day.

Keep in mind that running split tests creates more ads that have to share the budget within an adset, so set your budget accordingly.

To resolve this issue
Edit the campaign's budget in the Campaign Details section on the campaign’s dashboard.

Your optimization goal is hard to reach

A campaign’s optimization goal is the result you want Facebook to help you achieve by showing your ads to the people most likely to take the desired action. Your budget is optimized to get you the best performance from your ads based on this goal.

Delivery issues can occur when, instead of a common action like link clicks, the optimization goal is conversions. A conversion is less common than a link click, so Facebook has less data to work with to find an audience likely to take your desired action. If you have no conversions, your campaign can end up stopping after a few days.

To resolve this issue
Edit your optimization goal in the Campaign Details section of your campaign’s dashboard to a more common action. Facebook still tracks your conversions, and will be able to target a wider audience with your ads.

Your audiences overlap

If multiple adsets in a campaign target very similar audiences, they could be competing against each other for the same audience. Facebook prevents competition by stopping the adset that isn’t performing as well.

To resolve this issue
Navigate to your Facebook Ads Manager audience page, select the boxes to select some audiences to compare, select More (three dots), and then select Show Audience Overlap.

Then you can make changes to your target audiences to reduce the overlap. See Edit your ad's target audience for more information.