Solved: Facebook Ads Campaign Not Spending

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

First off, don't worry. What you're experiencing is incredibly common for anyone just starting with Meta ads. It can be frustrating to launch a campaign you're excited about, only to see it sit there doing absolutely nothing. The good news is that the reason is usually one of a few simple, fixable things. It's rarely a sign that your product or business is doomed.

I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and walk you through a bit of a diagnostic process to figure out what's going on. We'll go from the most basic checks to the more strategic reasons why an ad might not get any traction. By the end, you should have a clear idea of what to tweak to get things moving.

First, let's rule out the simple stuff...

Before we dive into complex strategy, we need to make sure you haven't fallen victim to one of the simple tripwires that catch out almost every new advertiser. It sounds silly, but you'd be surprised how often the solution is just a single click away. Think of this as the "is it plugged in?" check.

1. Is Everything Switched On?

Meta Ads Manager has three levels: Campaign, Ad Set, and Ad. All three need to be active for your ad to run. It's easy to accidentally leave one switched off.

• Campaign Level: This is the master switch. If the campaign is off, nothing inside it will run, no matter what.
• Ad Set Level: This controls your budget, schedule, and audience. If this is off, the ads within it won't be delivered.
• Ad Level: This is the actual creative (your image/video and text). If this is off, it won't show, even if the campaign and ad set are on.

Go into your Ads Manager and look at the toggle switch next to your campaign, ad set, and ad. Make sure all three are blue (on), not grey (off).

2. Is Your Payment Method Valid?

Facebook won't spend a penny of your money if it can't charge you. A failed payment method is a common reason for an account's ads to suddenly stop. For a new account, it might be that the initial authorisation failed or your bank blocked the transaction thinking it was suspicious.

• Go to your 'Billing & Payments' section in Ads Manager.
• Check that your card details are correct and that it hasn't expired.
• Sometimes, even if the details are right, your bank might decline the charge. It might be worth giving them a quick call to ensure they're not blocking payments to "Facebook Ads".

3. Has Your Ad Been Approved?

Every single ad you submit goes through a review process, which is mostly automated but sometimes involves a human. They're checking to make sure you're not violating any of their advertising policies (e.g., promoting prohibited products, making misleading claims, using too much text on an image, etc.).

Typically, this review takes a few hours, but it can take up to 24 hours or even longer if their systems are busy. If your ad is stuck 'In Review' for more than a day, that could be the issue. If it's been 'Rejected', Facebook will not spend any money on it. You'll see the status next to your ad in the 'Delivery' column. If it's rejected, they'll usually provide a reason, though sometimes it can be a bit vague. You'll need to edit the ad to comply with their policies and resubmit it for review.

If you've checked all three of these and everything looks fine, then it's time to move on to the more strategic reasons for a lack of spend.

The usual suspect: Your audience is too small...

This is probably the number one reason I see for campaigns failing to spend, especially for people new to the platform. It's tempting to try and be super-specific with your targetting, layering on dozens of interests and behaviours to create what you think is the "perfect" customer profile. The problem is, you can easily narrow it down so much that Facebook's algorithm just gives up.

Think about it like this: you're entering an auction. You're competing against thousands of other advertisers who want to reach the same people. If your potential audience is only, say, 10,000 people, the competition for those few eyeballs is immense. Furthermore, the algorithm needs a large pool of people to work with so it can find the specific individuals within that pool who are most likely to take the action you want (e.g., click, sign up, purchase). If the pool is too small, it doesn't have enough room to manoeuvre and optimise.

When you're creating your ad set, look at the 'Audience Definition' gauge on the right-hand side. It gives you an estimated potential reach. If that number is in the low thousands, or even tens of thousands, it's almost certainly too small for a cold traffic campaign. You are effectively asking Facebook to find a needle in a haystack that's already tiny. For a new campaign without much data, I'd suggest aiming for an audience of at least 500,000 to a few million to give the algorithm enough space to learn.

Here's a simple flowchart illustrating the problem:

How to fix this? Go back to your ad set's targeting section.

• Remove unnecessary layers: Do you really need to target people who like 'small business' AND 'Shopify' AND 'Gary Vaynerchuk'? Try starting with just one or two broad, highly relevant interests.
• Expand demographics: Is your age range too tight? Could you expand the location targeting?
• Trust the algorithm: Once your account has some conversion data, broad targeting (with no interest layers at all) can work incredibly well. But for now, just give it a bigger, well-defined pool to fish in.

Are you bidding too low? The budget trap...

The next major hurdle is your budget and bid strategy. This controls how much you're willing to pay and how you instruct Facebook to go about paying it. If you get this wrong, you can effectively price yourself out of the market before you've even started.

Your Bid Strategy: In the ad set settings, you'll see an option for 'Bidding'. For beginners, there's really only one option you should be considering: Highest Volume (this used to be called 'Lowest Cost'). This strategy tells Facebook: "Here's my budget. Go and get me the most results possible for this amount." The algorithm will then automatically bid what it needs to in order to win auctions and get your ad shown.

Where people go wrong is by trying to be too clever. They might choose a 'Cost Cap' or 'Bid Cap' strategy and set the cap incredibly low, like £0.10 per click. They think they're saving money, but what they're actually doing is telling Facebook, "I refuse to pay more than 10p to show my ad." In today's competitive ad market, a 10p click is virtually non-existent. So, Facebook tries to enter the auction, sees that every winning bid is £0.50 or more, realises it can't meet your 10p condition, and simply doesn't bid at all. The result is zero spend.

Unless you have a very specific reason and a lot of data to back up your decision, always start with 'Highest Volume' and let the algorithm do the heavy lifting.

Your Budget: The size of your daily budget can also impact delivery, especially at the very low end. If you set a daily budget of, say, £1, the algorithm has very little to work with. It knows it needs to find people who will convert, and it might estimate that a conversion will cost, on average, £10. With only a £1 budget, it might struggle to even start the learning process because it doesn't have enough budget to secure a single conversion and learn from it. While Facebook can technically spend very small budgets, I'd recommend starting with at least £5-£10 per day per ad set to give the system enough data to work with.

To give you a clearer picture, here's a little interactive calculator. Play around with the sliders to see how your potential daily spend can be limited by a small audience and a low daily budget.

Now, the hard truth: Is your ad any good?

Okay, let's assume you've fixed all the technical settings. Your campaign is on, your audience is broad, and your budget is reasonable. If it's *still* not spending, or spending very little, we have to confront a more uncomfortable possibility: the algorithm has looked at your ad and decided it's not worth showing to people.

This is a critical concept to understand. Facebook’s business model depends on keeping users on their platform. They do this by showing them content they find interesting and engaging. If they start bombarding people with boring, irrelevant, or low-quality ads, users will leave. So, the algorithm has a built-in quality filter. It will prioritise ads that get positive engagement (likes, comments, clicks) and penalise ads that get ignored or hidden. In extreme cases, it will simply stop showing a low-quality ad altogether, even if you have the budget for it.

So, you need to be brutally honest with yourself. How good is your ad? This breaks down into two parts: the offer and the creative.

1. Your Offer Is Everything

The number one reason campaigns fail is a weak offer. You can have the best targetting in the world, but if what you're offering doesn't solve a real, urgent, or expensive problem for your audience, they will scroll right past. Your offer isn't just your product; it's the entire value proposition.

Forget demographics for a second. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't "women aged 25-40 who like yoga." Your ICP is a *problem state*. It's a marketing manager who is terrified of presenting another failed campaign's results to their boss. It's a new homeowner who is overwhelmed by their overgrown garden and just wants to enjoy their weekend. Your ad needs to speak directly to that pain.

We often use a framework called Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).

• Problem: State the pain point directly and in their language. "Is your website getting clicks but no sales?"
• Agitate: Pour a little salt on the wound. Remind them of the consequences of inaction. "Every click is wasted money, and your competitors are pulling further ahead."
• Solve: Introduce your offer as the clear, simple solution. "Our 5-point landing page audit will show you exactly what to fix in 24 hours."

Does your ad do this? Or does it just say "Buy our stuff"? A strong offer that solves a real problem is the engine of any successful campaign.

2. Your Creative Must Stop the Scroll

People are scrolling through feeds full of photos from friends, funny videos, and news updates. Your ad is an interruption. To have any chance, it must grab their attention in the first 1-2 seconds. A blurry photo, a generic stock image, or a wall of text won't cut it.

• Visuals: Is your image or video high-quality and eye-catching? Does it show the product in an appealing context? Video generally outperforms static images, and authentic, user-generated style content often works better than slick, corporate productions.
• Headline: Your headline is the second thing they'll see after the image. It should either call out the audience ("For B2B Founders...") or state the main benefit ("...Cut Your Ad Spend by 50%").
• Ad Copy: The main text should be clear, concise, and focused on the customer, not on you. Use "you" and "your" far more than "we" and "our". Break up text into short paragraphs and use emojis to add visual interest.

Here’s a comparison to illustrate the difference between weak and strong ad copy, which can directly impact whether the algorithm decides your ad is worth showing.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

So, to bring it all together, here is a simple, actionable checklist for you to work through. Go down this list in order. I'm willing to bet that your problem lies in one of these four areas. By addressing it, you should see your campaign start to spend and deliver.

Why fixing this is just the beginning

Getting your ad to spend money is the first, and honestly, the easiest step. The real challenge, and where true expertise comes in, is turning that spend into a profitable return. It's one thing to get impressions and clicks; it's another thing entirely to acquire customers at a cost that makes sense for your business.

This involves a constant process of testing and optimisation that goes far beyond the initial setup:

• Continuously testing new audiences to find untapped pockets of customers.
• Creating and split-testing dozens of different ad creatives (images, videos, copy) to fight ad fatigue and find winning combinations.
• Analysing performance data to understand what's working and what's not, and reallocating budget accordingly.
• Optimising your landing page to ensure the traffic you're paying for actually converts.
• Building out full-funnel strategies with retargeting campaigns to bring back visitors who didn't convert on their first visit.

This is where things can get complex and time-consuming. While you can absolutely learn to do all this yourself, the learning curve can be steep and costly. This is often the point where business owners decide to bring in an expert or an agency. Not just to manage the ads, but to provide the strategy and experience needed to scale campaigns profitably.

For example, once you're generating revenue, the key metric to watch is your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). The calculator below can help you visualise this. An expert's job is to constantly push that ROAS number higher by improving every part of the campaign.

I hope this detailed breakdown has been helpful and gives you a clear path forward. Work through the checklist, and you should be able to solve the immediate problem of getting your ads to run.

If you get things moving but then find yourself struggling to get actual results, that's when it might be a good time to consider expert help. We offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can take a look at your ad account together, review your strategy, and give you some specific, actionable advice on how to improve performance. It's often a really valuable session for business owners, regardless of whether they decide to work with us long-term.

Hope that helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh