Solved: Facebook Ads Campaigns Not Spending, High CPMs

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out about this. It sounds incredibly frustrating when you've put a campaign together that you're confident in, only for it to refuse to spend. I've seen this exact situation many times, and it's almost never the platform-wide bug people hope it is. It's usually a symptom of a deeper, strategic issue in the campaign's setup.

I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance. The good news is that this is almost certainly fixable. The problem usually boils down to a mismatch between what you're telling the Meta algorithm to do, who you're telling it to target, and the message you're using. Let's break down why this happens and what a proper action plan looks like.

Why 'Broad Targeting' is a Trap for New Campaigns...

I know it sounds counterintuitive. The common wisdom is "go broad and let the algorithm do the work." This advice is, to be blunt, dangerous for accounts without a huge amount of conversion data. You've mentioned your targeting is broad and the product isn't niche. This combination is often the root cause of the exact problem you're facing.

Think of the Meta algorithm as a very powerful but very literal-minded junior employee. If you give it a vague task, it gets stuck. When you select a "broad" audience, you're essentially pointing to a crowd of millions of people and saying, "Go find my customers in there." The algorithm's first question is, "Okay... but what do they look like?"

If your pixel is new or doesn't have hundreds of past purchases to learn from, it has no reference point. It starts by showing your ad to tiny, random segments of that massive audience to see what sticks. If your ad message is also generic (a side effect of trying to appeal to a "not niche" audience), it doesn't resonate with anyone in those initial test groups. No clicks, no engagement, nothing. The algorithm gets negative feedback and concludes, "This ad isn't relevant to anyone here." As a result, it drastically increases the price (your CPM) to force it into the feed, or more likely, it just stops trying altogether. Hence, £0.30 spent in 8 hours.

The solution isn't to define your customer by sterile demographics. Forget "men aged 25-40". You need to define them by their pain. What is the specific, urgent, and expensive problem they are dealing with that your product solves? Your ideal customer isn't a demographic; it's a problem state. For instance, if you're targeting owners of eCommerce stores, instead of targeting "Amazon" (far too broad), we would aim for targeting options that contain your target audience: retail page owners, pages of Amazon agencies, eCommerce software like Shopify and WooCommerce, retail-related interests, etc. We know their pain is eCommerce growth. Your ads need to speak to that kind of specific nightmare.

Spending time to truly identify your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) based on their challenges, not their age, is the most important work you can do. Once you know their nightmare, you can find them. Do they listen to specific podcasts? Follow certain industry leaders on LinkedIn? Use competitor software? These are the interests you should be targeting, not a vague, broad demographic.

We'll need to look at your Campaign Objective...

This is probably the single most common mistake I see in failing accounts. What objective did you select when you set up the campaign? If the answer is "Brand Awareness" or "Reach," you have instructed Facebook to find you the worst possible audience for your product.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: when you optimise for 'Reach', you give the algorithm one command: "Find me the largest number of eyeballs for the lowest possible price." The algorithm is brilliant at this. It goes out and finds all the people in your target audience who are chronically online but never click on ads, never engage, and certainly never buy anything. Why? Because their attention is cheap. No other advertisers are competing for them. You are literally paying Meta to find non-customers.

You MUST align your campaign objective with your business goal. If you want sales, you choose the "Sales" objective. If you want leads, you choose "Leads." This tells the algorithm to ignore the cheap, passive users and instead enter the more competitive, expensive auction for users who have a history of doing the thing you want them to do (e.g., making online purchases).

Yes, your CPMs will be higher than a 'Reach' campaign, but you will actually get delivery, clicks, and conversions. The goal of paid advertising is not to get the lowest CPM; it's to get a profitable Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). Awareness is a byproduct of making sales to happy customers, not a prerequisite for it. I remember one campaign we worked on for a women's apparel brand, which achieved a 691% return on ad spend. We didn't do this by running awareness ads; we did it by optimising relentlessly for purchases from day one.

This flowchart illustrates the decision process. For almost any business that needs to see a return, the path leads directly to a conversion-based objective.

I'd say you need to test specific, layered audiences...

So, let's assume you've switched to a 'Sales' objective. Now we need to give the algorithm a better starting point than 'broad'. This is where you build out a few distinct ad sets, each with a specific, well-reasoned targeting hypothesis.

Instead of one broad campaign, I would recommend creating a single campaign with 3-5 different ad sets inside it. Each ad set should target a different 'theme' of interests. This structure allows you to test which audience pocket responds best to your ads.

Here's how you might structure it for a hypothetical product, say, high-quality, sustainable cookware:

• Ad Set 1: Competitor Aware. Target people who like competitor brands like Le Creuset, Staub, or All-Clad. These people are already product-aware and willing to spend on quality.
• Ad Set 2: Ingredient Focused. Target interests related to high-end food, like "Organic food", "Michelin Guide", "Waitrose", or specific celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay or Ottolenghi. These people value quality ingredients and are likely to value the tools used to cook them.
• Ad Set 3: Media Consumers. Target people who like publications such as "Bon Appétit Magazine", "BBC Good Food", or "The Great British Bake Off". They are actively consuming content about cooking.

This is a far more intelligent approach than just targeting "Cooking" or "Food". You're not just finding people with a casual interest; you're finding people who have demonstrated a deeper, more committed interest that aligns with a premium product. After a few days, Meta will show you which of these ad sets is performing best, and you can start to allocate more budget there. We used a similar thematic structure for an outdoor equipment client, which allowed us to identify the most profitable customer segments and drive over 18,000 targeted website visitors.

Once your ads are actually running and you're getting some traffic, you can start thinking about how your metrics influence your final costs. It's important to understand this relationship, as it shows why small improvements can have a huge impact on profitability. I've built a simple calculator below to illustrate this.

You probably should re-examine your 'dialled in' creative...

This might be tough to hear, but if your campaigns aren't spending and your CPMs are sky-high, the algorithm is giving you direct feedback: your creative is not "dialled in." The ad is the variable that has the single biggest impact on performance. A great ad shown to a mediocre audience will often outperform a mediocre ad shown to a perfect audience.

When an ad doesn't resonate, people scroll right past it. This lack of engagement is a massive red flag to the algorithm. It signals that the ad is low quality or irrelevant, so it stops showing it. You need a message that can't be ignored, one that speaks directly to the 'nightmare' of your ideal customer.

Most ads fail because they talk about features, not feelings. They are descriptive, not persuasive. A powerful framework for this is Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).

1. Problem: Hit them with the exact pain they are feeling, right now. Use their language.
2. Agitate: Poke the bruise. Remind them of the consequences of not solving this problem. What does this frustration lead to?
3. Solve: Introduce your product as the clear, obvious, and simple solution to this agitated pain.

Let's revisit our cookware example. A typical, feature-based ad would say:
"Introducing the new Pro-Series Pan. Made with a five-ply stainless steel construction for even heating. Non-stick and oven safe up to 500 degrees."

It's boring, and it will fail. Now, let's use PAS:

(Problem) "Sick of that one hot spot on your cheap frying pan that burns everything while the rest is undercooked?"
(Agitate) "You spend money on quality ingredients only to have them ruined by bad equipment. Another disappointing meal, another pan to scrub."
(Solve) "The Pro-Series Pan provides flawless, edge-to-edge heating, giving you a perfect sear every single time. Stop fighting your cookware and start creating meals you're proud of."

See the difference? The second ad connects on an emotional level. It validates a real frustration and offers a clear path to a better outcome. This is what gets people to stop scrolling and click. This is the kind of creative that lowers your CPMs and forces the algorithm to deliver your ads.

You'll need a clear action plan...

Okay, that's a lot of theory. Let's turn this into a concrete, step-by-step plan you can implement right away to get your campaigns spending and performing. This is not about tweaking minor settings; it's about a complete strategic relaunch.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below. Following this structure will give your campaign the best possible chance of success and provide the Meta algorithm with the clear signals it needs to find your customers.

Following this plan will fundamentally restructure your approach. It moves from a passive "hope the algorithm figures it out" strategy to an active "give the algorithm clear instructions" strategy. This is how successful campaigns are built.

I understand that this can feel overwhelming. Diagnosing and fixing these kinds of issues is precisely what we specialise in. We've seen these patterns across hundreds of accounts and can often identify the core problem and implement a solution much faster than someone who is deep in the weeds of their own business.

If you'd like to walk through your account together and get a more tailored analysis, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. It's a chance for us to show you exactly how we'd apply these principles to your specific situation.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh