Solved: Facebook Messenger Ads Conversions Not Showing

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your question about Messenger ads and why you're not seeing conversions in your dahsboard. It's a really common point of confusion, but the answer isn't a simple technical glitch. It's actually a much bigger strategic issue that, once you fix it, will completely change the results you get from your ads.

Let's get into it.

The Misunderstanding: Why Your "Conversions" Aren't Showing Up

Alright, let's be brutally honest. The reason you're not seeing conversions is because you haven't generated any. A conversation started in Messenger is not a 'Conversion' in the way Meta Ads defines it for business results. It's an 'Engagement'.

You've likely set up your campaign with the 'Engagement' or 'Messages' objective. When you do this, you give Facebook a very specific command: "Find me people inside my audience who are most likely to send a message, for the cheapest possible price." And the algorithm is brilliant at doing exactly what you ask it to. The problem is, the type of person who loves to click a button and start a chat is often not the same type of person who is serious about pulling out their wallet to buy something. You're paying to find talkers, not buyers.

This is a trap many people fall into. They see messages coming in and think the campaign is working, but it rarely translates into actual revenue. When you set your campaign objective to "Reach" or "Brand Awareness," you are giving the algorithm a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price." The algorithm, in its infinite wisdom, does exactly what you asked. It seeks out the users inside your targeting who are least likely to click, least likely to engage, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever pull out a credit card. Why? Because those users are not in demand. Their attention is cheap. You are actively paying the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you the worst possible audience for your product.

Here’s a flowchart that shows the problem visually. You're currently on the top path, which leads to a dead end. You need to be on the bottom path.

I'd say you need to switch to a 'Conversions' campaign

So, how do we fix this? You need to forget about Messenger ads for now and build a proper sales process. The goal is to get a user to take a meaningful action on your website that signals genuine interest. This is what we call a 'conversion'.

A real conversion could be:

• -> Someone filling out a contact form to get a quote.
• -> Someone buying a product.
• -> Someone booking a consultation call in your calendar.
• -> Someone signing up for a software trial.

To do this, you need two things: a landing page and the Meta Pixel installed on it. The landing page is a simple webpage with one single goal: to persuade the visitor to take that one specific action. The Meta Pixel is a snippet of code that tells Facebook when that action happens.

Once that's set up, you change your campaign objective from 'Messages' to 'Conversions' (or 'Leads' or 'Sales'). Now you're giving the algorithm a new, much more powerful command: "Go and find me more people who look just like the ones who are already filling out my lead form."

This is when the magic happens. Facebook will start optimising for high-quality users, and you'll start seeing *actual* leads and sales tracked in your dashboard. Yes, each one will cost more than a simple message. A lead for a service business might cost anywhere from $10 to $50. I remember one campaign we ran for an HVAC company in a competitive area where they were seeing costs of around $60/lead, but on the other hand, our best consumer services campaign was for a home cleaning company which got a cost of £5/lead. The cost varies wildly, but the point is these are *real* leads with a potential to become paying customers. A 'message' has almost none.

Use this calculator below to get a feel for what you should be willing to pay for a real lead, based on what a customer is worth to you.

You probably should rebuild your funnel

Once you're set up to track proper conversions, you need to think about who you're showing your ads to. Just throwing an ad out there with some basic interest targeting isn't enough. A proper campaign structure separates people based on how familiar they are with your business. We call this a sales funnel.

It's usually split into three parts:

• Top of Funnel (ToFu): This is for cold audiences. People who have never heard of you. Here, you'll use detailed targeting (interests, behaviours) to find potential customers. Your ad's job is to grab their attention and introduce the problem you solve.
• Middle of Funnel (MoFu): This is for warm audiences. People who have shown some interest, like visiting your website or watching one of your videos, but haven't become a lead yet. You'll use retargeting to bring them back and give them more reasons to trust you.
• Bottom of Funnel (BoFu): This is for your hot audience. People who are very close to converting, like those who added a product to their cart or started filling out your form but didn't finish. Your ads here should be direct, maybe with a special offer or a strong call to action to get them over the line.

By separating your campaigns like this, you can tailor your message to the right person at the right time. This level of relevance is what gets your conversion costs down and your return on ad spend up. A new account would start with ToFu to gather data, then build out MoFu and BoFu audiences as soon as you have enough visitors (usually a few hundred people is a good start).

You'll need a better offer than just 'chat with us'

The final piece of the puzzle is your offer. "Chat with us" is one of the weakest offers you can make. It's high effort for the user and gives them very little value upfront. It puts all the work on them to figure out what you do and why they should care.

A strong offer solves a small problem for them for free, earning you the right to solve the bigger problem for a price. Instead of asking them to chat, what value can you provide immediately?

Some examples of better offers:

• -> For a marketing agency: A free, automated website audit that shows their top 3 SEO mistakes.
• -> For a financial advisor: A downloadable PDF guide to "5 Common Investment Pitfalls for Beginners".
• -> For a software company: A free trial of the actual product. No credit card needed.

Your offer's only job is to create an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. It needs to be low-friction and high-value. When you have an offer this good, you dont have to persuade people to talk to you; they will be asking to.

Once you have this strong offer, you can use persuasive ad copy to promote it. For a service business, a simple but effective framework is Problem-Agitate-Solve.

Problem: "Struggling to get qualified leads for your business?"

Agitate: "Are you tired of wasting money on ads that only attract time-wasters and tyre-kickers?"

Solve: "Download our free guide on the 3-step funnel that generates high-quality leads on autopilot. Get your copy now."

See the difference? This speaks directly to their pain and offers an immediate, valuable solution. It's a world away from a vague "message us for more info".

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lot to take in, especially when you started with what seemed like a simple question. But the path from burning money on ads to profitably acquiring customers requires this strategic shift. It's about moving from chasing vanity metrics like 'messages' to focusing on business metrics like 'leads' and 'sales'.

Here's a table summarising the changes I'd recommend you make. This is the blueprint for a campaign that actually works.

Making these changes isn't just about tweaking a few settings. It's a fundamental change in how you aproach advertising. It's the difference between hoping for customers and systematically building a machine that finds them for you.

As you can probably tell, getting this right can be complex. There's a lot of testing, learning, and optimising involved. Many businesses waste thousands of pounds learning these lessons the hard way. Working with someone who has done this hundreds of times before can help you skip the costly mistakes and get straight to what works.

If you'd like to discuss your specific situation in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can look at your business and map out a tailored strategy for you.

Hope that helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh