Solved: Stop Pausing Facebook Ads for Better Performance

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

I've had a look at your situation, and I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts. It's a common problem when you start advertising to different time zones, but the advice you've heard is absolutely right – frequently pausing your ads is one of the worst things you can do for their performance. Tbh, it's probably costing you more money than it's saving.

The good news is there are much better ways to handle this. The solution isn't about stopping the ads, it's about building a system that allows them to run effectively while you get some sleep. Let's get into it.

You're right to be worried... pausing ads is a terrible idea

First, let's be brutally honest about what happens every time you hit that 'off' switch. You're not just pausing delivery; you're throwing a spanner in the works of Meta's very powerful, but very sensitive, machine learning algorithm.

Every campaign goes through what's called the "learning phase." During this period, the algorithm is experimenting, showing your ad to different types of people within your target audience to figure out who is most likely to take the action you want (in your case, sending a message). It needs a consistent flow of data and budget to do this effectively. When it gathers enough data (usually around 50 conversions in a week), it exits the learning phase and starts optimising properly, delivering your ads efficiently to the right people at the best possible price.

When you pause the campaign, especially for several hours every single day, you starve the algorithm of data. You break its rhythm. When you turn it back on, it often has to partially or completely re-enter the learning phase. This means your results become volatile, unpredictable, and almost always more expensive. You'll see your cost per message fluctuate wildly day-to-day, and you'll never achieve the stable, predictable performance that profitable campaigns are built on. You think you're saving money for the 8 hours you're asleep, but you're actually making the other 16 hours of ad spend far less efficient. It's a false economy, and its a trap many people fall into.

Here's a simple visualisation of the negative cycle you're creating:

I'd say you need to fix your operations, not your ads

This brings me to my main point. Your problem isn't a Facebook Ads problem; it's an operational one. You've designed a sales process that relies on you, a single person, being available 24/7. That's not a marketing strategy; it's a recipe for burnout and a hard limit on your growth. You can't scale a business if it can't make money while you're asleep.

The goal is to decouple your ad campaigns from your personal schedule. The ads should be a machine that runs constantly, feeding leads into a system that can handle them wether you're at your desk or not. We need to build that system for you.

There are a few ways to do this, ranging from simple and free to more advanced solutions as you grow.

You probably should use Ad Scheduling

Instead of the on/off switch, use the tool Meta built for this exact purpose: Ad Scheduling. This is also known as "dayparting". It allows you to tell Facebook to only show your ads during specific hours of the day, every day. The crucial difference is that this is a deliberate instruction to the algorithm, not an abrupt interruption. The campaign remains "on," and the algorithm understands the schedule. It doesn't reset the learning phase in the same damaging way.

You can set your ads to run only during the business hours of your target timezone, or even better, overlap it slightly with your own hours. For example, if your audience is in New York (EST) and you're in London (GMT), you could run ads from 8 AM EST (1 PM GMT) to 10 PM EST (3 AM GMT). This covers their entire day and gives you a window at the start and end of your day to handle queries live.

Here's what a sample schedule might look like in your ad set settings (you must be using a lifetime budget to access this feature):

You'll need to manage expectations

Even with scheduling, you'll still get messages when you're not immediately available. The key is to manage the customer's expectations. You can do this for free using Facebook's built-in automated responses.

Set up an "Instant Reply" that triggers the moment someone messages you. It doesn't need to be complex. Something like this works wonders:

"Hi [Customer's First Name]! Thanks so much for your message. We've received your query and someone from our team will get back to you personally. Our office hours are 9am-5pm GMT, but we promise to respond within 12 hours at the latest. Cheers!"

This simple message achieves three things:

1. It confirms receipt: The user knows their message hasn't gone into a black hole.
2. It sets a timeframe: They now know when to expect a reply and won't get impatient after 30 minutes.
3. It humanises your brand: It shows you're organised and you care about their query.

This is a much better customer experience than silence. It buys you the time you need to respond thoughtfully when you're actually working.

The impact of response time is massive. A lead that gets an instant (even if automated) acknowledgement is far more likely to remain engaged than one that waits hours for the first sign of life. A warm lead can go ice-cold surprisingly fast.

Use this calculator to get a rough idea of how delays can impact potential outcomes. While it's illustrative, it shows how quickly small delays can add up to a big problem.

We'll need to look at your campaign objective...

This whole situation makes me question if you're even using the right campaign type for your goals. You've mentioned getting queries, which tells me you are likely running a 'Messages' or 'Engagement' campaign. These are designed to start conversations, so they naturally create the pressure for an instant response.

Is a live chat the only way for you to get a customer? I'd challenge that. For instance, one campaign we worked on for a client in the environmental controls sector faced a similar challenge with managing incoming interest effectively. By shifting their strategy on Meta Ads towards a more structured lead capture process, we were able to reduce their cost per lead by 84%. This approach completely removed the pressure for instant responses and allowed them to follow up with high-quality leads on their own schedule.

Consider testing a 'Leads' campaign instead. You could use either a Meta Lead Form or drive traffic to a dedicated landing page on your website.

• Meta Lead Forms: These pop up directly within Facebook/Instagram when a user clicks your ad. They can be pre-filled with the user's contact info, making it incredibly easy for them to submit their details. You get an email with the lead's information, and you can call or email them back during your business hours. The expectation is a callback, not an instant chat.
• Landing Page Conversions: This is usually the best approach. You send traffic to a page on your website that is designed for one thing only: to persuade the visitor to leave their details. This gives you more space to sell your service with persuasive copy and images. The leads from a landing page are often much higher quality than from any other source.

Both of these approaches change the dynamic. The goal becomes capturing a lead to follow up with later, not having a real-time conversation. This completely solves your timezone problem and lets your ads run 24/7, constantly gathering leads for you to work through when you start your day.

This is the main advice I have for you:

Fixing this is about more than just tweaking a setting; it's about building a smarter, more robust marketing and sales process. These are just some initial suggestions, and the best path forward would depend on a much deeper look at your business, your offer, and your current campaigns.

Implementing these changes correctly can be tricky, and getting professional advice can make a huge difference. If you'd like to go over your ad account and strategy in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can give you a more tailored plan. It might be exactly what you need to get things on the right track.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh