Why are my Facebook ads not delivering, spending or converting?

It’s one of the most searched questions about Meta ads, and it comes in three versions: the ad isn’t delivering, the ad won’t spend, or the ad spends and nothing sells. They have different causes. Here is the order I check them in when a Montreal or Laval owner sends me their account.

1. The ad isn’t delivering at all

It’s still in review, or it was rejected. Open Ads Manager and look at the delivery column. “In review” usually clears within a day. “Rejected” or “limited” means Meta found a policy problem: a before-and-after claim, a health claim, too much focus on a personal attribute (“Are you overweight?”), or a landing page that doesn’t match the ad. You can request a review, but fixing the wording is usually faster.

The payment method failed. A declined card pauses every campaign in the account without much warning. Check Billing first; it takes ten seconds.

The campaign, ad set or ad is off, or the schedule hasn’t started. All three levels have their own switch. It’s easy to turn the ad on and leave the ad set paused.

2. The ad is approved but won’t spend

The audience is too small. A tight radius around one neighbourhood, plus an age range, plus interests, can leave a few thousand people. Meta can’t spend $50 a day on them. Widen the area to Montreal and Laval, drop the interests, and let the ad itself do the targeting.

The budget is too low for what you asked for. If you set a cost cap or bid cap below what a result really costs, Meta won’t enter the auction. Remove the cap and use the default “highest volume” bidding while you learn what a sale costs.

Too many ad sets splitting a small budget. Five ad sets at $10 a day each means none of them gets enough data. One or two ad sets with the whole budget learn faster.

3. The ad spends but nothing sells

Tracking is broken. This is the most common one, and the most expensive. If the pixel or the Conversions API isn’t sending purchases or leads back, Meta optimises for the wrong people and your report shows zero results even when sales happen. Test it: make a small purchase or send yourself a form, then check Events Manager for the event within a few minutes.

The ad is aimed at clicks, not sales. A “traffic” or “engagement” campaign finds people who click and like, not people who buy. For a store or a booking business, use a sales or leads objective once tracking works.

The landing page loses them. Most of your visitors arrive on a phone. If the first screen doesn’t show the product, the price or the button, they leave. Open your own ad on your phone and count how many seconds it takes to reach “buy” or “book”.

The creative is tired. Most ads lose steam after a few weeks as the same people see them again. Motion’s 2026 benchmark found the top quarter of accounts launch about twice as many new creatives a week as average. If you’ve run the same three ads since spring, that’s likely the problem.

What I check first, in order

1. Billing and review status.
2. Events Manager: is a test purchase or lead recorded?
3. Campaign objective: sales or leads, not traffic.
4. Audience size and number of ad sets.
5. The landing page, on a phone.
6. How old the ads are.

Most accounts I look at have a problem in the first three, and none of them need more budget to fix. If you want me to go through yours, send me a message. A first look takes an afternoon and costs nothing.