Troubleshoot a campaign that stopped delivering
A campaign that flatlines feels like a mystery, but it almost never is. Delivery problems collapse into a short list of usual suspects, and you diagnose all of them in three places: the Delivery column in Ads Manager, Account Quality, and Billing. Check them in order and the cause surfaces fast.
The diagnostic order
Check the Delivery column first: Active, In Review, Rejected, Learning, Learning Limited, Off.
Check Account Quality (business.facebook.com/accountquality) for account-level restrictions.
Check Billing and Payment Methods for failed payments or hit spending limits.
Check the Audience Overlap tool for self-competition between ad sets.
Check frequency and CTR trend in the last 7 days for creative fatigue.
Check Events Manager for broken tracking, since Pixel or CAPI down means no optimization signal.
Common causes
Still in review. Most reviews complete in under 24 hours; longer during high-volume periods.
Ad disapproved. Triggers include misleading claims, sensitive topics without certification, prohibited content, broken landing pages, and Community Standards violations.
Account spending limit reached. Meta pauses all campaigns when hit; reset in Settings → Billing & Payment Methods.
Payment method failed. A declined or expired card pauses all delivery account-wide.
Budget too low for bid. If the daily budget is below 5× target CPA, the ad set will not enter enough auctions to learn.
Audience saturation or overlap. The Audience Overlap tool shows multiple ad sets competing for the same users.
Creative fatigue. Frequency above 3 to 4 with declining CTR (15 percent+ week-over-week) and rising CPA. Delivery column may show 'Creative Fatigue.'
Learning Limited. The ad set is not getting 50 events per week. Raise budget, broaden audience, or consolidate ad sets.
Exhausted retargeting pool. Website-traffic audiences burn out fast in low-traffic accounts. Expand to lookalike or broader.
Account-level restriction. Visible in Account Quality. Some restrictions cap spend; others disable the account entirely.
Gotchas
Brand-new ad accounts have spending limits set by Meta, often $25 to $50 per day initially. Some advertisers hit this within hours without realizing.
A Page-level restriction (not just ad-account) can stop every ad using that Page even if the ad account is fine.
'Request Review' is the only appeal path for disapprovals. Appeals usually resolve in 24 to 48 hours but sometimes take weeks.
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