Meta Ads Troubleshooting
Most Meta Ads problems trace back to a short list of causes: delivery settings, tracking, permissions and account security. This guide works through them in the order you should check them, starting with the quickest fixes.
On This Page
Ads Approved but Not Spending
Check these in order:
- Billing An expired card or failed payment pauses every campaign in your account. Look for alerts in Billing and payments.
- Schedule and status Confirm the campaign, ad set and ad are all switched on, and that the schedule has started.
- Bid controls A cost per result goal or bid cap set below what the auction requires can stop delivery. Switch to Highest volume to test.
- Audience size A small radius combined with narrow interests can leave too few people to reach.
- Budget Very low daily budgets on expensive optimization events, such as purchases, may barely spend.
Conversions Missing or Doubled
Open Events Manager and use the Test events tool while you submit a form or place a test order on your site. If nothing shows up, the Meta Pixel or Conversions API isn't installed on that page. If events show up twice, the browser and server events aren't deduplicated, which needs a shared event ID on both. Check that the ad set optimizes for the same event your site sends, since a campaign optimizing for Lead won't count a Contact event.
Page or Instagram Account Not Showing
When a Page or Instagram account is missing from the identity menu in Ads Manager, it's almost always permissions. The Page or account needs to belong to, or be shared with, the same business portfolio as the ad account. Whoever is creating the ad needs access to both. If Instagram was linked through an old personal profile, reconnect it from the business portfolio settings.
Lost Access After a Team Change
People leave and take sole admin access with them. Before anyone with full control walks out the door, add a second trusted owner and remove the departing person's access. If nobody inside the business has full control of the portfolio any more, Meta's business support process is the only way back, and that can take weeks.
Hacked or Restricted Accounts
Takeovers usually start with a phishing message pretending to be Meta, often warning that your Page will be deleted unless you click a link. Once in, attackers add themselves as admins, remove the owner and run ads on your business card. CBS News and ABC7 Chicago have both reported on small businesses locked out for weeks after this kind of attack.
Prevention
- Turn on two-factor authentication for every person with access, and require it at the portfolio level.
- Keep at least two trusted people with full control.
- Review people, partners and apps in business settings every quarter.
- Be suspicious of any message about policy violations that arrives through Messenger, email or a comment. Go to Ads Manager or Account Quality directly instead.
If it happens
- Use the official hacked-account recovery page from the Meta Help Center for the affected personal profile.
- Call your bank to block the card on the ad account and dispute unauthorized charges.
- Check Account Quality for restrictions on the ad account, Page and people, and request a review from there.
- Warn followers through another channel, such as email or Instagram, if the Page posts anything you didn't write.
In Practice
Say a hair salon owner's personal profile is the only admin on the Page and ad account. A phishing message about a copyright complaint leads to a stolen password, and the attacker removes the owner and runs ads for days. If a second trusted person had held full control with two-factor authentication on, the salon could have removed the attacker and paused spending within an hour.
Menus, recovery steps and support options change often. Check the sources below before you act.
Key Terms
- Account Quality
- The Meta tool that shows restrictions on ad accounts, Pages and people, and where reviews are requested.
- Events Manager
- Where the Meta Pixel, Conversions API and test events are managed.
- Deduplication
- Matching browser and server events so one conversion is counted once.
- Phishing
- A fake message designed to trick someone into giving up login details.
- Full control
- The highest access level for a business portfolio or Page, including managing other people's access.
Sources
- Bay Area business owner says Meta of little help in resolving hacking issue, CBS News www.cbsnews.com
- Small business owners' Facebook pages hacked, then locked out of accounts, ABC7 Chicago abc7chicago.com
- Meta Business Help Center www.facebook.com
Have Our Team Handle This
Our team runs this every day. Request a free proposal and we will plan it for your business, or see the Meta Ads service.