TOP reasons why Facebook doesn’t show ads

If you work with FB ads you know, that sometimes your ads can be inactive for several days. Actually, there are a lot of reasons why Facebook doesn’t show your ads. Let’s talks about some of them:

You use different audiences for different Ad Groups, but the audiences intersect.

In this case, Facebook can hide your ad and don’t show it, because you try to show several ads to the same user at the same time. They are competing.  You can check audience overlap in Facebook ads manager and fix the audiences. To check if you have to go to audiences, choose 2 and click on the dropdown menu at the top of the list and choose “Audiences Overlap”:

Solution: pause one of the overlapping audiences and use just one of them.

Too specific audience

Сertainly the choice of audience is a very important part of the advertising launch and can influence your results. But, don’t make it too specific. It will work ok when your audience is 10-20K or more (depending on the specifics of your product).

Too low bids

In case you use manual bidding, your bid can be too low to win the auction. So your impressions will be lower than could be. To resolve this problem you have to switch to automatic bidding, wait several days and then switch back to manual. Now you can use right bids based on received data.

Small budget

If you set the budget just $2-$3 and try to target an expensive audience (on FB algorithm meaning) it will not be enough to receive impressions or some traffic. To solve this – just increase your daily budget.

Too much text on the image

Facebook will reduce reach for those images, which have more than 20% text of image space. You can always check your images by using this source facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay. Also, we have prepared lifehacks on how to outwit this rule and have more than 20% of text without reducing reach.

Also, you can ask the system for manual review, but your ads will get fewer impressions and reach than could be.

Low relevance score

If your ads have a low relevance score (like 1 or 2) – Facebook shows your ads rare. You can get RS low if users decide that your ad is not relevant, not click on it, or click on “why I’m seeing this ad”. To increase RS you have to change the ad to make it more relevant or change the audience to more appropriate.

Enabled conversion optimization on the first launch

You have to remember that your ads have to get some conversions and have conversions history before you can enable this option. Advertising algorithm has to learn for some time and understand which CPA is ok for your ads and how many conversions you can predictably receive.

Usually, it works correctly after 15-30 conversions you receive.

Too often or many changes

Facebook ads don’t like it when you change your ads very often. If you don’t see conversions or impressions in a few hours after the launch – do not rush to change the text or bid. It can take up to 24hrs to see the first results.