Every advertiser has, at one point, opened up Facebook to check their campaigns and found one of many different Facebook ad statuses.
So, you've just crafted what you think is the perfect Facebook ad campaign. You click the 'Publish' button with a gleam in your eye, anticipating the rain of leads and conversions to come.
But wait! Your ads are still in the learning phase, or it is under review, or even rejected.
In this guide, we'll explore every Facebook Ad Status, demystify the various issues you might encounter, and provide insights into optimizing your ad campaigns for success.
In the context of Facebook advertising, "Facebook ad status" refers to the current state or condition of a campaign, ad set, or ads that you have created and are running on Facebook.
The ad status indicates whether your ad is active and running, pending review, or has been stopped for some reason.
Monitoring the status of your Facebook ads is essential to ensure they are running as intended and to address any issues that may arise during the campaign's lifecycle.
Depending on the ad's status, you may need to take action to resolve any problems or make adjustments to improve its performance.
The status can happen on all ad levels. For instance, you can have a campaign active and one of the ads inside it be restricted or rejected.
It's recommended to check your statuses on all three levels within your campaigns to make sure your campaing, ad sets and ads are delivering as intended.
Here are some common ads statuses you might encounter on Facebook:
There are a variety of statuses and issues that could happen to your ads.
Alongside the icon, there will be a description of the issue at hand that could range from “active”, which just means your ad is delivering normally, to “Learning” or “Learning limited” all the way to “Rejected”.
On your ads account, in the delivery column, there are many different messages for the status of your ads. All of them are presented with an icon. Here are their meanings:
Icon | Meaning |
---|---|
ERROR: The campaign, ad set or ad can’t run at all because there’s a problem that needs attention. | |
WARNING: The campaign, ad set, or ad is experiencing limited delivery. Addressing this warning may improve performance. | |
PENDING: The campaign, ad set or ad isn’t running yet. It’s usually in review or scheduled to begin running at future date. | |
ACTIVE: The campaign, ad set or ad is on and running as expected. | |
INACTIVE: The campaign, ad set or ad isn’t running. This is usually because it's been completed or because a related campaign, ad set or ad has been turned off. |
Each of these statuses is associated with specific issues that you can troubleshoot. By hovering over these icons, a pop-up will show up with explanations of the issues at hand, allowing you to proceed with addressing and resolving them.
When you create a new Facebook ad campaign or make significant changes to an existing campaign, ad set or ads, Facebook enters a period called the learning phase. During this time, Facebook collects data to learn how to best deliver your ads to your target audience.
The length of the learning phase can vary depending on a number of factors, such as the ads objectives, the target audience, and the budget. However, it generally takes at least 50 optimization events during a 7-day learning period for Facebook to exit the learning phase.
To ensure that your ad campaign progresses smoothly through the learning phase, it's important to follow these best practices:
If your ad set is in the learning limited phase, it means that Facebook is not yet collecting enough data to optimize your ads effectively. This can happen due to factors such as a small audience size or a restricted budget.
There are a few things you can do to break free from the learning limited phase:
Similarly, when modifying audiences or introducing new ads, opt for a fresh ad set rather than resetting learning within an existing one.
By following these best practices, you can help your Facebook ads campaigns progress smoothly through the learning phase and achieve their desired results.
When you submit a Facebook ad, it goes through a review process to ensure that it complies with Facebook advertising policies. This process can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, depending on the ads.
There are a few reasons why your ads might be delayed in the review process:
Here are a few things you can do to prevent your Facebook ads from being delayed in the review process:
Receiving the Facebook ads rejection email can be incredibly frustrating, and you're not alone in this struggle. Many advertisers encounter this issue and it1s really important to understand the reasons behind having Facebook ads rejected.
The rejection can be attributed to several factors, as outlined in Facebook's advertising policies and community standards. These guidelines cover a range of unacceptable, misleading, and hazardous content, which can pose challenges for even well-intentioned advertisers.
The scheduled status is when the campaign is set to start running at a future date. You can change the scheduled status by editing the ad set.
The ad is being updated with the changes you made. This usually takes a few minutes, but some updates may take up to 8 hours. Once the processing is complete, the ad status will be updated to reflect the new status.
The campaign or ad set does not have any published ads.
The campaign appears to be on, but the ad set or ad is turned off. You can turn the ad set or ad on by editing the campaign.
The campaign, ad set, or ad is no longer running because the scheduled end date has passed.
Sometimes, even with the green sign that your ad is active, you still get issues.
Now that you know what the different status messages can mean, we can explore a few other issues that might happen to your ads or ad account.
When your Facebook ads are not delivering, it means that they are not being shown to the audience you have targeted. This can happen for a number of reasons, including:
Essentially, a restricted ad account is one that has limitations placed on it by Facebook. These limitations can prevent you from running certain types of ads or, in extreme cases, halt your advertising efforts altogether.
If you violate Facebook's advertising policies, your ad account may be restricted. This can be a major setback for your business, as it can prevent you from running or editing your campaigns, ad set and ads.
The limitations can happen on different asset levels:
Each asset has a different set of restrictions that are applied.
There are many reasons your Facebook ad account might be restricted, here are some:
These restrictions may involve limited ad spending, limitations on adding admins or users, or the inability to create new ad accounts.
So, everything is right with your campaign, you have the green light and your ads are active, but you still
Remember that advertising involves a lot of knowledge and strategy. Boosting a Facebook post won’t necessarily bring you new leads.
If your ad is running and you don’t have any of the problems described in this article, there are a few additional reasons for this.
If you have underperforming ads and want to stop wasting money on them you can use Revealbot’s automations to automatically pause them.
This not only saves money but also time since it acts fast whenever a condition is met on the rules set up.
For example you can set up a rule to pause an ad that in the last 3 days hasn't had any conversions after a certain amount is spent.
On Revealbot we have a set of strategies that can be applied to your campaigns with just a few clicks and save you even more time.
Facebook brands that advertise and sell products on Facebook have what is called the Facebook feedback score.
This metric gives sellers an overview of customer feedback about their purchase and the experience with your store.
The customer feedback Score is a numerical value ranging from 0 to 5, which helps businesses understand and improve their customer relationships on the platform.
The Facebook feedback score can have a direct link to your status. Having a score below 2 will reduce your reach and increase your budget, by restricting your ad.
The biggest problem is if it drops under 1. A score that is less than 1 automatically restricts your ad account and you can’t advertise at all.
The score is calculated including three main factors:
Keep in mind to always check your review scores on your Business Account page and if you start seeing a drop take the necessary actions to improve your rating again!
Facebook ads offer a variety of benefits, including precision targeting, access to a massive user base, engagement opportunities, budget flexibility, performance tracking, remarketing, and global reach.
It is important to understand the different ad statuses and what they mean. Each status indicates a different stage of ad delivery or issues.
So now that you understand all the potential issues you might encounter while creating Facebook ads you know everything you can do to prevent them and always reach campaign success.
There are many reasons why a Facebook ad is not running, including:
There are a number of reasons why Facebook Ads might not be converting, including:
When you create a new ad campaign or make significant changes to an existing campaign, Facebook enters a learning phase. During this time, Facebook is collecting data to optimize ad delivery. During the learning phase, your ads may have limited delivery.
Facebook has a set of advertising policies that all ads must adhere to. If your ad violates any of these policies, it will be rejected. Here are some of the most common reasons why ads are rejected by Facebook:
Facebook provides a number of tools that you can use to track the performance of your ads. These tools can help you track metrics such as clicks, impressions, reach, and conversions. You can use this data to optimize your ads for better performance.
You can connect your Facebook account to Revealbot and use the full power of all our reports.
Mario is a Content Specialist at Revealbot. He's passionate about creating engaging and educative content. When not writing, he’s binging TV shows or learning something completely random. 🤓