Why Is My Facebook Ad Active but Not Running? Troubleshooting Common Ad Issues

In the world of digital advertising, seeing your Facebook ads labeled “active” is typically a good sign. It means your ad has been approved and is ready to go live. But what happens when they’re not actually running? For many small business owners, this can be a confusing and frustrating experience. Luckily, there are a few common reasons why this might be happening, and some simple steps you can take to resolve the issue.

1. Budget and Bidding: Why You Need to Spend Enough to Compete

Facebook operates on a competitive bidding system where advertisers are essentially bidding for ad space in front of users. If your budget or bid is too low, your ad may lose out to higher-spending competitors. Simply put, if you’re underbidding, your ad won’t show as often or at all.

Tip: Increase your daily or lifetime budget and review your bid strategy. A minimum daily budget of at least $10 is recommended for most campaigns, depending on your audience size. If you’re running campaigns on a limited budget, set realistic expectations about how many people you’ll reach.‍

Example: If your audience is 50,000 people, and you’re only spending $5 a day, your ad might not be shown to enough people to generate noticeable results.

Fix: Use Facebook’s Delivery Insights tool to see if your ad is under-delivering due to budget constraints. Adjust the bid type (cost-per-click vs. cost-per-impression) based on your campaign goals. Don't want to deal with the complex Facebook dashboard? Use Roya instead.

2. Audience Targeting: Striking the Right Balance

When advertising real estate services on Facebook, your ads fall under the Special Ad Category for Housing. This category is designed to prevent discriminatory targeting and promote fairness, but it comes with specific restrictions that can affect your ad performance. If your ads are active but not running effectively, improper audience targeting could be the problem.

Understanding the Housing Ad Category Restrictions

When you select the Housing category while setting up your campaign, Facebook enforces the following rules:

• ‍No Age or Gender Targeting: You cannot narrow your audience by age or gender, which removes some precision in defining your target audience.‍
• Location Restrictions: You must target a minimum radius of 15 miles around a location. This means you cannot focus on specific neighborhoods or zip codes.‍
• Limited Interest Targeting: Some detailed interest or behavior-based targeting options, like income level or demographic details, are unavailable under this category.

Common Mistakes in Targeting

Too Narrow:

• ‍‍Combining multiple layers of interest targeting, like “recent movers” and “interested in real estate” within a small geographic area, may restrict your audience too much.
• A narrow audience makes it difficult for Facebook’s algorithms to deliver your ads effectively, and they may not run at all.
  

Too Broad:

• Targeting audiences like “everyone within a 50-mile radius” can lead to wasted budget and low engagement because the ad is not relevant to most people in that group.

When your audience is too narrow or too broad, Facebook’s algorithm struggles to deliver your ad effectively. Proper targeting ensures your ads are seen by the right people—those likely to be interested in buying or selling homes—while staying within the Housing Ad Category’s guidelines.

3. Creative and Placement Mismatch: Are You Using the Right Ads in the Right Places?

Your ad creative (the visuals and copy) must align with the placements you’ve selected. For example, certain creatives perform better in the Facebook feed, while others are designed for Instagram Stories. Facebook’s automatic placements are helpful, but you still need to ensure your creative fits each platform.

Example: A 1:1 square image might perform well in the Facebook news feed but won’t look good in Instagram Stories, which favors vertical formats (9:16). If your creative is not properly optimized for each placement, Facebook might limit its reach.

Fix:

• ‍Use the Right Formats: Make sure your ad creative fits the placements you’ve selected (e.g., Stories should use vertical images/videos, while feed ads should be square or landscape).‍
• Use Facebook’s Creative Tools: Facebook offers tools to preview and adjust your ad creative for each placement. Be sure to test your ad for all placements, such as mobile vs. desktop, Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network.
  

4. Campaign Objective Misalignment: Are You Sending the Right Signals to Facebook?

When creating a Facebook ad campaign, it’s crucial to select the right objective. Facebook uses this objective to determine how your ads will be delivered. If you choose the wrong one (for example, selecting a Conversion objective without having proper tracking in place), your ad might not deliver at all.

Example: If you choose “Conversions” as your campaign objective but don’t have the Facebook Pixel properly installed on your website, Facebook won’t be able to track conversions. Without this tracking, your ad’s performance will plummet.‍

Fix:

• ‍Align Objective with Goals: Ensure the campaign objective matches your end goal. For example, if your goal is to drive traffic to your website, select “Traffic.” If your goal is to collect leads, use the “Lead Generation” objective.‍
• Set Up Tracking: Install the Facebook Pixel on your website for any campaigns that involve conversions, and make sure event tracking is configured correctly.‍
• Monitor Conversions: Use Facebook’s Event Manager to ensure your Pixel is firing correctly. Without proper tracking, Facebook will struggle to optimize your ad delivery.

5. Low Relevance Score or Quality Ranking: Is Your Ad Resonating?

Facebook assigns a relevance score (or ad quality ranking) based on how well your ad resonates with your target audience. If your relevance score is low, Facebook deprioritizes your ad, meaning fewer people will see it.

Example: If your ad is overly promotional or doesn’t engage your audience, your relevance score may drop below 5/10, which negatively impacts delivery. Ads with scores of 8-10 typically perform best.

Fix:

• ‍Improve Your Creative: Test different variations of your ad to see which resonates best with your audience. Refresh your creative if you notice a drop in performance.
• ‍Refine Your Targeting: Ensure your ad is reaching the right people. The better your ad aligns with your audience’s interests and behaviors, the higher your relevance score will be.‍
• Engagement Tactics: Use calls to action (CTAs) that encourage engagement. Ads with high engagement rates (likes, comments, shares) tend to have higher relevance scores.

Conclusion

Running Facebook ads isn’t just about hitting “launch” and hoping for the best. To really get results, it’s about regularly tweaking and optimizing different parts of your campaign—things like your budget, who you’re targeting, the format of your ads, and your campaign goals. When these pieces all work together, you’ll be able to solve the issue of your ads being active but not actually running effectively.

If your ads aren’t performing as well as you’d like, it could be time to take a closer look at your strategy and make some adjustments. And remember, Facebook ads are never a one-and-done thing. They need constant attention—testing, tweaking, and fine-tuning to keep improving.

Using a tool like Roya will help simplify your ad strategy and save you time and money, especially when it comes to managing ad performance over time.  

Whether you use a tool or not, the key is staying on top of the changes and always looking for ways to optimize your ads. It’s a process, but one that can make a big difference in reaching your audience and growing your business.