Meta Ads problems

Most Meta Ads problems are diagnosed in the wrong order. The account is the first place people look because it is the place with a budget slider, and it is often the one part of the chain that did not change. These posts separate the failures that genuinely start in Meta, such as rejected creative, exhausted audiences, and learning phase instability, from the ones that only look like they did.

The recurring theme is that delivery and conversion are different problems with different owners. Spend and impressions falling is a media question. Spend holding while leads fall is almost never a media question, and treating it as one is how accounts end up spending more for less.

A useful habit before reading any of them: note whether clicks moved. If clicks fell with leads, the posts on budget changes and the learning phase are the right place to start. If clicks held while leads fell, start with the post on stable clicks and falling leads, because the break is almost certainly on the page, in the form, or in tracking. Either way, check the account's change history for the day the numbers moved before making another edit.