Is There a Problem With Facebook Ads Right Now?
To find out whether Facebook ads are broken platform-wide rather than just in your account, check Meta's status page at metastatus.com, which reports incidents across Meta's business and developer platforms. If that page is clean and your account is the only one affected, the problem is yours, and the fix is different.
Most days, what feels like an outage is either a reporting delay or an account-level delivery issue. Telling the three apart takes about five minutes, and it saves you from making changes you'll have to undo.
How do you check whether Meta ads are actually down?
Work through these in order. Stop as soon as one gives you a clear answer.
- 1Status pageCheck metastatus.com for open incidents on business tools
- 2Second accountIf you have access to another ad account, does it look the same?
- 3Ads Manager bannerLook for an alert at the top of Ads Manager or the account
- 4BillingConfirm the payment method is valid and no spending limit was hit
- 5Ad LibrarySearch a big advertiser — are ads still serving publicly?
The status page is the first stop because it's the only source that speaks for Meta. Third-party outage trackers aggregate user complaints, which is a lagging and noisy signal, useful only as a tiebreaker.
A second ad account is the best test you own. If two unrelated accounts show the same behaviour at the same moment, it's the platform. If only one does, it's the account.
The Ad Library gives you a free external view. Search any large advertiser at facebook.com/ads/library. If their ads are still listed and running, the ad system as a whole is serving. That doesn't prove your delivery is fine, but it rules out a total outage. If the library itself won't load, the Ad Library not working covers that separately.
Is it delivery or is it reporting?
This distinction matters more than people realise, because the two look the same on a dashboard and need opposite responses.
A reporting delay means the ads are running and the money is being spent, but the numbers aren't showing up yet. Spend looks low, results look missing, and everything appears to have collapsed. It fills in later, sometimes hours later.
A delivery problem means the ads genuinely aren't serving. Impressions are flat, not just conversions.
The tell is impressions. If impressions are accumulating normally and only conversions or values look wrong, it's reporting. If impressions have stopped, it's delivery.
| What you see | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions normal, conversions missing | Reporting delay or attribution lag | Wait. Change nothing. |
| Impressions flat across all campaigns | Delivery issue or account-level block | Check billing and account status |
| One campaign flat, others fine | Ad set or ad problem, not an outage | Work through delivery checks |
| Everything flat and others report the same | Platform incident | Wait, and document the window |
Facebook ads attribution explained covers why conversion numbers move around after the fact even when nothing is broken.
Why are my Facebook ads not working anymore?
When there's no outage and the problem is persistent rather than sudden, the causes are ordinary and unglamorous.
Creative fatigue. The same audience has seen the ad too many times, frequency climbs, and results decay. This looks like a gradual slide, not a cliff. What creative fatigue is covers the pattern and how to fix it covers the response.
A disapproval you missed. Ads can be disapproved after they've been running. Delivery stops and the reason sits in a notification nobody opened.
A billing stop. An expired card or a spending limit reached mid-month halts everything instantly.
Something you changed. An edit that reset the learning phase, a new exclusion, an audience narrowed. The change is rarely remembered as the cause.
The auction moved. Seasonal competition raises costs. Nothing is broken; it just got more expensive.
Why a Facebook ad isn't delivering is the systematic walk-through for all of these.
What should you do during an actual outage?
Less than you want to.
Don't restructure. Every edit during a broken period is a decision made on bad data, and it resets learning on ad sets that were fine.
Don't duplicate campaigns. The instinct to "rebuild it fresh" during an incident creates duplicates that compete with each other once service returns.
Do write down the window. Note when you first saw it and when it cleared. If you're reporting to a client, that timestamped note is the difference between a credible explanation and an excuse.
Do check the numbers again the next day. Spend and results reported during an incident are frequently restated afterwards.
How do you tell a client during an outage?
Early, briefly, and with the check you ran.
The message that works names three things: what you observed, what you verified, and what you're doing. "Delivery flatlined across all campaigns at about 09:40, Meta's status page shows an open incident on business tools, we're holding changes until it clears and I'll confirm the numbers tomorrow once reporting settles."
What loses trust is silence followed by an explanation after the client noticed themselves. It also helps to say plainly that spend and results reported during an incident often get restated afterwards, so the first numbers they see may move.
Can you keep working while Ads Manager is down?
Yes, and this is the useful part of an outage. Research doesn't depend on your ad account.
The Meta Ad Library is a separate public surface. It's free, needs no account, and shows every ad any advertiser is currently running worldwide, with a "Started running on" date on each card. Long-running ads are the ones making money, since advertisers only keep paying for ads that work.
So while delivery is stuck, go and study what's surviving in your category. The catch is that the library saves nothing: pause an ad and it vanishes from public view, taking your reference with it. Our free extension covers that. The Klipio Meta Ad Library downloader adds a download button to every ad, saves videos in original HD and full carousels, and its bulk mode packs a whole search into one ZIP with a searchable swipe board and a CSV. Free, no account, and ours, so treat that as disclosed rather than neutral.
FAQ
How do I check if Facebook ads are down?
Start at metastatus.com, Meta's own status page for its business and developer platforms. Then compare a second ad account if you have one, and check the Ad Library to see whether ads are still serving publicly. Third-party outage trackers are only a tiebreaker.
Why are my Facebook ads suddenly not spending?
Check billing first, since a declined card or a reached spending limit stops delivery immediately. Then check for a disapproval, a paused parent campaign, a recent edit that reset learning, and the ad set schedule against the account's time zone.
Are missing conversions in Ads Manager an outage?
Usually not. If impressions are accumulating normally and only conversions look wrong, it's a reporting or attribution lag rather than a delivery failure. Conversion data continues filling in after the click, so partial days always look worse than they are.
Should I pause my ads during a Meta outage?
No. Pausing and restructuring during an incident makes changes based on unreliable data and resets learning on ad sets that were performing. Record the window, leave the account alone, and re-check the numbers the following day.
Why did my Facebook ads stop working after months of doing fine?
Most often creative fatigue, where the same audience sees the ad too often and results decay gradually. Other common causes are a post-launch disapproval, a billing stop, or rising auction costs in a competitive season.
Can I still research competitor ads if Ads Manager is broken?
Yes. The Meta Ad Library is a separate public surface, free and with no account, and it works independently of your ad account. It shows every ad any advertiser is currently running along with the date each one started.
The Klipio extension adds a download button to every ad in the Meta Ad Library: one click per ad, or bulk-save a whole search as a ZIP with a searchable swipe file inside. Free, no sign-up.
Get the free extension
