Facebook ad not delivering? The checks to run, in order

Check the Delivery column on the Campaigns, Ad sets and Ads tabs in Ads Manager: Meta says the three levels can show different statuses. A campaign can look active while its ad set or ad is In review after a recent change. Hover over any warning or error to read the details.

Meta says most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, although some take longer, and its troubleshooting pages say you may need to wait up to 24 hours to see delivery. Read the statuses first anyway: a rejection, a payment problem or a setup error won’t fix itself with time.

Menu and status names below come from Meta’s Help Center as of October 22, 2026.

Step 1: read the status

Status in the Delivery column	What Meta says it means	What to do
In review	The ad is being checked against Meta’s Advertising Standards	Wait. Most reviews take place within 24 hours
Processing	Your changes are being applied: usually a few minutes, up to 8 hours for some	Wait
Preparing	The ad passed review and Meta is matching it to the right bid and audience	Wait for the first impression. It then enters learning or becomes active
Draft, pending or scheduled (pending icon)	The ad is still a draft, waiting for review, or set to start later	Publish the draft, or change the schedule if you want it now
Active	The ad runs normally. At campaign or ad set level, at least one ad inside runs normally	Check each ad’s own status, spend and impressions
Rejected	The ad doesn’t comply with the Advertising Standards	See step 4
Update required	Something blocks the ad, such as a deleted post, an ended offer or an unpublished Page	Fix the error shown, then turn the ad set back on yourself
Off, Ads off, Ad set off	The ad or ad set is turned off, even if the campaign looks on	Turn on every level
No ads	The campaign or ad set has no published ad	Publish an ad
Completed	The end date has passed	Extend the schedule or create a new campaign
Learning limited	The ad set isn’t getting enough results to leave the learning phase	See our guide to learning limited

About the words "Not delivering": on its "Update required" page, Meta says this status is different from a rejection, and appears when the ad, ad set or campaign has been turned off or has finished its scheduled run.

Step 2: the ad is active but nothing is spent

Meta has two checklists, depending on where your budget is set: one for campaigns with Advantage+ campaign budget, one for ad set budgets. They share most checks.

Spending limits. With Advantage+ campaign budget, check whether the campaign spending limit or the lifetime budget has been reached, and raise it if needed. Meta also suggests removing ad set spend limits as a test, to see whether they block delivery.
Schedule. Look for gaps in the budget schedule, or delivery hours so narrow that ads have little time to run.
Bid cap, cost per result goal or ROAS goal. A cap set too low, or a ROAS goal set too high, can block delivery. Meta suggests removing the cap or the goal as a test, and says a cost per result goal should match the average cost per result you see in reporting.
Budget compared with your goal. Meta’s general rule: a daily budget of at least 10 times the average cost of your performance goal. Its example: $5 per link click means at least $50 a day. If you don’t want to raise the budget, Meta suggests a goal higher up the funnel, such as landing page views instead of conversions.
Audience size. An audience that is too narrow may prevent delivery. Ad sets with similar audiences compete against each other in the auction, and fewer of them may leave learning.
Each ad. Back on the Ads tab, look for an error on a single ad.

After removing a limit, a cap or a goal, Meta says changes usually take up to 15 minutes to apply, and delivery may take a few hours to improve.

To apply rule 4 to sales, use your own average cost per purchase from Ads Manager. For example, at $40 per purchase, the rule gives $400 a day. That’s a guideline from Meta, not a minimum to start advertising. The Facebook ads cost calculator works out your cost per purchase and budget from your own numbers, and our guide to Facebook ads costs explains where those costs come from.

If nothing works. If a single ad has been published for at least 48 hours and none of these checks fix it, Meta recommends deleting the ad and creating it again. If more than one ad in the campaign isn’t delivering, Meta recommends contacting its support team instead. Don’t delete a rejected ad you want reviewed (step 4).

Step 3: the block is outside the campaign

Some blocks don’t show up as a clear error in the campaign itself.

Payment. Meta says that when a payment fails, your ads are paused and the ad account is disabled until the balance is paid. If your ad account runs on available funds only, without automatic billing, delivery stops when those funds run short. And if ads stay paused after you pay, you may have reached a daily spending limit set by Meta. Look in Billing & payments. In an August 2025 Reddit reply, one advertiser whose ads showed "not delivering" wrote that they found the cause on a Meta help page: their card had declined Meta’s small charges, with no notification from Facebook or from the card issuer.
A restricted account, Page or profile. Meta Business Support Home shows what is blocked and what Meta needs from you. In a March 2026 reply to a Reddit thread, another advertiser wrote that their Page had been restricted from advertising without any error message in Ads Manager. Our guide covers it step by step: Facebook ad account disabled, restricted or banned.

These two stories are individual accounts. They show where to look, not how often it happens.

Step 4: the ad was rejected

When an ad is rejected, Meta sends an email and a link to Business Support Home with the reason. You can then:

edit the ad to comply, and it goes back to review on its own;
create a new ad;
request another review in Business Support Home if you think the decision is wrong. Meta aims to decide within 48 hours, and an overturned rejection doesn’t count as a violation.

Don’t delete a rejected ad you want reviewed: Meta says you may lose the ability to request a review. Editing or deleting it doesn’t remove the violation from your account either, and severe or repeated violations can restrict your advertising.

Edits to targeting, creative, optimization or billing event start a new review. Changes to the bid, the budget or the ad set schedule don’t.

Step 5: it delivers, but too little or less than before

Some ads get far fewer impressions than others. Meta says it’s normal for some ads to get more impressions than others: over time, the system learns which ads perform best for you. If one ad gets none at all, check that it’s on, that no automated rule turned it off, that its format fits your placements, and that your Page’s country or age restrictions don’t exclude your audience. The ad relevance diagnostics can tell you whether changes to the creative, the landing page or the targeting could improve performance.

Spending changes from day to day. Meta is gradually giving some accounts more daily budget flexibility. For those accounts, Meta may spend up to 75% above the daily budget on some days and less on others, and no more than 7 times the daily budget from Sunday to Saturday. For a campaign shorter than 7 days, total spend won’t go above the daily budget multiplied by the number of days.

Delivery slowed down or stopped. Meta’s first step is to find when it changed, with breakdowns over time, then to look in the activity history for changes made just before. It lists frequent pauses during the day, budget or schedule changes late in the day, and an extended end date. It also says a bid cap or cost per result goal may stop being competitive if other advertisers bid more. Its example on timing: if you double your daily budget at 10 p.m., the system only has 2 hours to spend the increase. For campaigns with Advantage+ campaign budget, Meta adds creative fatigue and audience saturation: see our guide to Facebook ad fatigue.

What not to do

Duplicate the same ad set several times. Ad sets with similar audiences compete in the same auction, and fewer of them may leave learning.
Pause and restart during the day. Meta says frequent pauses keep the system adapting.
Change the budget late in the evening and judge the result the same day.
Lower a cost cap to save money when delivery is already low. Meta says a cap set too low can block delivery.

FAQ

How long does it take for a Facebook ad to start delivering?

Meta says most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, and you may need to wait up to 24 hours to see delivery. Processing changes can take up to 8 hours in some cases.

My ad is active but not spending. Why?

Check spending limits, schedule, bid cap or cost goal, budget against the cost of your goal (Meta’s rule: at least 10 times), audience size, then your payment method and account status. At campaign or ad set level, Active can mean only one ad inside is running.

My ad is approved but not delivering. What now?

An approved ad can sit in Preparing until its first impression. After that, the checks in step 2 apply. If a single ad has been published for at least 48 hours and nothing works, Meta suggests deleting and recreating it. If several ads are affected, it suggests contacting support.

What does "Update required" mean?

Something prevents delivery, for example a post that can’t be promoted, an expired offer, an unpublished Page or a product missing from the catalog. Fix it, then turn the ad set back on yourself. Otherwise it returns to Update required.

Why does my boosted post say not delivering?

Meta’s "Update required" page lists cases specific to posts: a post that can’t be used in an ad, a post that is no longer available, and a shared post, which can’t be boosted. Meta also says "Not delivering" appears when the ad is turned off or has finished its run. If you boosted the post from Facebook or Instagram, open it in Ads Manager to see its status at each level.