A guide to every Facebook ad status and what they mean
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:
Active
In Review
Learning
Rejected
Completed
Facebook ad status icons and what they mean
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:
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.
Common Facebook ad statuses
Learning ad status
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.
Best practices for the Facebook learning phase
To ensure that your ad campaign progresses smoothly through the learning phase, it's important to follow these best practices:
Make strategic edits only when necessary.
A large number of ad sets and ads can dilute the learning process for each, resulting in fewer optimization events. Instead, focus on creating a few high-quality ad sets and ads.
Set a realistic budget. A budget that is too small or too large can also hinder the learning process.
Learning limited ad status
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:
Consolidate your ad sets. If you have multiple ad sets, consolidating them into a smaller number of ad sets can help you exit the learning phase faster.
Expand your audience. Sometimes, expanding your audience can help you generate more interactions with your ads, which can help you exit the learning phase faster.
Optimize your budget. If your budget is too small, increasing it can help you generate more optimization events and exit the learning phase faster.
Minimize actions that reset learning. As mentioned earlier, making unnecessary changes to your ad set can reset the learning process and delay your campaign's performance. To avoid this, minimize actions that reset learning, such as making drastic budget changes or modifying your audience.
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:
Ad content violations: If your ads contain content that violates Facebook's advertising policies, such as explicit imagery, hate speech, or deceptive claims, it will be rejected.
Sensitive topics: Ads that touch on political, social, or controversial subjects may require additional review.
Image and text alignment: If your ad's images and text don't match up, it could be delayed.
Landing page discrepancies: If your ad promises one thing and your landing page delivers another, it will be rejected.
Editing an ad while under review: If you make changes to your ad while it is under review, the review process will start over.
Historical ad performance: If you have a history of ad violations or low-quality content, your current ad may be subject to more scrutiny.
What can I do to prevent my Facebook ads from being 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:
Read Facebook's advertising policies carefully: This will help you avoid submitting ads that are likely to be rejected.
Play it safe: If you're not sure whether your ads are compliant with Facebook's policies, it's better to err on the side of caution and avoid using potentially risky content.
Check your ad copy carefully: Make sure your ad text is clear, concise, and free of errors.
Remember the visual emphasis: Social media thrives on visuals, so make sure your ad images are high-quality and relevant to your message.Use a tool like Revealbot's Top Creatives Report: This report can help you identify your best performing ad creatives, so you can learn from them and create even more effective ads in the future.
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.
5 common reasons for Facebook ad rejected status
Compliance with Facebook's Advertising Standards and Community Standards: Facebook has a set of standards for their ads as well as a community guideline for every interaction in the platform.
Unacceptable Content: Facebook prohibits various types of content, including illegal products, misinformation, vaccine discouragement, discriminatory practices, inflammatory content, and more.
Deceptive Content: Facebook values genuine and honest content. Advertisements must not mislead viewers, especially in areas like health, weight loss, or financial opportunities.
Dangerous Content: Promotion of unsafe substances, weapons, and tobacco products is forbidden. Objectionable Content: Ads containing adult content, profanity, misleading information, or offensive material will face rejection.
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.
Processing ad status
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.
No ads
The campaign or ad set does not have any published ads.
Ads off or Ad set off
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.
Completed ad status
The campaign, ad set, or ad is no longer running because the scheduled end date has passed.
Other Facebook ads issues
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.
Facebook ads not delivering
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:
Facebook's daily spending limits: If you've recently created your account, or if you've had yours suspended or banned, you may have a temporary account spending limit.
Hitting your account’s spending limit: Your ad account can have a daily spending limit. This limit is set to help protect advertisers from overspending.
Your ad is competing with other ads: If there are a lot of other ads competing for the same audience, your ad may not be shown as often.
Narrow target audience selection: A narrow audience, means that your ads will be shown to fewer people, which can lead to lower reach and frequency.
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:
Meta Business Account
Ad Account
Page
User Account
Each asset has a different set of restrictions that are applied.
Reasons your account might be restricted
There are many reasons your Facebook ad account might be restricted, here are some:
Violating content policies
Negative Feedback on Your Ads
Account Authenticity
Advertising Restrictions for Unusual Activity
These restrictions may involve limited ad spending, limitations on adding admins or users, or the inability to create new ad accounts.
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 ad status and Facebook feedback score
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:
Customer satisfaction
Delivery speed
Product quality
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.
Key insights
Ads may not deliver due to a variety of reasons, such as approval issues, low budgets, narrow targeting, competition, or being in the learning phase.
Ad review delays, ad rejection, and account restrictions can occur due to a variety of reasons. Keep your eyes open and avoid any of the mistakes.
The Facebook feedback score ranges from 0 to 5 and impacts ads. A low score can result in lower reach and costs or even ad restrictions.
There are both strategy and technical issues that can keep your ads from performing. Study and learn each of them.
Data is your ally! Understanding key metrics like CTR, purchases, and conversion rate helps advertisers identify and address conversion challenges. Cross-indicator analysis and tools like Revealbot's Creatives Report provide actionable insights for optimizing ad campaigns.
FAQ
What are the different ad statuses in Facebook?
Error: The ad is not eligible to run due to a technical issue
Warning: The ad may have some issues, but it can still run
Pending: The ad is being reviewed by Facebook
Active: The ad is running normally
Inactive: The ad is not running
Why is my ad not delivering?
There are many reasons why a Facebook ad is not running, including:
The ad is in the learning phase
The ad has not been approved by Facebook
The ad budget is too low
The ad targeting is too narrow
There is too much competition for the ad's target audience
What are the most common reasons why Facebook Ads might not be converting?
There are a number of reasons why Facebook Ads might not be converting, including:
Meta Pixel Issues
Weak Ad Copy or Creatives
Unoptimized Landing Pages
Inaccurate Audience Targeting
Ad Fatigue
Insufficient Budget
What is the Facebook learning phase?
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.
Why was my ad rejected by Facebook?
Facebook has a set of advertising policies that all ads must adhere to. If your ad violate any of these policies, it will be rejected. Here are some of the most common reasons why ads are rejected by Facebook:
The ad contains prohibited content, such as violence, hate speech, or nudity
The ad is misleading or deceptive
The ad is spam or irrelevant to the target audience
The ad has been flagged by users as inappropriate
How can I track the performance of my Facebook ads?
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.
