Facebook ads are a game-changer for many businesses, but let’s be honest: sometimes, they just don’t deliver the results we hope for. It’s a common situation that most advertisers encounter sooner or later: when Facebook ads bring little to no conversions or a low ROAS.
There are many different reasons why this might be happening, and we’ll go through the most common ones in this article to help you get your Facebook ads back on track.
If you’re ready, let’s dive in.
Facebook ads’ conversions: what counts as such?
Before we begin, let’s clarify something: what counts as a conversion on Facebook ads?
Basically, a conversion is the action you want people to take after they see your Facebook ad. This could technically be anything: clicking on a link, signing up for your email list, watching your video, or making a purchase.
Before, Facebook had a specific “Conversions” campaign objective. Now, conversions aren’t limited to just one campaign type. New Facebook ad objectives let conversions happen across a range of campaigns – you can set them up to fit your specific goals, whether it’s driving engagement, leads, app installs, or direct sales.
The key is to identify the actions that matter most for your business and then track those conversion events. For this, pay attention to different metrics in your Ads Manager: clicks, purchases, leads, installs, conversion rate, etc. – they give insights into how many people are taking the actions you’ve defined as conversions.
Once you clearly define your conversion goals and start tracking them accurately, you’ll be in a much stronger position to optimize your ads and spend your budget smarter.
But this is a topic for another article. Now, it’s time to focus on the most common reasons why your Facebook ads might not bring any conversions at all.
Top reasons why your Facebook ads don’t convert and what to do about it
Meta Pixel issues
It’s practically impossible to track conversions from your Facebook ads if you don’t have a Meta Pixel on your website. It helps you track actions that visitors take on your website and then use this data to see how well your ads perform and retarget warm audiences.
Reliable Pixel tracking is essential for any ad campaign, but there can be a number of problems with its setup that prevent you from getting conversions from your Facebook ads.
First of all, your Pixel can be set up incorrectly. This means that the Pixel code was put in the wrong place on your site, so it can’t track user actions effectively. The easiest way to check if the Pixel is properly set up – using Meta Events Manager, where you can troubleshoot any issues with your Pixels.
You need to proceed to the Meta Events Manager to create your Pixel.
You can also use the Meta Pixel Helper extension that will regularly check if your website’s Pixels work. The blue icon will show that there are Pixels running on a specific page of your website, meaning that everything’s alright.
Even if set up correctly, your Pixel may not be firing, i.e. not activating on specific pages. This can lead to missed conversions from certain landing pages, which means you’re not getting a full ad performance picture. This usually happens due to browser settings or conflicting site code.
You can use the Meta Pixel Helper to check if it’s firing correctly. If it isn’t firing, look for conflicting scripts or code in the section of your website that might be blocking it.
Also, test your Pixels in different browsers and devices to check if the issue is limited to one setup – some browser configurations can prevent the Pixel from tracking data.
Another common issue is duplicate Pixels – the situation when you add the same Pixel multiple times on accident. This can cause inflated data and thus make your tracking unreliable: you won’t know how many conversions you actually have.
To solve it, review your site’s HTML code for duplicate Pixel IDs or use Meta Pixel Helper to see if multiple Pixels are firing. If you’re using a CMS (e.g. Shopify) with built-in integrations, check it as well – multiple Pixels can be auto-installed on top of the ones you’ve installed manually.
Meta Pixel Helper allows you to quickly check if there are any issues with your Pixels
Your Pixel code can also be outdated. Meta regularly updates its pixel code to improve tracking, and if you don’t keep up with these updates, you might end up with tracking issues. To avoid it, regularly check Facebook for the latest pixel version (you’ll see alerts in your Events Manager if your Pixel is outdated) and update your site’s code accordingly.
Finally, there may be cross-domain tracking problems: if your website has users coming from multiple domains, tracking can break down due to incomplete data collection. To fix this, enable cross-domain tracking in the Events Manager to allow the Pixel to track users across different domains. Also, use Pixel Helper to check if data flows correctly between domains.
Here are some other tips for keeping your Meta Pixel up and running:
- Run regular tests: make it a habit to check the functionality of your Pixel often, especially after any site updates. UsePixel Helper – it’s an easy way to catch issues before they affect your ad data.
- Set up event tracking in Events Manager: to track specific actions like “Add to Cart” or “Purchase”, set these events directly in Events Manager. This will help you collect important customer interaction data and improve your targeting.
- Use Conversions API for backup: with this tool, you can send data directly from your server to Facebook. This is a great way to improve data reliability, especially if your audience uses ad blockers.
- Use advanced matching: it helps Meta attribute more conversions than with just Pixel data and give you a better idea of your ads’ impact. Advanced matching also helps you reach more relevant users and lower your cost per conversion.
Wrong audience
Getting your Facebook ads in front of the right people makes all the difference in how many conversions you’re going to get. If you’re showing ads to the wrong people, you could end up wasting your ad budget. If your audience targeting is spot-on, you can turn views into clicks and clicks into customers.
So, one of the keys to higher conversions is targeting the right people from the start. This is how you can do it:
Research your audience
Do some digging to understand what your audience is interested in, what challenges they face, what they’re looking for in a product like yours, and so on.
Facebook Insights and Google Analytics can be useful tools for gathering data on your existing audience’s demographics and interests. With this information, you can discover related audience segments and refine the audiences you’re already targeting.
Use Interest and Behavior targeting
Facebook offers detailed targeting options based on users’ interests and online behaviors. For example, if you sell fitness products, you can target people who follow fitness pages or search for health-related content – this is how you reach people who are likely already interested in what you’re offering.
Use Custom and Lookalike audiences
You can also use custom audiences based on people’s interactions with your business: visits to your website, past purchases, etc. This is a great way to retarget people who’ve already shown interest and drive more conversions – warm audiences are more receptive and likely to convert.
Once you have your custom audiences, you can build lookalikes based on them to find people who share similar traits.
Try broader targeting
Sometimes, broad targeting can work better than being precise, especially when you’re not sure yet who your primary targets are. You can test out broader age groups, locations, or interests to see if there’s an audience segment you haven’t considered before.
The Advantage targeting options help you target a broader audience
Segment your audience
If you want to be precise, on the other hand, consider dividing your audience into smaller segments to personalize your ads. You can do this based on things like interests, demographics, past behaviors, location, etc.
Creating personalized ads for each group helps you speak directly to specific needs that people have, which makes them more likely to respond and convert.
If you want more tips for selecting your audience on Facebook, our Facebook ad targeting guide will help you navigate this without difficulties.
Weak ad copy or creatives
Your ad creatives – visuals and copies – play an important role in whether your ads are bringing conversions or not. Even if you target the right audience, boring or irrelevant ads won’t deliver the results you want, and that’s exactly why ad creatives matter so much.
Facebook users scroll quickly through their feeds, so you have just a few seconds to catch their eye. Strong visuals and clear, engaging text can make a huge difference in getting someone to stop, pay attention, and convert.
There are a few key things you can do to make that happen:
Know your audience
Before you create an ad, think about what really matters to your audience. What are their needs or interests, and how can your product help with these?
You can investigate it with a bit of research: check out customer feedback, social media comments, run a quick survey to find out what they’re looking for, check what ad creatives performed well in the past, etc.
Once you understand their main goals and pain points, shape your ad message and creatives to match. Use language and visuals that speak to their needs or show how your product can solve a problem they have.
Appeal to emotions
People are more likely to respond to ads that evoke emotions in them: they can feel a fear of missing out, satisfaction that the solution to their problem is finally found, curiosity about a new product they haven’t tried yet, and a lot more.
You can appeal to these and other emotions by using certain colors, visuals, words, and so on:
- Phrases like “Only a few left” or “Sale ends soon” help you appeal to people’s FOMO and drive fast action;
- Copies and visuals that include social proof (reviews, badges, etc.) help you build trust and convince more people;
- Familiar and comforting imagery helps you tap into people’s sense of nostalgia, while unusual and daring visuals can appeal to people’s desire to try something new and original.
Tell a story through visuals
While text ads are effective in many cases, images and videos can convey your message much faster and better.
For example, you can use visuals that show your product in real-life situations, helping people picture themselves using it. Lifestyle photos, where the product is naturally part of everyday life, can help build that connection.
Short video clips that highlight your product's benefits or tell an interesting story work well too. Since Facebook gives preference to video content, using videos in your ads can increase your reach.
Add a CTA that matches user intention
CTA is another important element of your Facebook ads – it tells people what action you want them to take and what they can expect after they do just that.
You can use simple phrases like “Start Now,” “Download Here,” or “Claim Your Offer” to make everything clear, but remember that your CTA should match user intention.
Ad creatives don’t have to be complex: you just need to place focus on your product and its benefits
If you’re running an awareness campaign for cold audiences, a CTA like “Shop Now” won’t be the right choice: users you’re targetiтg are not ready to take this action yet, and seeing this CTA will likely deter them from exploring your offers. Always analyze which actions match the intentions and needs of the specific audience you’re targeting at the moment, and choose a CTA based on it.
Have consistent branding
To have people recognize your brand, make sure that your ad content matches your brand’s voice and style. Stick with the same colors, fonts, and tone across all your ads to create a unified look – that’s exactly what helps people remember your brand.
Whether we like it or not, there is no universal recipe that will help you get your ad creatives 100% right – it all comes down to trial and error, i.e. experimentation. That’s why regularly A/B testing different visuals, copies, CTAs, and other elements is the key to success here. Using Dynamic Creatives, Flexible ad formats, or Advantage+ Creatives can make this process a lot simpler.
Also, you can check how each of your ad creatives is performing in your Meta Ads Manager – use the ad creative breakdown in Meta Ads Reporting for this. It will help you understand which version of your ad resonates more with your audience.
Insufficient budget
If your budget is too low, this can hold back the effectiveness of your Facebook ads because fewer people will see your ads and Facebook won’t be able to optimize ad delivery. In this case, even well-designed ads with strong targeting might not get enough exposure to make a difference.
However, that doesn’t mean that you should necessarily spend a lot to get good results – it’s all about balance and proper planning.Try this to make the most of your Facebook ad budget:
Set goals
Before setting a budget, clarify what you want to achieve with your ads. For example, if your goal is to raise awareness, you’ll likely need a larger budget to reach a wider audience. For sales or app install, you might aim for a more targeted reach and set a lower budget if your target audience is not highly competitive.
One of our guides will help you choose the right Facebook ad campaign objective, which is essential for setting the right budget for your ads.
Allocate for each funnel stage
If you’re running a full-funnel campaign (awareness, consideration, conversion), it’s best to distribute your budget based on each stage’s role. For example, if your priority is conversions, you can allocate more budget to the middle and bottom stages of your funnel.
Strike balance between daily and lifetime budgets
Depending on the length of your campaign, you can choose a daily budget (how much you spend each day) or a lifetime budget (your total ad spend over a set period).
You can choose between daily and lifetime budgets, as well as enable the Advantage Campaign Budget to leverage Meta’s AI budget optimization
Daily budgets are more flexible and suited for continuous campaigns, and lifetime budgets help Facebook’s algorithm optimize spend over time for short-term campaigns.
Monitor and adjust
As with everything that has to do with Facebook ads, you need to closely monitor and adjust what you’re doing with your ad budgets.
Keep an eye on performance metrics like cost-per-click (CPC), cost per conversion, return on ad spend (ROAS), etc. to check how much your ad campaigns cost you. If you see good results, consider gradually scaling your budget to maximize impact. If performance is lagging, you might want to reallocate funds or pause underperforming ads to save your budget.
Ads stuck under review or rejected
Having your Facebook ads stuck in review process or being rejected can also seriously disrupt your campaigns and lead to fewer conversions because they won’t reach your audience.
Ad review process can often take longer than expected, especially during peak times or when using specific ad formats that require extra scrutiny. Complex ads with multiple images, videos, or unique calls-to-action might also slow down the review.
Sometimes, your ads won’t make it out of the review process and will get rejected. This happens because they violate some advertising policies and community standards. Usually, this means that there is some prohibited or misleading content in your ads.
Ad review on Facebook is a complicated process (source: Meta)
To make the review process faster and avoid ad rejection, always double-check Facebook’s Advertising Policies and make sure your ad complies with guidelines on content, wording, and imagery. Avoid sensitive topics or misleading claims, and if you’re using text on images, keep it to a minimum to avoid policy violations. Using clear and straightforward language also makes it less likely that your ad will get flagged.
Also, sometimes your Facebook ads may not bring any conversions because they are still in the learning phase. In this situation, the only thing you need to do is to work on speeding up the process and helping your ads get out of the learning phase faster. If you want to know how to do it, stay tuned for our next article where we’ll talk about this.
High ad fatigue
Ad fatigue happens when your audience sees the same ad too many times, causing them to lose interest. When people get tired of your ads, they’re less likely to click, engage, and take an action – essentially, leading you to waste ad budget and miss possible conversions.
The Frequency metric in your Ads Manager will tell you how high your ad fatigue really is. If your frequency rate rises above a certain level, usually three or four, it’s time to take action. A drop in your click-through rate (CTR) or an increase in negative feedback on your ads can also indicate that you’ve been showing your ads to the same people too often.
Here’s how you can avoid ad fatigue:
1. Refresh your ads
One of the best ways to combat ad fatigue is to refresh your ads by changing up visuals, copies, CTAs, or the angles of your messaging. You can duplicate your ad sets, freshen them up, and run a test campaign to see if the changes you’ve made are working.
With this approach, you’re not risking losing the audience you’re already targeting – you can always go back to running only the original ad sets, or scale the duplicated ones if you see that they perform better.
2. Pause high-frequency ads
If you notice that certain ads have high frequency, it might be time to temporarily pause them and give your audience a chance to reset. You can restart your ads later with new ad creatives to recapture their attention, or run them for a new audience segment to give them a chance to shine.
3. Exclude engaged users
If you’re showing ads to users who’ve already interacted with you, the ad fatigue can also be high. You can exclude these people from your targeting by using custom audiences – this will help you keep your ads relevant and prevent your message from falling flat.
You can even target these engaged users with different ads tailored to their actions (e.g., product recommendations or reminders) to nurture them further and lead to converting without repetitive ads.
4. Run ads on a schedule
Running ads all the time without stopping can contribute to ad fatigue, especially if your audience sees the same ad too often throughout the day. You can set up an ad schedule to show your ads during specific times when your audience is most active and ready to check out your offers. This not only helps reduce ad fatigue but also drives higher engagement and ROAS.
A high ad fatigue, alongside low ad quality, can also lead to a low Facebook feedback score – a critical metric that reflects how users perceive your ads. They may hide your ads, report them, or leave negative comments, which affects ad performance and can lead to low conversions.
Make sure to check your Feedback Score regularly and optimize your ads if you see that people aren’t satisfied with what they see.
Unoptimized landing pages
Besides the ads themselves, another factor that can influence how many conversions you get is your landing pages – this is the key to turn visitors into customers.
If your landing page isn’t set up well, you can lose customers who otherwise might have been ready to convert. To avoid it, do this:
Match your ad’s message
Your landing page should align with what your ad promised. For example, if your ad mentions a discount on a product, that product and discount should be front and center on your landing page. Visuals, copies, CTAs, and all other elements should match as well.
This consistency will keep your visitors engaged and help them follow through with the action.
Make it mobile-friendly
Most Facebook users browse the platform and thus see your ads on their phones. This means that your landing page should look great, load fast, and provide all the necessary information on any device.
You can test your page on different phones and browsers to be sure it looks alright everywhere. If your page isn’t mobile-responsive, you might miss out on a big chunk of potential customers.
Keep loading times fast
Potential customers don’t like to wait till the page they went to after clicking on your ad is going to load, especially on mobile devices. Slow pages lead to high bounce rates and cause people to leave before they even see your offers.
You want to aim for a loading time of three seconds or less – it’s the optimal time that’s not going to disrupt the user experience. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can show you how to speed up your page.
Mailchimp’s Facebook ad and landing page are a perfect match from the CTA to the color palette
Highlight a clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
The CTA on your landing page should not only match the one in your ad, but also stand out from the rest of the page content and tell visitors exactly what to do next. The main way to do this is to position it at the top of the page so it’s easy to spot, and make the button a contrasting color to catch attention.
Final thoughts
To wrap up, having Facebook ads that aren’t converting is not the end of the world. While there can be numerous reasons why this happens, the problem can be easily solved with the right tips and strategies.
Your Meta Pixel, ad creatives and copies, landing page, target audience, etc. – all can impact performance. Use this guide to go through all potential problems your ads may have and fix them. Keep testing and adjusting to find what works best, and soon enough, your Facebook ads will be generating as many conversions as you want.
Check out our article on why you can see the “your ad set may get zero” error message as well – this is another common issue you can encounter while running Facebook ads.
