This issue is more common than you’d think, especially with low daily budgets. Here’s how you can fix it:
1. Low Budget = Limited Delivery
A $5 daily budget across 2 ads is very tight, especially for campaigns with multiple placements and objectives. Meta often throttles delivery when it doesn’t have enough budget to test both creatives or reach enough people to exit the learning phase.
"Meta might be "waiting" to find optimal placements at a low cost, which can result in almost no spend."
2. Campaign Might Be Stuck in Learning or Limited Learning
Meta’s algorithm needs a minimum number of conversions or interactions to optimize. If it's not getting that, it often slows spend significantly, especially during weekends (6/20 was a Friday).
3. Audience Size or Targeting Too Narrow?
If your audience is small or too specific, it could be restricting Meta’s ability to spend efficiently. Combine that with a low budget, and you get next to no delivery.
4. Bid Strategy or Optimization Goal May Be Too Aggressive
If you selected Cost Cap, Target Cost, or an event that rarely fires (like Purchase on a cold audience), Meta might hold off on spending.
How to Fix It:
Temporarily increase your budget to $10–15/day to kickstart delivery. You can scale back once performance stabilizes.
Use “Lowest Cost” bid strategy (no cap) for the first few days.
Check for audience overlap and make sure your audience size isn’t too restrictive.
Consider separating video and stills into two ad sets, if you want to compare performance cleanly.
You didn’t do anything wrong, but at $5/day, Meta has limited space to learn, test, and scale. Slight tweaks to budget, bid strategy, or simplification of structure should solve it quickly.
