This post was updated in August 2025 to provide you with the latest information.

Instagram Ad Not Delivering? Here’s Why and How to Fix It

You’ve meticulously crafted your campaign, perfected the creative, and targeted your ideal audience, only to discover that your Instagram ads are not delivering. It’s a frustrating scenario that stumps novice advertisers and trained media buyers alike. But here’s the good news: it can be fixed, and we can help.

This guide will walk you through the common reasons why your Instagram ads aren’t delivering, what that status actually means, and how to get your campaigns running again, spending, and driving results.

What Does “Not Delivering” Mean on Instagram Ads?

When your ad shows a “not delivering” status, it means Meta’s ad auction system isn’t serving your ad to anyone in your target audience. You’re getting zero impressions, your budget isn’t being spent, and your campaign is effectively paused.

This differs from low delivery, where you might see some impressions but fewer than expected: “Not Delivering” means it’s on a complete stop. The key is to diagnose the underlying cause, which could be anything from a simple setting error to a more complex issue with your audience or creative.

8 Common Reasons Your Instagram Ad Is Not Delivering

Let’s examine the most common culprits behind an Instagram ad that doesn’t deliver. You can quickly identify the bottleneck and resolve the issue by systematically checking each one.

1. Your Ad Is Stuck in Review

Before any ad goes live, it must pass Meta’s ad review process to ensure it complies with their Advertising Policies. This usually takes up to 24 hours, but sometimes it can take longer. If your Instagram ad has been under review too long, it won’t deliver.

The Fix: Be patient, especially if your ad account is new or you’re advertising in a sensitive category. You can request a manual review if it’s been over 48 hours. Avoid editing the ad during this time, as it will reset the review process.

2. Your Audience Is Too Narrow or Ineffective

This is one of the most frequent reasons for delivery issues. If your target audience is too small, Meta’s algorithm may struggle to find enough people to show your ad to.

• Too specific: Layering too many interests and demographic filters can shrink your potential reach to an unsustainable level.
• Exclusion overlap: Your exclusion audiences might overlap too much with your target audience.
• Custom audience issues: A custom audience (like one from an email list) might be too small (under 1,000 users) or may not match well with Instagram profiles.

The Fix: Start by expanding your audience. Remove a few of the most restrictive targeting layers and check if delivery begins. For lookalike audiences, try creating a broader percentage (like 3-5% instead of 1%).If your audience still seems too narrow, try turning on Meta Advantage+ audience to expand your reach and help your Instagram ads start delivering.

3. Your Budget, Bid, or Cost Cap Is Too Low

The Meta ad auction is competitive. If your budget or bid is too low, your ad won’t be able to compete against other advertisers targeting the same audience.

• Daily Budget: Setting a budget that’s too low isn’t enough to generate meaningful delivery in most markets. To avoid Instagram ads falling into the “not delivering” status, consult a Meta-certified expert to ensure your budgets align with your campaign goals and audience reach.
• Bid Cap/Cost Cap: If you set an unrealistically low manual bid cap or cost-per-result goal, Meta will not be able to find users who can convert within your limit and will not deliver the ad at all.

The Fix: When using a manual bid or cost cap, switch to the “Highest Volume” bid strategy to let Meta bid for you. If you must use a cap, start by gradually increasing it, beginning with a 20% increase, and do so as you continue to scale.

If you’re unsure of your ideal cost per action (CPA), consider turning on Advantage Campaign Budget, Meta’s AI-driven feature that dynamically shifts budget toward higher-performing ad sets. This allows you to let Meta handle bid adjustments while you gather insights. Once you’ve identified efficient bid ranges, you can switch back to manual budgets and regain control over how spend is distributed.

4. The Campaign Is Stuck in the “Learning Phase”

Every new ad set enters a “learning phase,” during which Meta’s delivery system explores the best way to deliver your ads. To exit this phase, it needs to generate around 50 optimization events (like link clicks or conversions) in a 7-day period. If it can’t get enough events, your Instagram ads will likely not deliver.

• Why it matters for Instagram ad delivery: Making significant edits to your ad set (targeting, creative, or bidding) during the learning phase will reset it. Constant tinkering can trap your ad in a permanent state of “Learning Limited,” which often leads to poor or no delivery.

The Fix: Patience is key. Let the ad set run for a few days without making significant edits. Both your budget and audience must be broad enough to achieve those 50 optimization events.

5. Your Ad Has Silent Policy Violations

Sometimes an ad gets approved but is still flagged for a minor policy violation, causing it to have an “approved but not running” status. This is common with ads that might touch on sensitive topics, make exaggerated claims, or use images with too much text. While your ad might not be outright rejected, Meta will severely limit or stop its delivery without an explicit notification.

The Fix: Meticulously review Meta’s Advertising Policies. Check for:

• Text in images: Is more than 20% of your image covered in text? Image ads with excessive text can cause your Instagram ads to not deliver. Keep your visuals clean and focused while communicating the message visually rather than through large blocks of text.
• Personal attributes: Are you directly addressing user attributes (like “Are you struggling with debt?”)? Avoid language that assumes or explicitly mentions specific user characteristics like financial status, medical conditions, or identity.
• Misleading claims: Are your ads making unrealistic promises? Headlines or descriptions that overpromise (such as “Lose 20 lbs in 5 days” or “Guaranteed financial freedom”) can be flagged as misleading.
• Brand inconsistencies: If the type of branding in your ad does not match the account identity, your Instagram ads will likely not deliver. Meta’s ad standards expect your headlines, visuals, and descriptions to accurately represent the business tied to the ad account.
• Creative quality: Your creative must be high quality, and all critical elements must be visible within the Instagram ad safe zones to avoid being obscured by the UI. Any obstruction can negatively impact performance and may lead to delivery issues.

6. There Are Billing or Account-Level Issues

A simple administrative error can often be the culprit.

• Payment Failure: Your primary payment method may have expired or been declined.
• Account Spending Limit: You may have reached the spending limit set for your entire ad account.

The Fix: Go to your Ads Manager’s “Billing” section. Verify that your payment method is active and correct. Check your account spending limit and increase or remove it if necessary.

7. Your Ad Schedule Is Set Incorrectly

If you’re running ads on a schedule (lifetime budget only), you might have configured it incorrectly. For example, you may have set the ad to run only during late-night hours or on days that have already passed.

The Fix: Double-check the “Ad Scheduling” section in your ad set settings. Make sure the time zone is correct and that your ads are scheduled to run at the current time. For troubleshooting, try switching to “Run ads all the time.”

8. Platform-Wide Technical Glitches

In some instances, the problem isn’t you: it’s Meta. Technical bugs and platform-wide outages can cause ads to stop delivering.

The Fix: Check the Meta Status page for any reported platform issues. You can also check forums like Reddit to see if other advertisers are reporting a similar problem with their Instagram ads not delivering. If it’s a platform issue, you’ll unfortunately have to wait for Meta to resolve it.

FAQs: Why Your Instagram Ads Are Not Delivering

Instagram Ads Approved But Not Delivering? Time to Call in the Experts

Troubleshooting an Instagram ad that is not delivering can be a time-consuming distraction from your core marketing strategy. While the fixes above resolve most issues, there can be instances where delivery problems are mere symptoms of a deeper strategic challenge.

Consistently hitting campaign goals requires more than just launching ads. It requires constant monitoring and 24/7 optimization. At Strike Social, our combination of expert media buyers and AI-powered ad technology makes sure your Instagram ad campaigns are constantly being optimized to maintain campaign efficiency and hit your goals.

Ready to go beyond ad delivery? Contact our team for expert Instagram campaign management that drives impressions into results.