Quick answer
Check tracking first: if the pixel or Conversions API isn't recording leads or purchases, Meta can't find buyers. Then check the campaign objective, the offer and the landing page. Most Meta clicks come from phones, so a slow or fiddly mobile page loses people before they ever see your form.
Part of our Meta ads help centre. Work through the checks below in order. The first ones are the most common and the quickest to fix.
Check these first
- Is the conversion being recorded? In Events Manager, open your dataset (pixel) and check that Lead or Purchase events arrived in the last 7 days. If not, start with Meta Pixel not working.
- Which objective did you pick? In Ads Manager, look at the campaign's objective. Traffic and Engagement campaigns are optimised for clicks and reactions, not sales.
- What happens after the click? Open your ad on your own phone, tap it and try to complete an enquiry or purchase. Time it.
- Is the ad set still learning? Check the Delivery column for Learning or Learning limited before judging results.
- Who is seeing it? In the ad set, check the location, age and any Advantage+ audience controls you set.
- Are leads arriving but going cold? Check how long it takes someone to call each new lead.
Cause and fix table
| What you see | What it means | How to fix it | How long it takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clicks, but zero results in Ads Manager and sales in your inbox | Tracking is broken, so Meta is optimising blind | Fix the pixel or Conversions API, then test with Test Events | 1 hour to 1 day |
| Cheap clicks, high click-through rate, no enquiries | Traffic or Engagement objective is finding clickers, not buyers | New campaign with the Leads or Sales objective | 30 minutes, then a week to learn |
| Link clicks much higher than landing page views | People leave before the page loads | Speed up the page; see why is my website slow | 1 day to 2 weeks |
| Landing page views but no form fills | Offer, page or form isn't convincing on mobile | Rework the page using the mobile checklist below | A few days |
| Learning limited in the Delivery column | Not enough conversions for Meta to optimise | Combine ad sets, widen the audience or raise the budget | About a week after the change |
| Lots of leads, few real customers | Form is too easy, or follow-up is slow | See Facebook lead ads spam | Same day |
1. Tracking
Meta optimises towards whatever event you tell it to. If the Purchase or Lead event never fires, Meta has nothing to learn from, so it falls back to people who click. Check that the event fires once per conversion, on the thank-you page or purchase confirmation, not on every page load. Shopify and WooCommerce stores should use the official Meta integration rather than a hand-pasted pixel.
2. The wrong objective
A Traffic campaign tells Meta to find people who click links. Some people click a lot and rarely buy. If you want enquiries, choose Leads. If you sell online, choose Sales and optimise for Purchase. Meta's help centre describes the Traffic objective as better suited to cases where it is hard to track the action and tie it back to the ad.
3. Offer and creative
A click shows curiosity, not intent. Ask yourself whether the ad gives a reason to act now. A clear price or starting price, a specific service area and a real reason to choose you all help. If the ad promises one thing and the page talks about something else, people leave. Keep the headline on the page matching the ad.
4. Landing page speed and mobile experience
Most people who tap a Facebook or Instagram ad are on a phone, often inside the app's built-in browser. Compare Link clicks with Landing page views in Ads Manager (add the column via Columns, then Customise columns). A big gap usually means the page is slow or failing to load.
Mobile landing page checklist
- The page loads in a couple of seconds on mobile data, not just office Wi-Fi.
- The headline repeats the ad's offer, word for word if possible.
- The call button or form is visible without scrolling.
- The form asks only what you need to call back: name, phone, suburb, and one question about the job.
- A tap-to-call phone number sits at the top for people who would rather ring.
- No pop-ups covering the content in the first few seconds.
- Prices on the page match the ad. The ACCC expects consumer prices to be shown as a single total including GST and compulsory fees.
- The thank-you page or confirmation fires your Lead or Purchase event.
Sending people to your home page is a common leak. Build one page per offer instead.
5. Audience and Advantage+ settings
With Advantage+ audience, Meta treats your age, interests and custom audiences as suggestions and may go beyond them. Things you set as controls, such as location, minimum age and excluded audiences, are hard limits. If you only serve Brisbane's south side, location is the control that matters. Check that it is set to your real service area. Avoid splitting a small budget across many narrow ad sets; Meta's help centre lists small audiences and too many ad sets among causes of Learning limited.
6. Attribution windows
Meta and Google Analytics count sales differently, so neither will match your bank account exactly. Meta's standard attribution setting can credit a conversion that happens within 1 or 7 days of a link click, or within 1 day of someone simply seeing the ad. Google Analytics doesn't see ad views, so it usually reports fewer sales from Meta. Check the attribution setting column in Ads Manager before comparing. For a sanity check, compare total enquiries or orders week by week with ads on and off.
7. Lead quality and speed to lead
If leads arrive but don't turn into jobs, look at what happens next. Meta's own best-practice page recommends running lead ads during hours when you can follow up quickly and using a connected CRM so leads don't sit in a spreadsheet. The sooner you call, the more likely the person still remembers filling in your form.
Australian detail
Set your ad account time zone to Brisbane, Sydney or your local zone so daily budgets and reports line up with your business day. Queensland doesn't use daylight saving, so a Sydney time zone shifts by an hour from October to April. Make sure ad prices and page prices include GST for consumer offers.
When to get help
If tracking is working, the objective is right and the page converts on your own phone, a specialist looks next at offer testing, audience overlap and whether the sales data matches your CRM. We run Meta campaigns in your own ad account, month to month.
About this guide
Written by Amann Jhamb, Director of AR Digital Solutions, 17 years in web design, SEO and paid ads. Last checked: 3 November 2026 against Meta Business Help Centre: About attribution models and attribution settings. Change note: first published 3 November 2026. Part of our Meta ads help centre.