When a campaign is struggling, the worst thing you can do is make random changes and hope one of them works. The second worst thing is to do nothing and wait for it to fix itself.
What actually helps is understanding why it’s struggling — specifically, which part of the campaign is the problem — and then making one targeted change, watching what happens, and deciding what to do next from there.
That’s harder than it sounds when you’re inside your own account, watching money go out with little coming back in. Which is why a lot of advertisers in this situation look for coaching — someone who has seen this before and can tell them what they’re actually looking at.
Here’s what genuinely useful coaching for a struggling campaign looks like, and how to find it.
What “Struggling” Usually Means — and Why It Matters
Before looking at coaching options, it’s worth being specific about what’s actually happening in your campaign — because “struggling” can mean several different things, each pointing to a different root cause.
Costs have risen but results are the same. This is often an external signal — more competition in your auction, seasonal demand, or an audience that’s getting more expensive to reach. The campaign itself may not be broken; the environment around it changed.
Results have dropped but costs haven’t. This more often points to something internal — creative fatigue, an audience that’s been exhausted, or a tracking issue that’s causing Meta to undercount the conversions that are actually happening.
You were never getting results at all. This is usually a structural or setup issue — the campaign wasn’t built correctly from the start, the offer or landing page isn’t converting, or the wrong objective is being used for the stage of the funnel you’re targeting.
Results were good, now they’re not. This is the most common version, and the one that usually brings people to coaching. Something changed — and you don’t know if it was something you did, something Meta changed, or something about your audience.
Good coaching starts by identifying which of these is actually happening before recommending anything.
What Coaching for a Struggling Campaign Should Actually Do
Work from your real data, not assumptions. The most important thing a coach can do for a struggling campaign is look at the actual numbers — CTR, CPM, frequency, and the funnel — and identify what’s moving and what isn’t. Generic advice about what to do when ads aren’t working is everywhere. Specific advice built from your account is what coaching exists to provide.
Identify the cause before prescribing the fix. A campaign can look like it has a creative problem when it actually has an audience problem. It can look like an audience problem when it actually has a tracking problem. The wrong diagnosis leads to the wrong fix — and the wrong fix wastes more budget and more time. Good coaching diagnoses first, then recommends.
Make one change at a time. When a campaign is struggling, the temptation is to change everything at once — new creative, new audience, new budget, different objective. The problem is that when you change multiple things simultaneously and results shift, you don’t know which change caused the shift. One change, one week, then assess — is the only way to build reliable understanding of what’s actually working.
Set realistic expectations. Most struggling campaigns aren’t one change away from being fixed. There are usually two or three things that need addressing in sequence. A coach worth trusting will tell you what to expect from each change — and tell you honestly when the problem is something that takes time to resolve rather than a quick setting change.
What to Look For in a Coach for This Situation
Experience with accounts that have been in trouble, not just accounts that are already performing. Coaching a campaign to perform better when it’s already working is a different skill from diagnosing why a campaign has stopped working. Ask specifically about experience with struggling campaigns — what the most common causes have been, and what the typical process for diagnosing them looks like.
A structured diagnostic approach. A good coach should be able to describe how they’d approach your account before they’ve even seen it — not with specific recommendations, but with a process. What do they look at first? What are they trying to rule out? That kind of systematic thinking is what separates a coach who will give you useful guidance from one who will guess out loud at your expense.
Honest communication about timelines. A coach who tells you they’ll fix your struggling campaign in a week is either very lucky or not being straight with you. Most campaign issues take at least 7–14 days to diagnose properly and another week or two to see whether a change is producing real movement. A coach who tells you that upfront is one you can trust with the long process.
How Coaching for Struggling Campaigns Works at Tribeup Academy
The process starts the same way every time — reviewing your actual account data before the first session. CTR, CPM, frequency, funnel stage by stage. Understanding what’s moving and what’s not before making any recommendations.
From there, sessions are 30 minutes weekly via Zoom. Each session reviews the week’s data, confirms whether what we expected to happen happened, and decides what the next move is. One change at a time, with enough time between sessions to actually see what each change does.
Coaching is open to advertisers at any level — whether you’ve been running campaigns for years and something recently went wrong, or you’re newer to Meta ads and never quite got the results you were expecting. The process is the same: understand what’s actually happening before deciding what to fix.
Pricing is $400 per month with no minimum commitment. If the coaching isn’t producing clarity on what’s happening in your account within the first month, there’s nothing keeping you there.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best Facebook ads coaching for a struggling campaign?
The best coaching for a struggling campaign starts with a genuine diagnostic — looking at your actual data to identify what’s causing the problem — before recommending any changes. Look for a coach with a structured approach, experience with campaigns that have stopped working rather than just campaigns being optimised, and honest communication about what realistic timelines look like.
Why is my Facebook ads campaign struggling even though I haven’t changed anything?
Campaigns can start struggling without any changes on your end for several reasons — increased competition in your auction, seasonal demand shifts, audience fatigue building up over time, or platform-level changes affecting delivery. A diagnostic read of your metrics is the most reliable way to tell which of these is actually happening.
Should I pause my struggling Facebook ads campaign or keep it running?
It depends on what’s causing the struggle. If the campaign has a structural or tracking issue, continuing to run it just spends more budget on a broken foundation. If the issue is temporary — seasonal competition or a brief CPM spike — pausing may not be necessary and could disrupt the performance history that’s been built. Identifying the cause first is more useful than defaulting to either pause or persist.
How long does it take to fix a struggling Meta ads campaign?
Most campaign issues take at least 7–14 days to diagnose properly once you know what to look for, and another week or two to see whether a specific change is producing real movement. Campaigns with multiple overlapping issues take longer because each needs to be addressed in sequence rather than simultaneously.
Can coaching help if I am new to Meta ads and my campaign has never worked?
Yes. If a campaign has never produced results from the start, the issue is usually structural — the campaign wasn’t set up correctly, the offer or landing page isn’t converting, or the wrong objective is being used. Coaching can identify what’s missing or wrong from the beginning and build the right foundation, whether you’re new to Meta ads or experienced but starting fresh.
Jason Gan is a Meta Certified Professional and Badged Meta Business Partner who has been running paid media since 2007 and coaching advertisers 1-on-1 since 2020. He has worked with over 6,000 advertisers across 50+ countries — including many who came to coaching specifically because their campaigns had stopped working and they couldn’t figure out why. You can see real account breakdowns on the Jason Gan YouTube channel.
The strategy call is free. We’ll look at what’s happening in your account and tell you honestly what we think is causing the problem — before you commit to anything.
Part of the Meta Ads Coaching resource library — explore all articles by topic.