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WTH is Going on with Facebook Ads lately?

If you’ve been feeling that Meta (Facebook) ads have been a rollercoaster of volatility and declining performance since 2025, you’re in line with the global consensus.

The negative chatter on Reddit (specifically subreddits like r/FacebookAds and r/PPC) has been intense. The general sentiment is that the platform has undergone a massive, “under-the-hood” shift that has broken many traditional strategies.

 

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You can no longer rely on set-it-and-forget it advertising on Facebook anymore

 

Here is the breakdown of what is happening, why it’s happening, and what advertisers are doing to survive it.

1. The Core Issue: The “Andromeda” Shift

Around late 2024, industry chatter (and frustrated media buyers) pinpointed a major algorithmic update, often referred to as “Andromeda.”

• What it is: A shift in how Meta’s AI retrieves and ranks ads. It moves away from “learning per ad set” to “learning per creative signal.”
• The Result: The algorithm now punishes creative fatigue much faster. Ads that used to run profitably for months now often die in weeks or days. The system creates “volatility loops” where performance is amazing for 2 days and then crashes to zero for the next 3.

2. The Three Big Complaints

If you dig through the threads from the last 6 months, these are the recurring symptoms everyone is venting about:

A. The “Advantage+” Trap Meta has been aggressively pushing Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) and removing manual controls.

• The Complaint: While ASC was a goldmine in early 2025, many users report it has recently become a “budget bleeder.” It tends to spend heavily on low-quality inventory (like the Audience Network or low-intent placements) just to get cheap clicks that don’t convert.
• The Feeling: Advertisers feel they are being forced into a “black box” where they can’t exclude bad audiences or control where their money goes.

B. Bot Traffic & Low Quality Leads Since roughly November 2025, there has been a spike in complaints about “fake” traffic.

• The Symptom: You might see great Click-Through Rates (CTR) and cheap traffic, but zero sales or leads that turn out to be completely irrelevant (e.g., random people filling out B2B forms).
• The Theory: As the AI chases “lowest cost” results to make reports look good, it finds pockets of low-quality users or bots that click everything but buy nothing.

C. Extreme Day-to-Day Volatility This is the most common thread.

• The Symptom: “Yesterday I had a 5.0 ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), today I have 0.4 ROAS with the exact same budget.”
• The Cause: The consensus is that the attribution window and data modeling are struggling with signal loss (iOS updates), causing the AI to overreact to small data sets. If it misses a few conversions one morning, it panics and reshuffles your entire delivery, ruining the rest of the day.

3. What Is Actually Working Now?

The “old way” (micro-targeting audiences, testing 50 interests, duplicating ad sets) is effectively dead. The advertisers who have stabilized their accounts in Jan 2026 are doing the following:

• Creative is the New Targeting: Instead of telling Facebook who to target (e.g., “Golf enthusiasts”), you simply leave the audience “Broad” (no targeting) and let the ad creative do the filtering. If you want to target golfers, you make a video that explicitly calls out golfers. The AI is smart enough to find them based on who watches the video.
• Simplification: Consolidating accounts. Instead of 10 campaigns, use one campaign for sales. This feeds the AI more data, helping it stabilize faster.
• Offline Conversions (CAPI): Since the pixel is missing so much data (due to ad blockers and iOS), advertisers are using tools to feed “offline” server data back to Facebook. This “teaches” the AI which leads were actually good, forcing it to find more of those people instead of bots.
• Testing Velocity: You can no longer sit on a winning ad for 6 months. Brands are testing new hooks and angles weekly to stay ahead of the “Andromeda” fatigue curve.

Summary

The platform isn’t “broken,” but it has mutated. The strategies that worked in early 2025 are now actively harming accounts.