Some small businesses and performance advertisers using Meta’s Ad Manager platform were hit with an unexpected glitch last week that caused ad prices to soar over 100X, in one instance.
This resulted in them burning through their daily ad budgets within hours, keeping them from running further campaigns, which cost them potential sales.
Business Insider spoke to ad buyers impacted by this glitch, who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly with Meta on behalf of small businesses and direct-to-consumer brands.
These types of companies are critical advertisers for Meta because they make up the bulk of the platform’s ad revenue.
Tom Brown, founder of agency BRND Labs, said that CPMs — the cost advertisers pay to reach 1,000 people — jumped from $20 to $3,000 for one of his clients. When Brown attempted to turn off the ad campaigns, Meta’s tools continued to keep spending money, he said.
Andrew Faris, founder of agency AJF Growth, said that the glitch caused ad prices to spike 10X for two-and-a-half hours on the evening of February 14.
The ad buyers said they did not know what caused Meta’s glitch. Meta declined to comment.
Ad buyers are still out the money that was erroneously spent.
Milo McMahon, founder of agency Outdoor e-commerce, said he’s seeking $2,500 in refunds for one of his clients. The refund process typically takes one to two months, Faris said.
And there’s no guarantee ad buyers will ever get the full amount they’ve lost. After a glitch in April 2023, BRND Labs’ clients overspent by $13,000 in one hour, but only got about $10,000 back three months later.
Advertisers continue to battle Meta glitches
The overspending glitch is the latest in many issues advertisers have had with Meta’s ad tools breaking.
There have been a few similar overspending glitches over the past year, according to the ad buyers.
Glitches on Meta’s Ad Manager over the past 12 months are “so much worse than they used to be,” Brown from BRND Labs said. He estimated that he spends five to 10 hours a month per client working on Meta glitches.
“I’m certainly getting to a point where you almost just bake it into your costs — you expect this to happen once every couple of months,” he said.
Besides overspending on budgets, Ad Manager’s recent glitches include problems uploading and editing campaigns, said Duane Brown, CEO and head of strategy at agency Take Some Risk.
“If I look at where we spend most of our money across four platforms — which is Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta — Meta would be the one who’s the most dysfunctional,” he said.
These ad buyers are also irritated at the lack of communication from Meta about these issues.
“For Meta to have agencies facilitating spend on their platform, they need to do a far better job communicating with us when these glitches happen,” McMahon from Outdoor e-commerce said.
Still, Meta’s strong ad performance at driving sales and traffic is worth the hassle of glitches, said AJF Growth’s Faris.
“Meta is by far the most effective advertising tool,” he said. “It is an incredible machine. I tend to be willing to roll with the punches.”
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