Sometimes, you just need to hit pause on your Meta ads.
Maybe you're rethinking your strategy, trying to save your budget, or need a break. Maybe your ads were set up by someone who is no longer with the business and you’ve been left with them running without knowing much about the platform to be able to control or report on them. Whatever the reason, pausing ads is super easy—and it can be a smart way to stay in control of your campaigns.
Let’s break it down step by step.
Pausing your ads can help you rethink things like your budget or targeting without losing all of your work.
Sometimes it is as simple as wanting a seasonal message to only run at certain times of year, despite running your overarching campaign all year.
Other times you might want to pause entire ad sets or campaigns. You may have encountered an issue with your ads, such as an error on them, and need to buy yourself some time to have corrected assets made or copy written before you can switch them over. In this situation, hitting pause will prevent the incorrect information being shared before you are ready to change them.
In other situations, you may just not want your ads to run for a period of time. Pausing them is one option for how to approach this, and stops you needing to launch a new campaign when you are ready to go again.
Pausing rather than ending your campaign stops your ads from running (and costing you money) until you’re ready to turn them back on.
First, log in to your Facebook account.
Check the column on the left hand side of the screen for ‘Ads Manager’ and click here when you find it.
If you can’t see it, you can also try googling ‘Meta Ads Manager’ and clicking the top result. This should lead you to a page with a button that says ‘Go to Ads Manager’. Click this to access it.
Boom—you’re in! Here, you can manage all your campaigns.
Once you’re in Ads Manager, head to the "Campaigns" tab to see all your active campaigns.
If you can’t see any campaigns running, click the dropdown next to the word ‘Campaigns’ in the top left. Make sure you have your business ad account selected here, rather than your personal account.
Once you are in the Campaigns tab, you should see some campaigns listed. Campaigns that are toggled ‘Off’ in the ‘Off/On’ column, or that say ‘Completed’ in the ‘Delivery’ column, are not running.
Campaigns that are toggled ‘On’ in the ‘Off/On’ column and say ‘Active’ in the ‘Delivery’ column are currently running.
Make sure you know what it is that you want to pause - all of your ads entirely, ads that run to certain audiences, or certain ads that display particular messages.
Next to the ad, ad set, or campaign, you’ll see a toggle switch. Just flip it off, and the element you have selected will stop running.
Heads Up: Pausing a whole campaign pauses everything under it—ads and ad sets included.
Meta might ask, “Are you sure?” This is your chance to double-check you’re pausing the right thing. Once you confirm, your ad will stop running instantly.
It’s a good idea at this point to give everything a quick once-over and ensure you have selected what you intended to. If you meant to turn off just one ad, can you see that other elements are still toggled on? If you meant to turn everything off, does anything still appear to be running?
Paused ads aren’t gone—they’re just sleeping. You can check back anytime to see how they’re doing and turn them back on when you’re ready.
Pausing Meta ads isn’t just about taking a break; it can be a smart move when you need to rethink your strategy, or a way to buy yourself some time and space in a pinch. Whether you’re tweaking your budget, refining your audience, or just waiting for the right time, pausing keeps you in control.
Need help with Facebook and Instagram advertising? We love helping businesses with their paid social media, so get in touch if you need a second pair of eyes or a new approach.
