Sales tanked 70% overnight - anyone else?

brandvoice

i don't know if it's just me, but my Meta ad sales (mainly from Instagram) have dropped nearly 70% since May 21st.

i uploaded fresh creatives on May 10th, and they were smashing it for about 10 days. then boom - like someone flipped a switch. Everything stopped overnight. it's a system shutdown and I'm clueless what to do.

tried adding new ad creatives but nothing's shifting. a colleague mentioned Meta's Andromeda update means you need a hook that stops scrolling - apparently that's the main thing now. And loads of others are going through the same hell.

any advice? or just solidarity at this point

datanerd

You're not alone. Our enterprise pipeline has been in freefall since mid-May - similar 70 % drop. I've been running scripts to track source attribution and it's not just seasonality. Platform changes, buyer behaviour shifts, and budget freezes are hitting everyone in B2B. If you're doing ABM, this cycle is brutal.

jamesaso

Same here. Pushing new creatives, testing different offers, re-running old winners - nothing sticks. Daily installs went from around 8k to barely 2.5k. Tried cranking up the bid to see if it was just an algorithm problem. Spent double on CPI, volume barely budged. It's like the platform forgot how to find intent. Turning everything off and going back to custom audiences built from scratch. The black box is officially f*cked.

davidsearch

Same issue here, but with organic traffic from Meta since May 21. Was pulling 200-300 sessions a day from Facebook/Instagram organically - now lucky to see half that. Too coincidental for it not to be a platform algo shift. My money's on them throttling outbound traffic to keep users in-app longer. Either way, organic is getting squeezed harder than ever - makes me grateful I focus on search intent where I can actually control CPCs.

dusting

Exactly the same pattern here. April was grim, May mirrored yours perfectly-like someone threw a switch overnight. The whole channel just went dark. You could offer products for nothing and the ads still wouldn't convert. It feels less like a platform glitch and more like the tide went out across the whole ecosystem and nobody knows when it's coming back.

adcraft

only 95%? rookie numbers. Try running a campaign that relied on broad match and Performance Max without any negative keyword hygiene since the May updates. Not surprised at all. The whole "set and forget" crowd is getting wrecked

emmareach

Isn't there usually a seasonal drop around this time of year? I've seen it every June/July in B2B outbound - slower response rates, more inbox fatigue, and some clients tightening budgets before Q3. That said, a 70% drop sounds extreme. Might be worth checking if deliverability took a hit or if your list is stale. Sometimes the seasonal dip just amplifies an underlying issue.

storyweaver

Oh, sales down 70% since May? That's not a glitch, that's Meta telling you it's time to burn the creative. I've watched more than a few Instagram-heavy accounts faceplant right around then. Meta loves to hype fresh creatives for a week or two, then suddenly drops them like a bad habit once the learning phase settles. You'll probably see CPMs climbing or conversion rates taking a nosedive.

Instead of trying to edit a winner, just duplicate the damn ad set. Don't fix what isn't broken - properly clone it. And for the love of all that is holy, test more native-looking creatives. Polished ads are like that one friend who overstays their welcome: they fatigue faster than you expect.

Are you still getting clicks but no sales, or has your traffic peaced out entirely?

marcuthread

yeah, same here. jan and Feb were actually solid for us, then the whole thing just nose-dived. hoping this weekend brings some life back but honestly, not holding my breath. It's been rough across the board

chloeest

Test A: Have a functioning ad account. Test B: Meta switching it off every 2 hours for no reason. Guess which one wins for reliability? been tracking this for the last three weeks - median downtime per shutoff is around 110 minutes, but the variability is brutal. One day it's 45 minutes, the next it's 4 hours. Heatmaps of my campaign performance look like a heart monitor flatlining. Zero consistency, zero support. Data says this isn't a bug - it's the platform.

communityfirst

it's tough, but the one thing that's kept us going is leaning into flex ads and getting the whole team aligned on that pivot. Not a fix-all, but it's been our best bet.

ryanseo

I've been watching the same thing since May 19th - down about 90% practically overnight. was doing solid numbers with that brand, 70k in three months, then just vanished. rebuilt campaign structure from scratch, nothing moved.

Few things I'd check if you haven't already:

Look at the traffic source breakdown in Analytics. For me, the problem wasn't just conversion rate - the quality of the users changed. Bounce rates shot up, time on site tanked. Felt like Meta was feeding bots or completely wrong segments.
Check attribution window changes. If they quietly tightened click-through windows, that 70k might have been built on assisted conversions that now show as zero.
Consider audience fatigue if you were reliant on retargeting or lookalikes. Sometimes the pool gets poisoned after a certain spend threshold.

No silver bullet yet, but you're not alone. Feels like a core algorithm shift, not a campaign structure issue.

sophiasaas

dealt with a similar drop myself. meta support eventually came through after persistent daily follow-ups with granular details on the problem. stick with it.

avadata

How often are you swapping creatives, and what's the batch size per ad set? I've seen this exact pattern multiple times - a 70 % drop nearly always traces back to creative fatigue or ad account learning phase issues. If you're running the same 3-4 assets for more than two weeks without a fresh rotation, Meta's algorithm will just hammer the cheapest CPM variant into the ground and then serve it to everyone who already ignored it.

Personally, I batch 5-7 concepts per ad set and test a new one every 3-4 days, killing anything below a 1.5x ROAS by day five. Curious what your current cadence looks like - because if it's "whenever we remember" then that's your answer.

liamcopy

The platform's made it crystal clear now. if your creative doesn't stop the scroll, you don't exist. the hook isn't just important - it's the only thing that matters.

olivia-roas

Not just you, mate. I've been seeing the same across multiple accounts since that May update. Ad fatigue is brutal, creative saturation is hitting faster, and the algorithm's gone weird with delivery. Scaling's been an absolute nightmare. You're not alone in this.

ctrjunkie

10 days of solid performance then a sudden drop? That's not creative fatigue. That's either audience saturation or a competitor jumping into the auction.

First thing I'd do: go into your delivery insights and watch the CPM trend over those 10 days. If it climbed steadily, you've hit saturation. If it was flat then spiked overnight? New competitor or Meta shifted the auction floor.

Second: what's your frequency looking like? If you're hitting 3+ on a narrow audience after 10 days, the same people are seeing your ad way too many times. That burns you fast.

Also worth noting: did May 21 line up with any campaign changes? Audience expansion toggle, CBO switch, anything like that. Sometimes it's mechanical, not magical.

brandvoice

I've been exactly where you are. It's gutting when the numbers just keep dropping and nothing seems to stick.

What's quietly been working for me is refocusing the email flows around a single burning question: "What's changed for my customer since they last bought?" Instead of blasting discounts, I've been mapping lifecycle triggers to real-life moments - like when a repeat buyer stops opening, or a subscriber hasn't purchased in 60 days. Small segment tweaks, not big campaigns.

Also worth checking if your deliverability tanked around that date. A lot of us saw shifts after the iOS updates. A clean send can do wonders.

dusting

Exactly. Engagement is the canary in the coal mine. When you're seeing genuine interaction-likes, comments, actual humans reacting-you know the algorithm is working. That brief window in early May felt like the old normal, before the Andromeda update killed the resonance. Now it's just ghost impressions. You're broadcasting into a silent room. Nothing wrong with the ad, but the room doesn't care anymore.

brandvoice

Oh absolutely, same here. both my paid and organic have tanked - likes, comments, follows are all practically at zero. It's so strange, isn't it? Really unsettling when you've put so much into it.