Why Your Facebook Ads Aren't Working - And How DMA/DUAA Could Be The Reason

Why Your Facebook Ads Aren't Working In 2025

‍

It's frustrating. Facebook ads that previously worked well are now costing you more money but delivering poorer results.

‍

Whether you're a small business or a charity, you may have seen this happening to you but with no idea why. Has your audience fundamentally changed? Have your ads simply stopped appealing to people? 

‍

The truth is that the silent culprit is more likely to be the result of regulatory changes introduced by the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Data (Use and Access) Act (DUAA), and Meta's response to these new rules which include the strengthening of existing data privacy laws like GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communiucations Regulations (PECR).

‍

What Has Changed for Facebook Ads?

‍

The new rules mean that Meta, which owns Facebook (and Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp, and Threads), is no longer permitted to combine personal data gathered from users across its various platforms to build profiles for advertising purposes, the idea being to erode its dominance so that smaller advertising platforms, which have less access to user data, can better compete with it. At the same time, the rules strengthen existing data privacy law around informed consent, especially when it comes to sensitive classes of personal information.

‍

The result for advertisers on Facebook is smaller audiences and restrictions on data sharing via the Meta Pixel - the tracking code placed on websites to help Meta's advertising platform measure the actions people take when interacting with ads so that it can optimise campaigns and find more people likely to take the actions you want them to.

‍

These changes are particularly acute if Meta assesses your website to be in a category where it's possible (or even likely) that visitor interactions with it could lead to the sharing of sensitive personal information, even if this is only implied and not explicit. For instance, where a visitor to the website of a mental health charity signs up for free 1-2-1 counselling sessions, even if no data from form fields is directly shared with Meta, just the fact that the form is completed and submitted could be seen to indicate a health condition, and so Meta's very thorough technologies will red flag this and automatically apply data sharing restrictions.

‍

In addition, it's harder (and in some cases outright impossible) to build and use retargeting audiences. So, where before you could choose to show ads to people who had previously visited your wesbite or taken certain actions on it, you may no longer be able to.

‍

Meta has implemented these changes in a bid to avoid the risk of prosecution, because with the new rules come big new fines for breaches.

How Cookie Consent Settings Can Kill Your Facebook Ad Results

‍

Given that Meta is eager to prevent the sharing of personal user data without explicit and informed consent, cookie controls on websites have suddenly become more important than ever.

‍

In truth, ever since they first became a requirement, it's fair to say that compliance with them has been patchy. Some website owners ignored the rules altogether, others relied on 'implied consent' with statements such as "By continuing to use our website, you agree to cookies". Others implemented cookie consent banners in a way that meant the appeared only after all the cookie code had loaded and fired, rendering the subsequent cookie choices totally irrelevant.

‍

Because compliance was the responsibility of website owners, tech companies like Meta were happy to let you use their tracking tools provided you agreed to their terms of business, which included a declaration that you were obtaining the appropriate consents.

‍

But no more. Now, if Meta technologies don't detect proper consent signals, data sharing restrictions will automatically be switched on (you can check this in Events Manager - just look at the History tab to see if data restrictions have been turned on by Meta). It's being much more aggressive because the new rules now mean it bears more responsibility for only processing personal data where there is proper informed consent. For Meta, it's about transferring legal risks to website owners.

‍

If your website isn't handling cookie consent the way it should, you could easily be losing 30-50% of your data, if not more, which will significantly impact your ad performance.

‍

How To Test If Cookie Consent Problems Are Affecting You

‍

Start by downloading the Meta Pixel Helper. This is a free Google Chrome extension designed to help you verify and troubleshoot your Meta Pixel implementation. It runs in the background, checking for Meta Pixel code on any webpage you visit. When it finds a Pixel, it shows a small icon that indicates if the Pixel is firing correctly and provides details about the data being sent.

‍

Once you've got the extension, open your website. It should already present you with a cookie banner - if doesn't, that's a problem that needs addressing immediately.

‍

If your website does already have a cookie banner, start by rejecting all cookies. Then click on the Meta Pixel Helper - if the cookie controls have been implemented correctly, it will tell you that there is no Pixel present. Now, change your coookie preferences and make sure advertising/marketing cookies are accepted. Use the Meta Pixel Helper again and you should now see that it says a Pixel is present and what event data is being shared. Until you take an action, it will just say PageView, but if you click a button or submit a form, you should also see additional events listed.

‍

If the Pixel is present even when advertising/marketing cookies have been rejected, this is a sure sign that your website visitors are not giving you informed content to share data. Meta will detect this and apply restrictions to your account without you even realising.

‍

Fixing It Without Breaking the Law: Unlocking Facebook Ads Performance With Cookie Compliance

‍

If you've identified a problem with absent or improper cookie controls on your website, fix it either by:

• Using a Consent Management Platform (CMP): If you don't already have a cookie banner on your site that gives people a genuine opportunity to decide which cookies to accept, if any, then you absolutely MUST see to this. There are lots of options available, some easier to deploy than others, with varying levels of customisation available, and at different costs. Talk to us if you'd like to take advantage of the preferential rates we have as an agency, and we can also install and configure it for you too.
• ‍Check your configuration if you already have a CMP: make sure that your CMP loads before any tracking cookies are set, that consent choices are updated via the cookie banner once a visitor has made their selections, and that their choices are recorded properly with a 'persistent state' cookie consent update cookie. Make sure your cookie banner gives people a genuine, opt-in choice - if you've relied on implied consent in the past (your cookie message reads "Our website uses cookies" with an OK button being the only choice, or "By using our site, you consent to cookies" you'll need to stop this and obtain informed consent. If you're using Google Tag Manager to inject your cookie consent script into your website (the most common method) make sure that the tag used to place your Meta Pixel won't fire unless the visitor's cookie choices explicitoly include advertising/marketing cookies.

‍

How We Know It Matters: We Ran Our Own Test

‍

In July 2025, we launched our own lead generation campaign using Facebook ads to drive traffic to a sign up page on our website.

‍

With cookie controls properly implemented, leads started to flow within half a day.

‍

As an experiment, we removed the cookie controls from the landing page entirely just to try and test how sophisticated Meta's consent signal tools are. Within hours, our ads were barely serving and leads dried-up altogether.

‍

Once we'd added the cookie consent back, the campaign gathered pace within a few hours and it began to generate leads again.

‍

Key Takeaways: How Data Privacy Changes Are Impacting Your Facebook Ads Performance

‍

Regulatory changes designed to level the playing field for advertising platforms so they can compete with the tech titans like Meta, whilst also enhancing privacy laws, have been quietly impacing the performance of your Facebook ads.

‍

1. The DMA and DUAA have caused Meta to impose strict data sharing restrictions.
2. These changes are the most likely cause of underperforming Facebook Ads in cases where resutls were previously acceptable.
3. If Meta puts your website into a category it associates with the risk of sensitive personal data sharing, it will add restrictions.
4. Meta's tools will detect absent or incorrect consent signals from your website and further restrict data sharing via the Meta Pixel.

‍

Want practical, hands-on help diagnosing potential data sharing restrictions? Ask us about our ad compliance healthcheck - we'll crawl your website to see exactly how it handles cookie consent to make sure that tracking scripts are not being executed without users giving informed consent. Remember, a failure to implement proper cookie consent policies also renders your organisation liable to prosecution under GDPR and PECR.

‍

‍