Facebook Messaging Campaign Errors: What Can You Do?

[Post updated 4th August 2025]

In December 2020, we reported that users Facebook advertisers in Europe running Messaging Campaigns are likely to have spotted that their ads have been paused with an error message popping up:

“Optimization Unavailable: The Conversations optimization is not available right now for messaging campaigns in Europe. To fix this, please select a different optimization. (#2446669)”

“Optimisation unavailable: The Conversations optimisation is not currently available for messaging campaigns that target Europe. To continue with this optimisation, remove European locations or select a different optimisation. (#2446670)”

Discrepancies of “optimisation” spellings aside, this error message was a major cause of concern for advertisers at the beginning of December 2020, and is still an ongoing issue today – despite it being claimed to only be “temporary” at the time!

At Bronco, we’re running messaging campaigns with the aim to start conversations that can help advertisers better reach their customers on a personal level for a number of clients, meaning that we’ve had to find a solution to allow these Facebook ads campaigns to continue to run.

Read more: 6 Common Facebook Ad Mistakes Beginners Make & How To Fix Them

The reasoning behind this (“temporary”) update is that new privacy rules have been implemented on ads delivered to and from Europe through GDPR. If you’re currently running Facebook ads in Europe or targeting Europe, you will need to check over your ads and audiences to check what has and hasn’t been affected.

What Changed With Messaging Ad Campaigns?

Back in 2020, advertisers in Europe were impacted by the error:

“Optimization Unavailable: The Conversations optimization is not available right now for messaging campaigns that target Europe. To fix this, please select a different optimization. (#2446670)”

This issue was caused by new privacy rules and GDPR limitations on message tracking, which made features like Conversations optimization, custom audiences built from message senders, and messaging metrics unavailable for European locations.

Read more: Does the 20% Text Rule Still Apply on Facebook Ads?

However, click-to-message Facebook ads are predicted to take centre stage in 2025, as Meta continues to evolve its platforms toward seamless, in-app experiences. These “conversational ads” allow users to move directly from seeing an ad to starting a conversation on Messenger or WhatsApp, without needing to visit a website at all.

The goal is to keep customers engaged within the platform (sound familiar? Check out our post about Google’s AI mode), reduce friction, and drive faster, more personalised conversions. For businesses, it’s an opportunity to humanise the sales process and move leads down the funnel in real time.

Read more: Meta’s Auto-Enabled Features (Why Advertisers Need Regular Audits to Stay in Control)

This shift reflects Meta’s focus on simplifying the conversion journey, especially for mobile-first users. With more people preferring to message a business rather than fill out a form or navigate a website, expect to see advanced tools rolling out, from better product catalogues and automated FAQs to in-message payments and AI-powered chat assistants.

But if these types of messaging ads are going to take over, how can we in Europe, where simple message tracking is blocked and optimisation options are limited, work around this?

Read more: 5 Facebook Retargeting Audiences You Should Try

What Still Doesn’t Work

There are a number of features that advertisers who are in or who are targeting Europe cannot currently use. These include:

• Messaging campaigns cannot use the old Conversations optimization or “Leads” optimisation for messages like they used to.
• Historical messaging metrics like Messaging Conversations Started, Cost per Messaging Connection, and new Messaging Connection metrics no longer appear in reporting (though existing historical data remained available).

This continues into late 2025. Any messaging campaigns that target European locations must use alternative optimization goal strategies or methods of tracking.

Read more: How To Recover Deleted Facebook Ads in Meta Ad Manager

What Still Works (with Tweaks)

The big question is: can advertisers in Europe still run messaging campaigns?

The short answer is: yes!

If messaging campaigns are crucial to your business, but you’ve realised that you can no longer complete the ad with the “Conversations” optimisation and the “Messaging” objective that you used to use, don’t worry – we have some solutions! These may need testing to see which works best for your specific campaign, but we have one that even gives us something close to the results you’re searching for!

The Lead Generation Messenger Hack

This is our favourite one – and apparently very few marketers know about this little hack! 

One major limitation is that, in the EU, Meta is no longer allowed to track Messenger conversions directly due to GDPR. Even if you’re receiving messages through your ads, Ads Manager won’t display that activity if your campaign’s goal is set to Messenger conversations. You could technically optimise for link clicks instead, but that doesn’t truly solve the problem as not everyone who clicks will end up sending a message, and there’s no way to track that drop-off. This disconnect can make messaging campaigns look like they’re underperforming, even when they’re actually generating leads in the background.

So while click-to-message ads may dominate globally, here in Europe, advertisers still face serious limitations when it comes to tracking and optimising performance.

Below we have three options that will allow you to drive customers to Messenger (or WhatsApp) using traffic, engagement or sales campaign objective, but this one is magic: it lets you track how many conversations have come via your Facebook ads, despite Facebook no longer displaying these results as normal!

Instead of using the Messenger conversion objective, we set up a Leads campaign that triggered a conversation in Messenger using pre-set questions. This allowed users to answer a few qualifying questions, while still enabling someone from the team to jump in and continue the conversation manually.

Initially, these Messenger-based leads showed up directly in Ads Manager, but that’s recently changed. You now have to track them through Meta’s Leads Centre, which adds a bit of friction, but at least restores some visibility.

Here’s how you do it:

How to Set Up a Lead Generation Campaign with Messenger in Meta Ads Manager (Step-by-Step)

1. Go to Meta Ads Manager and click Create to start a new campaign.
2. Choose the Lead objective and choose to set up a manual leads campaign.
3. Under Conversion Location in the ad set, select Messenger.
4. Choose Messenger as the platform.
5. This will set “Maximise number of leads” as the default performance goal.
6. ​In the ad, create a message template.
7. Create a Custom Message Template:
   • Add a welcome message and your series of questions.
   • You can include multiple-choice or open-ended responses.
   • Enable notifications for your team to be alerted when someone replies.
8. At the Ad level, create your visual and ad copy as usual.
9. Once published, the responses wiill come through to your Messenger inbox as usual, but here’s the important part: you can monitor lead responses in Meta’s Leads Centre (found in the business sidebar menu) – and that will give you the total number of conversations, plus you can manage which stage they’ve got to through your automated chat!

And here are the three updated best practices for running Facebook Messenger ads in Europe – but these won’t show you everything the above hack does!

Option 1 – Use a Traffic Objective Driving to Messenger

Set the campaign objective to Traffic. In the ad set, select Mesaage Destinations as the conversion location and choose Maximise number of conversations as the performance goal. You can still drive users into a message template with “Send Message” as your call‑to‑action.

This is, of course, still a limited way to run Facebook messaging campaigns as you’re not able to track anything more specific than clicks, and the associated metrics such as cost per click (CPC) and click through rate (CTR). I do believe, however, that as Meta allows us to select “maximise number of conversations” as the performance goal using this objective, they are using the conversations data in their back end but are just not allowed to display this to us. This means it’s probably the more effective way of gaining more conversations, rather than the below option, which will likely drive users more inclined to engage.

Option 2 – Use the Engagement Objective with Message Destinations Location

Set your campaign objective to Engagement but change the Conversion Location in your ad set to Message Destinations. Your performance goal here will be set by default to “maximise number of conversions”. This still allows users to click through to Messenger but tracks engagements instead of message conversions. 

Option 3 – Use the Sales Objective with Message Destinations Location

This is the same as the above options, but starts with the campaign objective as Sales, then change the Conversion Location in your ad set to Message Destinations. Again, you won’t have specific numbers of message responses to track, but you’ll at least be able to get people to click to message.

Why This Happens: Root Cause and Technical Issue

• Meta’s algorithm must comply with new privacy rules in Europe, restricting messaging campaign options and reporting.
• The root cause (#2446670) is tied to GDPR’s ban on certain types of tracking in message-based conversions.
• Even though the ad account may appear active and daily budget, payment methods, and account spending limit are intact, the optimization unavailable warning prohibits messaging conversion metrics.
• This causes zero conversions for messaging campaigns, poor CTR and link click rates, and difficulty measuring ad effectiveness.

Common Reasons Advertisers See These Errors

• Targeting European locations within the campaign.
• Using a new ad set or new post rather than promoting an existing asset.
• Old ads with the optimization goal to Conversations or Leads within messaging campaigns.
• Meta used to allow message-based campaigns to track and report directly, but these options were deprecated due to privacy risk and data transfer constraints.

Measuring Effectiveness Without Messaging Metrics

Although message-based metrics are gone, you can still track campaign performance via:

• Link clicks and CTR
• CPC and cost per click
• Delivery metrics via Ad Copy performance and bid cap effectiveness
• Click-through to landing page engagement or Leads forms
• Alternate tracking via CRM, form completions, or attributed conversions

These aren’t perfect, but they help paint a picture of ad performance while workarounds are explored.

Read more: How to Maximise Your Facebook Ads ROI

What to Do Next: Step‑by‑Step Best Practices

1. Review your existing Facebook ads account for any paused campaigns due to optimization errors.
2. Use the Traffic, Engagement or Sales objective to run new messaging‑style ads.
3. Optionally try the Lead Generation messaging hack above which gives you access to more metrics such as number of conversations (via Leads centre).
4. Track link engagement, CTR, CPC, and any indirect conversions.
5. Ensure ad copy and product feeds or lead flows are properly formatted with required fields.
6. Monitor for suspicious activity or billing issues and contact Facebook support if error persists.
7. Educate clients that this is a technical glitch, not a ban, and it is caused by new ad policies and privacy limitations.

Read more: How to run Facebook Ads with Custom Pixel Conversions for Multi-Step Lead Collection

Why These Workarounds Matter

• They preserve the ability to start conversations with potential customers when messaging campaigns were your main method.
• They offer better results than stopping campaigns entirely or switching to less effective objectives.
• The lead generation workaround provides a first step alternative that bypasses direct optimisation restrictions.
• It helps maintain ad account health and avoids resetting performance with a brand-new ad account or campaign.

Read more: Getting the Most out of Your Facebook Ad Campaigns

Issue	Why It Happens	Workaround
Conversations Optimization Unavailable (#2446670)	Privacy / GDPR rules block messaging conversion tracking in Europe	Use Messaging objective with Link Clicks / Traffic campaigns or promote existing posts
Messaging Metrics Disabled	Meta removed message-based outcomes due to regulation	Track CTR, link clicks, CPC, view-throughs, CRM data
Zero Conversions in Ads Manager	Optimization goal invalid under new rules	Switch objective; use lead generation hack to see number of conversations.

Messaging campaigns can still be effective in 2025, they may even dominate, even with conversations optimization blocked in Europe. Use strategic workaround techniques like Link Click tracking or Lead Generation to drive to Messenger.

Let us know if you’re experiencing persistent account error messages, unexpected campaign pauses, or technical glitches. We’re happy to help audit your account, review ad objectives, or test these alternative solutions in Meta Ads Manager.

Read more: How to Create Facebook Ad Copy That Sells

If you’re feeling stuck, we can walk through your campaign objective, optimization goal, ad copy, and help you test whether the lead generation hack works for your specific ad campaigns. Get in touch with Bronco, your Yorkshire based digital agency, today.