How to Pause Instagram Ad

Need to temporarily stop your Instagram ad without losing all of your hard work and engagement? Pausing your campaign is the best way to do just that. This article gives you simple, step-by-step instructions for pausing ads directly in the Instagram app and through the more powerful Meta Ads Manager, so you can manage your budget and strategy with confidence.

Why Pause an Instagram Ad Instead of Deleting It?

Hitting the pause button on an ad campaign might feel like you're slamming on the brakes, but it's often the smartest strategic move you can make. It gives you control, flexibility, and preserves all the assets you worked hard to build. Deleting an ad, on the other hand, is a permanent action with consequences.

Think of it like this: pausing is like putting a bookmark in a book, while deleting is like throwing the book away. Here’s why pausing is almost always the better choice:

Preserve Your Data: A paused ad keeps all of its performance history. You can still analyze everything - reach, impressions, click-through rate, cost per result, and more. This data is invaluable for learning what works and what doesn't, allowing you to optimize future campaigns. Deleting an ad erases this data from your main dashboard view permanently.
Keep Your Social Proof: Every like, comment, share, and save your ad received is a form of social proof that increases its credibility. Pausing an ad preserves all of this precious engagement. If you decide to run the ad again, you'll restart with that "proof" already intact, which can significantly boost its performance. Deleting your ad wipes all of that away for good.
Easy Reactivation: Business conditions change. A product comes back in stock, a seasonal promotion starts again, or your budget gets a refresh. With a paused ad, you can reactivate it with a single click. Restarting means it goes back into circulation without you having to rebuild the entire campaign from scratch, from the creative and copy to the audience targeting.
Perfect for Testing: Pausing is an essential tool for A/B testing. If you're running multiple ad sets or creatives, you can pause underperforming ones to reallocate your budget to the winners. This gives you the control to actively manage your campaigns and maximize your return on ad spend (ROAS) without starting over every time you want to make an adjustment.

Essentially, pause ads when you want to take a temporary break to manage budgets, review performance, react to inventory changes, or just regroup your strategy. Only delete an ad if it was created in error, contains outdated information you can't edit, or if you are absolutely certain you will never, ever use it or its data again.

Before You Pause: A Quick Pre-Flight Check

Stopping an ad is simple, but a little bit of planning can prevent unexpected hiccups with your campaign's performance or billing. Before you hit the pause button, take a moment to consider these three factors.

1. Respect the Learning Phase

When you first launch an ad, Meta's delivery system enters a "learning phase." During this period, it's busy showing your ad to different types of people within your target audience to learn who is most likely to take the action you want (e.g., click a link, make a purchase). This phase typically requires about 50 desired outcomes (like 50 purchases) within a seven-day period to complete.

Pausing an ad for more than a few days, especially one still in the learning phase, can cause it to reset. When you unpause it, the algorithm essentially has to start learning all over again. This can lead to unstable performance and costs while the system recalibrates. If your ad is performing well and is still in its learning phase, consider reducing the budget instead of pausing it completely to maintain its momentum.

2. Understand the Billing Cycle

Pausing an ad stops future spending, but it doesn't erase any costs that have already been incurred. Meta bills advertisers in two main ways:

When You Hit Your Billing Threshold: This is a set amount of ad spend. When you first start, your threshold might be low, like $25. As you spend and pay successfully, Meta increases this limit. You’ll be charged each time you hit your current threshold.
On Your Monthly Bill Date: You're also charged for any remaining costs at the end of each month, regardless of your threshold.

When you pause your ad, you will still receive a bill for any clicks, impressions, and engagement that occurred before you stopped it. Don't be surprised to see a charge from Meta after pausing, it's simply settling the bill for the services already delivered.

3. Keep an Eye on Momentum

Is your ad a top performer? If your campaign is hitting its key performance indicators (KPIs) and driving great results, an outright pause might disrupt its rhythm. A high-performing ad has found its groove with the algorithm. Pausing it can be like stopping a star player mid-game. When you restart, it may take time for the campaign to regain its effectiveness. In these situations, a better strategy might be to lower the campaign budget. This keeps the ad active and maintains its relationship with the algorithm while still reducing your spend.

Method 1: How to Pause an Instagram Ad from the Mobile App

If you created your ad on the go by boosting a post directly within the Instagram app, you can pause it just as easily. This method is quick and perfect for managing simpler promotions without needing to log onto a computer.

Here’s how to do it step-by-step:

Go to Your Instagram Profile: Open the Instagram app and tap your profile picture in the bottom-right corner to navigate to your profile page.
Open Your Ad Tools: Below your bio, you should see several buttons. Tap on Ad Tools (sometimes this may be labeled "Promotions"). This will take you to your ad management hub within the app.
Find Your Active Ad: You'll see a list of your past and current promotions under "Manage." Locate the active ad you want to stop. It will typically have a status like "Active" or "Running" displayed.
Pause the Promotion: Tap on the active ad to view its performance details. On this screen, look for a button labeled Pause Promotion or a toggle switch next to its status. Tapping this will immediately pause your ad, stopping it from being shown to more people.

That’s it! Your ad is now paused. Remember, this method works best for boosted posts. For more complex campaigns with multiple ad sets and target audiences, Meta Ads Manager offers much more granular control.

Method 2: How to Pause an Instagram Ad Using Meta Ads Manager

For anyone running serious campaigns, Meta Ads Manager is your command center. It provides the deep control needed to manage multiple ad variations, different audiences, and complex budget strategies. Pausing ads here is the industry-standard method, and it lets you stop activity at the Campaign, Ad Set, or Ad level.

Accessing Ads Manager

The easiest way to use Ads Manager is on a desktop computer. Navigate to https://business.facebook.com/adsmanager. You can also download the Meta Ads Manager mobile app, which offers a powerful interface for managing campaigns on your phone.

Pausing at Different Levels: An Overview

Before pausing, it's important to understand Meta's campaign structure:

Campaign: The top level, where you set your main advertising objective (e.g., traffic, conversions, brand awareness).
Ad Set: Sits within a campaign. This is where you define your audience, budget, schedule, and placements (e.g., Instagram feed, Stories).
Ad: Sits within an Ad Set. This is the actual creative - the image, video, and text that people see.

Deciding which level to pause depends on your goal:

Pause a Campaign to stop everything within it (all ad sets and ads). Use this when your overall promotion has ended or your primary objective has changed.
Pause an Ad Set to stop a specific audience or budget allocation from running. This is perfect for A/B testing - for instance, if your "Lookalike Audience" ad set is outperforming your "Interest-Based Audience" ad set, you can pause the weaker one.
Pause an Ad to stop a single creative variation. Use this when one ad creative isn't resonating with your audience, but other ads in the same ad set are doing well.

Step-by-Step Guide to Pausing an Ad in Ads Manager

The process is incredibly simple and much the same no matter what level you're pausing:

Navigate to the Correct Tab: In Ads Manager, you'll see tabs at the top of your dashboard for Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads. Click the tab corresponding to what you want to pause.
Select the Item: Scroll through the list to find the specific campaign, ad set, or ad you want to stop. You can use the search bar to find it quickly if you have many running.
Use the Toggle Switch: To the left of the item's name is a blue toggle switch. Active items have a blue switch. Click this toggle to turn it off. It will turn grey, and your ad will be paused immediately.
Confirm the Status: Check the "Delivery" column for that item. After you click the toggle, the status should change from "Active" to "Off" or "Inactive." You're all set!

What Happens After You Pause an Instagram Ad?

Once you've clicked that pause button, here’s exactly what to expect:

Your ad stops running immediately. It will no longer be served on Instagram, and it will stop accumulating impressions, clicks, or other results.
Your spending freezes. The remaining daily or lifetime budget is preserved and will be available if you decide to restart the campaign later.
All engagement and data are saved. Every like, comment, share, and performance metric remains attached to your ad. You can access and analyze its historical data in Ads Manager anytime.
Your ad may need re-approval when reactivated. When you unpause an ad, it might go through Meta's ad review process again. This is usually very fast, especially if no changes were made. However, if you edit a paused ad (e.g., change the text or image), it will definitely trigger a full review when you restart it.

How to Restart a Paused Instagram Ad

Ready to get your campaign rolling again? Reactivating a paused ad is just as straightforward as pausing it.

Simply navigate back to the same menu where you paused it - either in the Instagram app's Ad Tools menu or within Meta Ads Manager at the appropriate Campaign, Ad Set, or Ad level.

Find the inactive item and look for the grey toggle switch. Click it to turn it back on. The switch will turn blue, and the ad's status in the "Delivery" column will change to "Processing," then likely "In Review." Once Meta approves it (which is typically quick), it will become "Active" and begin spending your budget again.

Final Thoughts

Pausing an Instagram ad is a simple yet powerful tactic for maintaining control over your ad spend and strategy. Whether you're making a quick adjustment in the mobile app or fine-tuning a complex campaign in Ads Manager, stopping an ad allows you to regroup and refine your approach without sacrificing the valuable engagement and data you've already collected.

We know that managing ad performance can feel like a constant battle of checking dashboards and pulling reports. It's why we built Graphed to be your AI data analyst. Instead of logging into Ads Manager daily to figure out what to pause, connect your ad accounts once and just ask plain-English questions. You can ask things like, "Which of my Instagram campaigns have the worst CPC this month?" or "Show me ROAS for my active ad sets," and get an instant, real-time dashboard. Graphed helps you make smarter decisions, faster, so you know exactly which ads need your attention without spending hours digging for insights.