Getting Irrelevant Messages from Facebook Ads? Here’s the Fix

If you’re running Facebook Message campaigns, you know they come with their own set of challenges. We’ve previously written about solving “ghost chat” issues, which received great feedback. However, a new, tricky problem has started to pop up.

We’ve been getting feedback from clients asking why they’re receiving messages about products they don’t sell or advertise. For example, a client selling brand-new ‘A’ model cars would get messages asking about second-hand ‘B’ model cars. At first, we thought it might just be a few mistaken clicks or even spam. But as the number of these irrelevant messages grew, especially around September 2025, we noticed a pattern.

We dug in, found the cause, and fixed it. Since we’re sure other business owners are facing the same frustrating issue, especially those navigating the world of digital marketing in Thailand, we wanted to share our solution.

First, Check How Many Irrelevant Messages You’re Actually Getting

Before you start changing your ad settings, take a moment to assess the situation. How many of your incoming chats are completely unrelated to your advertised product?

You can usually see which ad a message came from directly in your inbox. When you reply to these users, you might find that, like in our case, they claim the ad they clicked on was for something else entirely. This is a big clue that your ad is being displayed in a misleading context.

If out of 10 messages, 2 or 3 are completely off-topic, it’s time to act. If you don’t, Meta’s algorithm might start “optimizing” by finding more people who will make the same mistake, wasting your budget and making your campaign inefficient.

In our case, we noticed this issue happened most often with single-image ads. This led us to investigate further.

Next, Investigate in Ads Manager: Find Placements with an Unusually Low Cost Per Message

Head over to your Meta Ads Manager. Go into your Message campaign, select “Breakdowns,” and then choose “By Placement.” We’re going to see where your ads are being shown and which locations are giving you unexpectedly cheap results.

Why break down by placement? Our initial hypothesis was that since the inquiries were for the same product category (cars), our ad was likely appearing on related content, such as car-focused Reels. This made placement the primary suspect.

The Suspicious Culprit: A Placement with a Low Cost Per Message and High Volume

Here’s a look at our actual results. We saw that the “Ads on Facebook Reels” placement had a cost per message in the tens of baht, while all other placements were in the hundreds. While it wasn’t the highest volume, it was significant enough to cause the confusion we were seeing.

“Ads on Facebook Reels” are ads that appear as a small banner at the bottom of a Reel while a user is watching. It’s easy to see how someone watching a video about a ‘B’ model car could see our ad for an ‘A’ model car and mistakenly click, thinking it was related to the video.

The problem was that we were using Advantage+ Placements, which automatically opted our campaign into showing ads on Facebook Reels. This was the source of all the Facebook ads irrelevant messages. So, we decided to turn that specific placement off.

After Turning Off Ads on Facebook Reels: Did It Work?

After disabling the “Ads on Facebook Reels” placement, we monitored the results. The change was immediate and dramatic. The number of irrelevant messages dropped almost to zero.

Our hypothesis was confirmed. The confusing inquiries were a direct result of the “Ads on Facebook Reels” placement. It felt like a bit of detective work, but we found our culprit.

Conclusion: “Ads on Facebook Reels” Can Be a Double-Edged Sword

If you’re getting a lot of Facebook ads irrelevant messages, the quickest fix might be to disable the “Ads on Facebook Reels” placement. (We still recommend checking your own data first, as every campaign is different).

This placement can deliver a very low cost per message, but it seems the user experience (UX) is not yet perfect. It can lead to confusion, causing users to inquire about products you don’t sell and wasting your ad spend. When you face strange issues like this, the best approach is to observe the data, form a logical hypothesis, test your theory, and apply the fix. It’s a key part of running successful digital marketing in Thailand.

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Originally in Thai. Translated to English with the help of Gemini.