FB Ads API status , effective_status and the ads actual status

Question

From the ads api doc it says

effective_status enum {ACTIVE, PAUSED, DELETED, PENDING_REVIEW, DISAPPROVED, PREAPPROVED, PENDING_BILLING_INFO, CAMPAIGN_PAUSED, ARCHIVED, ADSET_PAUSED} The effective status of the ad. The status could be effective either because of its own status, or the status of its parent units.

status enum {ACTIVE, PAUSED, DELETED, ARCHIVED} The configured status of the ad. The field returns the same value as 'configured_status', and is the suggested one to use.

BUT, the problem is unless the advertiser actively stops or pauses or deletes an advert or campaign the ad's status is always (as far as I can see in the aforementioned cases) ACTIVE. Am I wrong?

Secondly, does anyone know what the column on the Ads manager interface called "Delivery" is? It has values like "Completed" , "Not Delivering" etc.

Is there any way I can get this information from the API?

Answer 1

The field called 'delivery' in Facebook's UI is not a single field returned by the UI, but is based on examining the status, start/end dates, etc of the ads–you could replicate this yourself by examining the ads and their parent objects.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about "configured and effective status": if an ad was paused, both its effective and configured status should be PAUSED. If, for example, an ad's Ad Set was set to paused, the ad's configured status would remain ACTIVE but its effective status would be ADSET_PAUSED.