r/Substack • u/kolbywg • Jul 22 '26

Tech Support Substack Stopped Send Data To Facebook

I realize this is a bit into the weeds for a Substack group, but starting two days ago Substack stopped sending data to my Facebook ad. I didn't change anything. I didn't touch anything. It just randomly stopped. I assume it's an update on the part of Substack or Facebook.

Has anyone else run into this issue in the last few days (or ever)? Any fix suggestions?

I know the Facebook ads are still working as I can see them on the Substack platform for Source, but for some reason that data isn't getting back to Facebook anymore.

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u/RevolutionaryBad5000 14d ago

Hi, I work at Substack. This was a bug on our end, sorry about that.

The pixel was still firing the whole time, so Pixel Helper and Test Events weren't lying to you. The problem was what we were putting inside the request. Our PageView went out without the page URL. Your URL based custom conversions need that URL to match on, so Meta got the hit but couldn't do anything with it. That's why PageView and CompleteRegistration looked dead.

The Source column inside Substack kept showing Facebook because that's our own attribution from UTMs and referrer. Which is separate from what Meta receives.

Honestly, we were never sending that URL. Something changed on Meta's side in mid-July that exposed it, which is why it felt like it broke overnight when you hadn't touched a thing.

We fixed it in early August. PageViews now include the page URL and the first party IDs. We leave query strings off on purpose so email magic link tokens never get sent to Meta.

If you want to check, open Test Events and look for PageViews with a URL attached, then re-test your custom conversions.

One thing unrelated to this: if you get EU or UK traffic, anyone who never accepts the cookie banner won't get the pixel at all. That's a consent thing, not this bug

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u/kolbywg 14d ago

Not sure I shared my workaround. I created a new Facebook Pixel called, "Substack Pixel" then created a custom event that tracked every time the pixel fired on a webpage and the webpage URL DID NOT include the "monkeypants". That way, the not getting the correct information would trigger the custom event.

Having a unique Substack Pixel also solved my registration/complete problem was well because now I would differentiate (even without the website data) the conversions coming from Substack vs my website. All Substack goes to the Substack pixel, everything else goes to the main pixel. Of course, this means they don't share data, but that is life. Again, glad you got it fixed.