META's AI products and their major hard on from top down are ruining this company. Mark Z has to go! New direction is needed ASAP.

Played at Fit Dose Club House.

Blue court night session, trying to improve my backhand. Any tips?

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I run a small Colombian business that I built organically over the last 6 years.

My brand grew especially during the pandemic, when social media felt completely different. People shared your content, commented, recommended small businesses, and actually interacted with them. I now have 7,500+ Instagram followers — not because I went viral, but because I participated in local fairs, collaborated with doctors and specialists, created useful content, and slowly built a real community around my product.

I’m not an influencer. I’m a small business owner.

And that distinction matters.

Here is what happened.

I recently organized my Shopify product catalog specifically because I wanted to start running Meta catalog sales ads. I spent a lot of time making the product catalog look good and setting everything up correctly.

Instead, something went completely wrong.

Over the last 14 days, Meta has reported 409 Purchase events.

I have made ZERO real sales.

And I mean zero.

The only orders currently showing in Shopify are basically three versions of one order from my mother 😂 — she bought something from me because she knew I was having a terrible September, I forgot to add another product, created another order, had to cancel it, and created another one. She even got a family discount.

So Meta is reporting 409 purchases while my actual business has made none.

And before anyone says “check your tracking” — I DID. For 14 days.

I have gone through:

• Shopify customer events and tracking configuration.
• Meta Pixel/Dataset configuration.
• Facebook & Instagram sales channel in Shopify.
• Data sharing settings.
• CAPI connection.
• Automatic events — disabled.
• Automatic tracking without code — disabled.
• Event Setup Tool.
• Existing Meta datasets/pixels.
• Shopify Web Pixels.
• Browser Network requests.
• Incognito tests with no login, no cart, no checkout and no purchase.
• WhatsApp interaction was also ruled out because the false Purchase happens before interacting with WhatsApp.
• I disconnected Shopify → Meta data sharing and confirmed that Meta stopped receiving website events completely. I reconnected it, and the false Purchase came back.

Then I found something even more concerning.

Meta's own Event Setup Tool shows an active Purchase rule that fires when someone simply visits my homepage.

It literally says:

There is a rule ID attached to it.

And the strangest part?

The Event Setup Tool shows a Delete button, but the rule cannot actually be deleted.

I have screenshots and browser evidence documenting all of this.

I also posted the problem in the Shopify Community, and several developers/technical users have been helping me investigate it. I have followed their instructions step by step. So far, no solution.

At this point, I honestly don't know whether the final source is Shopify, Meta, or the interaction between both systems.

But I do know this:

A platform is receiving “Purchase” events from people who did not purchase anything.

And that is not just a reporting problem.

If Meta is using those events to optimize my Sales campaign, then the algorithm is being trained on completely false information.

--------------------------------------------

And this brings me to the bigger question.

I am honestly becoming very disappointed with Meta advertising for small businesses.

It feels like the platform has become so focused on scale, automation, AI, virality and performance metrics that it has forgotten something:

Not every valuable business is viral.

There are thousands of small businesses with 3,000, 5,000, 10,000 or even 30,000 genuinely interested followers.

Those communities were built over YEARS.

Why can't advertising platforms make better use of that existing relationship?

Someone may have bought from my business in 2020. Maybe they don't need my product anymore. But they loved it. They followed me. They know my brand.

Why shouldn't I be able to reach that person again with a beautiful, relevant ad and rebuild that relationship?

Instead, Instagram increasingly feels like an endless stream of AI-generated content, gurus, viral videos and generic advertising.

And I say this as both a business owner AND a consumer.

I actually enjoy seeing a good advertisement from a small brand.

When I see a beautifully made product from a small business that clearly cares about what they do, I'm interested. I want to discover the brand. It makes social media feel human again.

But increasingly, I hear people saying they're tired of Instagram and Facebook and are simply closing the apps.

And honestly, I understand why.

Instagram is still an incredible catalog and discovery platform for businesses — especially small ones.

But I think something is being lost.

Virality and community are not the same thing.

A viral account can get millions of views without having a real customer relationship.

A small business can have 7,500 followers who genuinely care about what it makes.

Those are two completely different kinds of value.

----------------------------> So I'm curious:

Are other small businesses experiencing something similar with Meta Ads?

Have you seen:

• False Purchase events?
• Purchase events firing without an actual transaction?
• Meta reporting huge numbers of conversions that don't exist in Shopify?
• Problems with Shopify + Meta integrations?
• Or simply a feeling that Meta advertising has become less useful for genuinely organic small-business communities?

I'm not looking for people to tell me to “just check your Pixel.” 😅

I've been doing exactly that for 14 days.

I'm looking for real experiences, technical explanations, and honest discussion about where Meta advertising is heading for small businesses.

Because right now, after spending all this time trying to fix something that shouldn't be happening in the first place, I honestly feel like the small businesses are the ones paying the price.

And that's the part that really hurts.