Two different things get reported as “a rule didn't run”, and they need opposite fixes:

**It did not execute.** Nothing happened at the scheduled time.

**It executed and changed nothing.** It ran, evaluated, and decided no action was warranted — which is usually correct behaviour.

Telling them apart takes about ten seconds.

[Watch the walkthrough](https://kb.trackiq.com/kb-assets/kbvideo-rule-didnt-run-explainer-d835c602.mp4)

*Prefer to watch? Sixty-nine seconds on telling the two problems apart in ten seconds.*

## **Step 1: read Last run**

![Last run and Next run sit on every rule row](/kb-assets/shot-auto-probe-d187cc.png)

**Automations → Rules.** Find the rule and read **Last run** and **Next run**.

| What you see | Which problem you have |
|---|---|
| Last run is recent | it **ran** — go to step 2 |
| Last run is old or empty | it **did not run** — go to step 3 |
| Next run is empty | it is not scheduled — step 3 |

Do this before anything else. Half of these reports end here, because the rule ran perfectly and simply had nothing to do.

## **Step 2: it ran but changed nothing**

Open the **Change log** and filter to the rule. No rows for that run means it evaluated and found nothing meeting its conditions.

**That is usually the right answer.** A trim-waste rule with nothing to trim is a rule doing its job on a good day.

It becomes a problem when it is *always* silent. Three causes, in order of likelihood:

**Thresholds too strict.** *“ACoS over 40% **and** clicks ≥ 50 **and** zero orders”* may match nothing in your account. Loosen one clause at a time, not all three.

**The look-back window is too short to accumulate evidence.** A 7-day window on a low-volume target may never reach the click threshold. Widen the window before loosening the threshold — it is the safer change.

**The group is wrong.** Check the rule group's **campaign count**, and check the campaigns in it are the ones you meant. A rule pointed at a group of six quiet campaigns will be quiet. See **Rule Groups**.

## **Step 3: it did not execute**

Work down this list.

**Is the rule ACTIVE?** The status column says so. A rule that is not active is not scheduled.

**Is Next run set?** An empty Next run means nothing is queued.

**Has the connection expired?** A rule needs live advertising data to evaluate. If the **ADS** source stopped syncing, the rule has nothing current to judge. Check **Settings → Connections** — the symptom is a last-synced time that stops advancing, with no error. See **Fixing a Broken or Expired Amazon Connection**.

That third one is the cause people find last and should check first, because it explains a rule going quiet on a date rather than gradually.

**Does the group still contain campaigns?** A group emptied by campaign archiving leaves the rule with nothing to act on.

**Did somebody change it?** Rules are account-level. A colleague can pause one.

## **The case that looks like a failure and is not**

**A rule that paused everything it could pause has nothing left to do.**

A pause rule that fired on twenty targets last week and nothing this week is not broken — it already dealt with them. Paused entities vanish from the default table view, so the account can look untouched.

Check the Change log for **last week** rather than yesterday before concluding anything.

## **When a rule runs but the change does not stick**

Rare, and it points outward rather than inward.

**Something else changed it back.** Two rules on the same group will fight — the Change log shows a bid moving up on one day and down the next. Fix by scoping to different groups, or using one recipe that adjusts in both directions. See **Targeting Rules**.

**Somebody changed it by hand**, in TrackIQ or in Amazon's console. Manual changes do not appear in the Change log, so a change with no matching row was made by a person.

**Amazon rejected it.** A bid below Amazon's minimum, or a campaign archived at Amazon's end, cannot be set.

## **The check that prevents most of this**

**Read the Change log the day after switching on a new rule.**

Volume, direction, repetition. A rule that has done something visible and sensible on day one is a rule you can leave alone — and if it did nothing, you find out immediately rather than in a month.

See [**The Change Log**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/the-change-log) and [**Guardrails to Set Before You Automate Anything**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/guardrails-before-you-automate).

## **Related**

- [**Scheduling: Last Run, Next Run and Run History**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/rule-scheduling-and-run-history) — last run, next run and history.
- [**Turning Brand Sync On and Off**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/turning-brand-sync-on-and-off) — a rule scoped to an inactive brand finds nothing.