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Facebook Ad Restrictions 101: All You Need To Know
Facebook advertising has proven to be an effective tool for eCommerce businesses. What’s more, through retargeting tactics merchants can get higher conversion rates and better engagement. All this sounds great, but it is important to note that setting up and running a truly successful campaign has always been a challenge.
Imagine that you finally decided to invest in effective Facebook advertising. You spent time & resources crafting perfect ads and launched them – only to find that your account is restricted. The ads aren’t running and it doesn’t look like you can fix anything, so all your effort goes to waste. Does all that sound like your worst nightmare?
Facebook ad restrictions is a problem that both newbies and skilled advertisers face. In the recent years the policies have gotten stricter. It can affect even those who have been advertising for a long time.
In this blog, we’ll look at the reasons why your ads might be put on hold, learn how not to let that happen, or, if it has happened anyway, see how to fix the issue with the account restriction.
Facebook restricted my account for no reason: why does this happen?
Well, there’s always a reason. Losing access to Facebook advertising can happen because of:
- issues with your Facebook profile
- issues with your ad account
The first one is the lesser evil because, even if your profile is restricted, you still have the ability to manage ads. With ad account restrictions, things are more complicated.
The administrator’s personal account is being restricted
Before banning your ad account, Facebook stops all advertising until you regain access and resume campaign management. However, even if your personal account is deactivated from the site, your advertising will continue to run.
There is no method for you to enter into your account to optimize freshly launched ads or pause those that you feel are underperforming.
What to do?
- Check if additional team members have access to your Business Manager — it’s very typical for all of their accounts to be disabled as well.
- The best way to resolve the issue is to turn to Facebook Support during business hours and wait for the Facebook staff to examine and accept your application.
An advertising account was restricted
The most annoying aspect about ad account banning is that it occurs without notice. One day everything can be fine, and then the next, it looks as if all of your campaigns have been suspended, meaning your organization or customer will be unable to generate leads or sales through Facebook for an indeterminate amount of time.
When discussing the grounds for the profile ban, Facebook isn’t overly descriptive. A generic message will be sent to you informing you that ‘your ad account has been tagged for policy breaches.’
What to do?
- Again, appeal to Facebook support and wait for a response.
- Another way is to try a different account, preferably older and without a business history.
Why does Facebook restrict ad accounts without notice?
It’s important to note that generally, Facebook restricts ads and ad accounts because of the following factors:
- Your ads have received negative feedback
- You’ve violated the Facebook Advertising Policies in some way
To better understand the reasons behind Facebook’s banning decisions, let’s explore these two cases closely.
Your ads have received negative feedback
Users can provide feedback on your advertising or your entire account in a variety of ways. They have the option of hiding individual advertisements or any activity on your Facebook advertising page, reporting your ad content, disliking your page, or just leaving negative comments underneath your campaigns. All of this has an impact on your Facebook ad score and may result in ad refusal.
However, for your ad account to get restricted, there really should be a high proportion of negative feedback in comparison to overall impressions and interactions. How much is considered a high proportion, though?
There is no officially stated formula, but many advertisers use the same equation you would use to discover the engagement rate of a Facebook post, which means the amount of activity divided by impressions. Approximately, negative impressions have to make up to 0.02% of overall impressions to cause Facebook to suspect your ad of violating its standards.
What to do?
- Make sure your ad isn’t annoying and is not running too often.
- It would also be useful to review the target audience to double-check if your product and communication are relevant to the chosen users.
- If there’s a specific ad that receives negative feedback, it’s better to voluntarily suspend it, so your whole account doesn’t get restricted.
When you analyze the feedback, you may discover which ads caused your account to be shut down.
If none of your advertisements have received a lot of negative comments, the reason your account was closed down will most likely be due to a violation of Facebook’s Advertising Policies.
Violation of Facebook Advertising Policies
Facebook’s policies are a whole new level of headache for advertisers. In many cases, it is hard to fully understand the motivation or arguments behind the decision to suspend the ad or advertising account.
What’s more, the range of violations is really broad, and even skilled marketers sometimes miscalculate their campaigns. The best way to avoid the ban is to carefully study the following guidelines:
Moderators are extremely picky about the content of ads, so making sure your ads abide by these standards and rules is a must. Keep in mind that the social network not only reviews particular ads, but also landing pages, accounts, credit cards tied to those accounts, and other assets in the Business Manager profile.
In most cases, Facebook won’t let you run ads from prohibited categories: forbidden substances, violence, weapons, hate speech, dangerous organizations, gaming and gambling, sexual and explicit content, and shocking images, just to name a few.
Apart from these obvious categories, there are many more specifications that can prevent your ad from making the cut.
What to do?
- Thoroughly check your ad is in compliance with Facebook’s policies and guidelines
- Make sure your payments are not overdue, and your cards are valid
- Ensure your landing page works properly, and its content complies with Facebook’s requirements.
What are the other reasons for Facebook ad account restriction?
To prevent your ad from the guards of Facebook, your content should be of high-quality, and the same as the services and products you promote. Not just anyone with a few bucks can run an advertising campaign on social media platforms.
More specifically, Facebook can ban your ads for the following reasons:
- Use of Facebook’s brand attributes. Ads including the Facebook brand name or assets should not portray the Facebook brand in such a way that it is the most distinguishing or conspicuous component of the content. It’s always best to use a capital ‘F’ when writing the Facebook trademark.
- Fakes and misinformation. In recent years, the platform has invested in enhanced fact-checking with the help of third-party checkers, so spreading false claims can result in a long-term ban.
- Poor quality writing. If your ads and content have grammar errors, overuse capital letters, misuse punctuation, and are generally not very well-written, those creatives can be restricted. There is also a 20% rule for image ads: the copy shouldn’t take more than 20% of the picture’s space.
- Use of restricted keywords. While reviewing the ads, Facebook’s AI checks content for certain terms and phrases linked to the forbidden activities and will frequently deny ads that include them, even if the ad does not really violate any rules. Keywords such as ‘fat loss,’ “mortgages,’ ‘payday loans,’ ‘anti-aging,’ ‘marijuana,’ and other terms that seem to touch on sensitive and controversial topics will be flagged. The same applies to all content that promises too much too soon or comes off as too salesy and even deceitful.
- Use of personal attributes. It may come as a surprise, but using personal characteristics is prohibited by Facebook. It means your ad cannot contain statements beginning or including “you” phrases, and any appeals based on a person’s ethnicity, religion, beliefs, age, gender identity, or other personal traits.
Final thoughts: how to prevent Facebook’s ad account restrictions?
While the only way to fix the problem once it already happened is to turn to Ad Manager and support or create a new account, there are many ways to prevent the ban.
Make sure your account is valid, high-quality, and not simply created yesterday. When it comes to content, remember that it has to adhere to all policies and guidelines, while being attractive to the target audience. Following the basic rules of Facebook and not overdoing it with the marketing part should lead to a successful ad campaign. It’s also important to remember that account restrictions happen even to marketing gurus, so it’s not the end of the world.
Of course, not every business owner has the time and desire to analyze the Facebook world and spend weeks experimenting with ads. If you’re looking for a professional way to set up successful ad campaigns while ensuring they will avoid bans, try Adwisely services today.