Are you an advertiser seeking to remove Ad Account Restrictions on Facebook?
But, get frustrated when Facebook ad support hides the answer or takes a long time getting back to you? And their delay in answering is angering your clients and you, as all you want is a straight answer.
Why won’t Facebook just tell you what you did wrong and how to fix it?
1. Outsourcing labor for Facebook ad support.
2. Overload of spammers with fake accounts.
Meta is busy removing fake accounts from China trying to manipulate the next US Election so your ad bans won’t get a attention right away or a straight answer. I’ve worked in ads at Facebook and will help you get answers on avoiding ad account restrictions.
Just like I provided solutions for Boomerang, a marketing research firm, you’ll learn how to avoid the land mines that shut down millions of businesses a year on Facebook.
Click here for a free discovery call.
If I decide you’re a good fit, we can work together and I’ll reveal why FB shut you down and how to get compliant again. (In a rush? Skip the line with prepaid funnel audits with VIP Access).
Your Facebook Advertising Got Restricted…Now What?
If you’ve been restricted from advertising on Facebook all your active ads will be paused and you won’t be able to create new ads. Often you’ll see “ad error” next to the ads that used to be live.
Maybe you’re using the bully method with high manual bidding as Michael A. Stelzner talks about when scaling ads in Social Media Examiner. If one ad gets flagged, but 20 more have the same flag, you’ll be hit for 21 times and with no gun salute.
After reading my Facebook Ad Policies Checklist you may have started to see which ad policy applied to your Campaigns.
Now, the reason why you got shut down will be one of many. Each scenario is different. Why is that? Well, there are different types of Facebook ads and Facebook’s ad policies apply differently to each industry.
And I’m not even talking about Special Ad Categories (real estate, social issues, employment, loans etc).
How Facebook’s machines apply their striking automation really does depend on a number of factors which I’ll get into next.
As Liana Lang, CEO of Power Up Strategy Inc. said, “Please meet Trevor, my ‘secret weapon’ for all things Facebook compliance. I highly recommend hiring him to help you out especially if you plan to be running ads.”
Want the same white glove treatment navigating Facebook shutdowns?
Click here, to schedule a discovery call.
Ad Account Restrictions: How did I get myself restricted from advertising on Facebook?
You’d be surprised how many businesses are running ads based on what worked 5 years ago. Just like advances in technology rapidly change the social landscape, so do changes in Facebook’s ad policies.
What was allowed last year may not be compliant this year. And if you’re still running ads that used to be compliant, Facebook will show no mercy in shutting you down ASAP. And even retroactively punishing your ad account by flagging old ads that aren’t even active, if they violate new current ad policies.
Also a good roadmap: What to Do After Violating Facebook’s Ad Policies
Now, for those who are fatalists and doomscrollers – it’s still worth it to invest in Facebook ads despite the red tape BS. As of today, 57.53% of the world’s active internet users access Facebook every month.
You can get your ads rejected for violating the spam flags, the Personal Attributes policies, or Facebook could have flagged you as an MLM.
Your eyes would pop out if you knew the list of banned words Facebook has that associate you with a pyramid scheme. If you accidentally used one of these words, even 1 word would be enough to get you shut down.
Ideally, you’d have your ads prescreened for Facebook ad policy compliance before going live.
How can I tell if my ad account was restricted?
While Facebook is supposed to send you an email, you may not always get an email telling you that your account is restricted. But, going to Ads Manager, or Business Manager you’ll see this warning when your account is restricted:
And obviously, not being able to run ads and having all your live ads shut down is a pretty clear indicator your account is restricted on Facebook.
If you haven’t read it, check out:Navigating Facebook’s Advertising Policies as a Business
Facebook Ad Account Restrictions Guide
I know sometimes it feels like there is too much to read about Facebook bans, so I created an easy-to-read infographic on resolving ad account restrictions:
What does having my ad account restricted mean?
If you have a restricted Facebook account, you are banned from using Facebook Ads, Facebook Pixel, Facebook Business Manager, and more. BUT there are many factors for why you may be banned.
This Is Why You’re Losing Money With Facebook Ad Account Restrictions:
The severity of your account restriction depends on:
• Your Type of Business
• The Ad Account History
• The Type of Ban
• The Number of Bans in the Past 3 months
• The Amount of Approved Ads
And a few other factors. Not all bans are the same, and not all Facebook restricted accounts have the same recovery process – or relaunching method.
Are mofos from Bangladesh promising you they can recover your restricted ad account? Don’t fall for it! Read How to Recover Facebook Ad Accounts now
If you’ve been shutdown a lot but never got answers, you’re like one of my clients, Steve Martinez, Vice President of Apollidon Learning.
“Trevor took us through the process of getting one of our University of Texas ad accounts reinstated (within minutes). He offered some critical insights to why our Facebook Ad Account was disabled and shared options to reduce our chances of future issues. We have a better understand of how the algorithm works and know exactly what to do and say if our account gets disabled again.”
Want to see how I can help you? Schedule a free discovery call here. Or, if you’re in a rush, prepay for your consulting call and skip the line.
Ad Account Restrictions: Next Steps
If your ad account restrictions have just started, make sure to do this one thing before taking the next step:
What do I do if my Facebook account is restricted from advertising?
STOP!!! The 1st thing you need to do is STOP taking further actions on Business Manager and Ads Manager.
So many of my clients before they were clients dug themselves into a much deeper hole scrambling around with last ditch efforts to save their ad accounts. Which in reality, only made things worse. Yeah – you need to stop and assess your funnel FIRST.
Also – do not believe Facebook ad support, they can get you in worse shape because their advice is ignorant. None of them have recovered from a Facebook ban or even run ads with skin in the game.
They never made real profit from Facebook ads and only read textbook replies – I wrote some of these replies authoring internal documents for process flows at Facebook when I worked there in ads.
ALSO: Be careful whose advice you take when reading articles online. I’ve seen some pretty dumbass shit online, giving the wrong advice from hacks just GUESSING on what to do. Or worse, regurgitating bad advice they read on Reddit or in YouTube comments.
If you google “How to Remove Restriction on Facebook Ad Account,” The 1st result Google selected for the Google Snippet is wrong!
What the fuck is this?! You are googling “how to remove restriction on Facebook ad account,” and the 1st result tells you to publish a damn Facebook Page????!!!! Soooo irrelevant. Shit is irritating af because it isn’t the correct answer. At all.
Another prime example, SocialSurge Marketing gives bad advice about how to remove restriction on facebook ad account:
This is bad advice. SocialSurge Marketing says that if you lost your rights to advertise unnecessarily they will reinstate you. Incorrect. Banning is done 99% of the time by machines – they have no moral base or conscience about what is fair or unfair.
SocialSurge Marketing also says above to “just try…to wait it out and see if your restriction is only temporary.” Incorrect. Talk to some people who have been banned – some wait over 6 months with any reply. Waiting doesn’t solve shit.
It’s dumb trust – Facebook makes money in the billions they have little to no investment in caring if you speedily get back up advertising or never run ads again. Meta has got money to burn and hands out ad account restrictions left and right.
Also SocialSurge Marketing saying you should Request Review is a big mistake. Because if you click on “Request Review” you’ll get ONE machine to review ANOTHER machine’s decision. That’s like asking the fox to guard the hen house.
You think a Facebook bot is going to side with a human over another Facebook bot? WRONG. I’ll tell you what to do next that is a much better option.
Or you can also watch my YouTube video on the BS of suggesting Request Review here:
Ad Account Restrictions: Resolution Steps
Don’t miss out on the one thing you should do if you’re facing ad account restrictions:
To troubleshoot your restricted account:
The first step is to audit your funnel and identify the biggest risks when it comes to Facebook ad policy compliance after ad account restrictions. If you don’t know why you got flagged you won’t have very much to go on when attempting to appeal.
Review the Facebook ad policies that apply to your business specifically and determine which one the automations caught and flagged you for.
Still a little lost? I’ve created many Ad Guides on Facebook ad policy you can check out.
When you appeal, you gotta know WHY you were shut down FIRST. Most ad agencies have it BACKWARDS. They go in whining and angry, demanding to be told why their accounts were restricted. And asking that their accounts get restored.
You really have to find out for yourself FIRST before appealing, because that will be the heart of your appeal: “I know what I may have done wrong and I’ve learned from it.”
On Appealing: Chat in with Facebook Ad Support and get the agent you contact to submit the appeal for you instead of clicking Request Review. This will up your chances by a factor of 100.
Already completely banned?
If you are running ads and spending $100K a year or more on ads, I can help with that.
Also check out: Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts
Ad Account Restrictions: Confirm Your Identity
If you do this wrong, it could end everything!
Confirm your identity
I have one word for you: DON’T.
You may be one of the lucky 2% that actually start confirming your identity and slip through the cracks. But most people?
Once you hit that button it’s game over. Facebook will never confirm your identity because their form is broken and doesn’t transfer the data (like your driver’s license) to Facebook itself.
There are other ways to get your ads live – all white hat – which are much better than trying to Confirm Your Identity.
Ad Account Restrictions: Complete verification
Facebook’s ad policies will tell you to complete verification but like I said above, and admiral Ackbar reiterates:
Secure your account
This is a new thing: If you’re a user of a Business Manager account that’s over 90 days old, you may need to enable two-factor authentication to meet Facebook’s security requirements. If you don’t, Meta may restrict your access to Business Manager tools for security purposes.
To reinstate your account, you’ll need to enable two-factor authentication after ad account restrictions.
If you haven’t submitted your IDs for the verify identity trap, enabling 2FA can sometimes restore your account. I’ve seen it happen – it isn’t reliable as the only solution, but it can help. As long as you don’t put a device, or email that you no longer have access to on your account! !
That’s another trap. Advertisers try to enable 2FA to get their ad accounts back but don’t realize they have an old email associated with their Personal Profile that they don’t have access to. Or an old phone number from a smartphone they no longer have.
You are royally fucked if you do this because Facebook will show no mercy if you tell them, “I don’t have access to this email/device anymore.”
It’s another good reason for you to make sure that your info is up to date before advertising, before appealing and before enabling 2FA.
Violating content
Facebook’s Violating Content Policies are a joke. You have no guidance here, it just says:
Advertisers can’t:
- Severely violate our advertising policies
- Repeatedly violate our advertising policies
You will have a lot more guidance from the articles I’ve written on specific steps to follow Facebook ad policy rather than these generic-ass statements.
When it comes to account authenticity Facebook wants to make sure the government name on your ID or Driver’s License is the same as the Facebook profile.
Ever had someone on your Business Manager get shut down elsewhere, on another Business Manager, and have the Facebook bots follow that one person back to your Business Manager and shut it down?
Even if your Business Manager WAS compliant?
This is that shit. Facebook started tracking / stalking advertisers who got shut down on 1 Business Manager and then assuming guilt by association.
Violating networks or associations is Facebook’s policy to automatically assume if someone has a Facebook ban, anyone they are connected to on Facebook is by default, also a bad actor. It’s bullshit, I know, but that’s their policy for ad account restrictions.
Almost 100% of the time this is because you logged into Facebook, either your personal Profile or Business Manager or the Facebook Business Page from a location different from your regular house and local haunts.
And if you have a credit card number banned causing more ad account restrictions.
Solution: get a new credit card that’s fresh and clean, and also only login to Facebook from one location (or 1 city rather).
If you haven’t had a chance yet, read my break down of Common Facebook Ad Policy Violations [Explained]
As amazing as many of the speakers are (and some of the speakers are former clients of mine), no one at the Traffic & Conversion Summit this year is going to tell you the best way to appeal Facebook bans.
Ad Account Restrictions: Appeals
From my time working at Facebook in ads, I’ll share some top tips next.
How to appeal advertising restrictions
So, the dumbasses like SocialSurge Marketing that just copy and paste Facebook’s verbatim copy on their policies page are copying this text from Meta:
“If you believe your Business Account, ad account, Page or user account was incorrectly restricted, you may be able to request a review of the decision in Account Quality.”
Your best bet to appeal advertising restrictions if your ad account is restricted, is to audit your funnel first. Identify why you were shut down, which part of your funnel triggered it, then appeal to a person on Facebook ad support chat, not request review.
Speaking of which:
Ad Account Restrictions: Request a review
More contradictory advice from Facebook:
“If your account is restricted due to a policy violation, you may be able to request a review.”
That’s like asking the original evil Terminator to review John Connor as he is hunting Connor.
Now – I’m not saying that it won’t ever work. About 1 percent of people who request review, DO get their accounts back after ad account restrictions.
But, I’ve worked with 10s of 1000s of advertisers and the stats show requesting review just locks you into a permanently restricted status.
Speaking of machines, the coming AI wave will also bring new changes with Facebook’s use of AI content, so keep on the look out for new Facebook AI ad policies on ad account restrictions.
Ad Account Restrictions: Learn more
Are you ready to stop second guessing Facebook bans and stop sitting on the edge of your seat worrying about shut downs?
Even if you spent a week reading Facebook’s Ad Policies you’d still be at risk of a shut down simply because there are a 1000 more flags than you are actually told about.
Yet the machines still scan your ads according to these invisible Facebook ad policies.
BUT – don’t miss out on an opportunity to never have to get flagged again. I’ve worked in ads, tech and project management at Facebook and can help.
What if you had a guarantee that your ads were compliant before they went live on Facebook? What if you knew 100% without guessing why your ad account was disabled? What if you knew why your Facebook ads were blocked and had a path to get ads live again?
Keep reading for these answers and more:
Ad Account Restrictions: New Solution
Ad agencies: tired of getting the silent treatment from Facebook when all you want to do is get your Facebook ads live and revenue in the door?
I’m a Facebook ad policy specialist who worked deep at Facebook and I’m trusted by high level brands that take accuracy and results seriously:
After years of working at Facebook, I can show you how to resolve FB bans even if Facebook ad support is useless to resolve ad account restrictions.
Don’t lose any more money from Facebook bans and schedule your call with me now.
Don’t take my word for it, let my clients tell you what it was like working with me:
My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. How much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today.
I’m featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith’s Marketing Essentials Course.
If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure expert-level Facebook consulting. Book a call with me now!
If you’re ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you’re eligible – Schedule a call or contact me via email.
Free eBook: Top 5 Reasons Agencies Fail at Facebook
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