How to remove ad account restriction on facebook

Looking for answers on how to remove an ad account restriction on facebook?

I’ve worked at Meta and provide Facebook ad policy help to ad agencies and businesses running Facebook ads. And today you’ll learn about Unacceptable Business Practices and what you can do to recover from getting flagged from an ad account restriction on Facebook.

An ad account restriction typically happens from either a severe flag, that Facebook immediately shuts down your account after their bots scan it, OR after a bunch of smaller flags have added up to an ad account restriction.

With Meta firing tons of staff, it’s Q4 last year was steller. Even its much ridiculed, money-losing virtual reality unit hit a milestone, generating $1bn in revenue. Lest anyone doubt its confidence, the company declared a first-ever dividend.
That is a payout to shareholders – in this case of 50 cents per share.

What this means for you, the business or ad agency running ads on Facebook is that while the fat cats are happy, the automations that ban ad accounts are in overdrive. Meaning, with less employees, Facebook relies even more on their automations to make crucial decisions that can leave you banned at a moment’s notice.

If you didn’t miss out on my guide to navigating Circumventing Systems, then you have the latest pro tips on avoiding Facebook ad bans.

In this article, I’ll share my expert advice coming from working at Meta on how to navigate the Facebook ads policy strategically instead of just guessing and hoping you don’t get shut down. You’re in safe hands today.

Just like my client, Amazon reality TV star and Ms. Universe Juanita Ingram found out, there are micro flags in ad copy and landing pages that have to be removed first before attempting to appeal or relaunch a brand with Facebook, or recover an unpublished Facebook Business Page.

Want the same white glove treatment navigating Facebook shutdowns?

Click here, to schedule a discovery call.

According to Facebook, the Business Manager home page, or Meta Business Suite, contains all the answers once you have an ad account restriction:

how to remove an ad account restriction

Sadly this is completely false. When you go there usually you’ll see some generic ass warning without any specification on what part of your funnel was flagged, why, or the compliant version. For this information you need to dive deeper than the automated warnings Facebook sends you.

You’d be surprised how simple thing can change the entire course of your ads, whether they tank or boom, not just for ad policy but for conversion metrics. Facebook ad expert Jon Loomer calls out ad set optimization mistakes all the time.

For example, many advertisers just choose a Campaign Objective (eg. Traffic – used to be called “clicks to website”) BUT DO NOT SPECIFY the performance goal.

Your performance goal is how Meta determines success — and the factor that drives changes to ad delivery. Let’s say you have a Traffic campaign objective to get more sales, and your performance goal is:

“Maximize number of conversions: We’ll try to show your ads to the people most likely to take a specific action on your website.”

If you optimize for a purchase, the algorithm’s primary focus will be on satisfying that goal. If you aren’t getting purchases, Meta will believe that something is wrong and changes need to be made. This is one of the reasons why your ads are NOT spending your budget.

You can fix this by changing your performance goal: Instead of optimizing for purchases, optimize for landing page views. This will be a cheap way to get purchases since you know that, historically, 5% of visitors to your landing page convert, or something like that. Now Facebook is making your CPC cheaper and actually spending your ad budget.

Advertising Restriction Unacceptable Business Practices

This is one of those flags that confuses a lot of advertisers. One of the reasons why is because back when I was working in the ads department at Facebook, (before it called itself “Meta”) this policy went by another name that was more self explanatory.

Except the real name of this policy is “unrealistic claims” which is what everyone at Facebook knew and called it, and we externally gave that verbiage to advertisers like yourself.

BUT, the problem is, “move fast and break things” Mark, or someone at the operations level or policy team decided to retitle this policy flag.

Why is this a problem?

Well, previously if you were saying some outlandish things on your ads, and you got the flag “Unrealistic claims” it at least gave you some idea that your copy was sounding spammy. Which is really, all that flag means. It means Facebook perceives your primary offer or the way you’ve worded it as a scam.

Which is different from Circumventing Systems flags, and Personal Attributes flags or flags for selling forex products or pyramid schemes. It’s all in the details folks. Want one-on-one professional guidance from someone who worked with the Facebook policy team, so you don’t have to guess anymore? And prevent bans? Schedule a discovery call with me here.

The unusual activity ad account restriction is triggered by Facebook’s automations when they suspect that you’ve been hacked. Or that you ARE a hacker and you are doing things like using someone else’s bank account to run ads. Or, that you snuck into another advertiser’s Business Manager. Banks rejecting Facebook charges often trigger that too.

I’ve seen advertisers GIVE UP on running Facebook ads just because they chose the wrong bank that blocked Facebook ad charges. Which is silly, because Meta or Facebook is still a lucrative market according to current stats:

Again, it is not a matter of all or nothing, but small changes that once made help keep your ads running smoothly and profitably.

Ad Account Restriction: Things you should know

Facebook’s bottom line is that they hold you 100% responsible for following their facebook ad policies even if Meta doesn’t communicate like 10,000 ad policies you are expected to follow to not get an ad account restriction.

But aren’t told about the policies you need to follow to avoid an ad account restriction. Great right?

If you need help rewriting ad copy to be compliant with Facebook I offer a prescreen service – book a discovery call here.

Ad Account Restriction: Facebook is still just a startup

You have to keep in mind Facebook still operates like a startup despite being founded in 2004. As a result, the automations are imperfect in how they flag you for violating Facebook advertising standards with an ad account restriction.

Sometimes you’ll get a false baseline where an ad that should have been rejected was accidentally approved. Now, you’re thinking because that ad was approved you can duplicate it.

Then later, everything shuts down out of nowhere when the bots rescan your funnel and give you an ad account restriction (thanks!).

That’s why having someone on deck who knows Facebook ad policy at a high level is crucial to your success. Otherwise you won’t know where the little hidden time bombs are in your ad copy, creative or privacy policy.

Common points of confusion

Facebook | Meta suggests these are the top flags people get running ads on Facebook:

I’ve worked with thousands of advertisers – SMBs to celebrities and I’ll share what the common points of confusion are from my experience helping folks avoid getting an ad account restriction. Both working at Facebook, and in my own private practice:

Assuming a human being is making the decisions to flag you or approve you

That’s a mistake. Facebook is 89% automated for every decision to approve or reject an ad. Maybe even 95% automated after 40K got laid off in 3 successive waves starting November 2022.

(Read my article about what it’s like getting laid off at Facebook here)

Resubmitting a rejected Facebook ad without finding the flag first

That’s one of the most common areas of confusion I’ve seen. People get an ad rejected, and assume Facebook made a mistake and don’t spend 30 seconds looking at the ad and just resubmit the same ad that has the same flag you were just shut down for in it! This is what gets you an ad account restriction.

It’s a better strategy to audit your ad for flags, remove them and then resubmit.

Having trouble defining where that line exactly is for what you can and cannot say? This is my zone of genius, schedule a free discovery call here.

Enforcement of Facebook Ads Policy

Unlike a video game – the automations only give you a limited amount of chances before they shut down your Business Manager and possibly restrict your Facebook profile (the personal one not just Business Page) from advertising.

The enforcement part is never personal – no one at Facebook cares enough to keep track of you.

The key is to understand how the machines select your ad copy, how they scan it and what this means for your ability to run ads and avoid getting an ad account restriction.

Facebook Ad Account Restriction: What is reviewed

Facebook’s review process includes specific components of an ad, such as images, video, text and targeting information, as well as an ad’s associated landing page or other destinations, among other information.

Contrary to what many think, the lander is included in the scans for an ad account restriction, not just the Facebook ads.

Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Business asset review

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Each ad asset – Page to Business Manager to Ad Account – has its own score. Each of these can become tainted separately from each other, or affect each other, based on the type of ad policy strikes you get when getting an ad account restriction.

Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Outcome of review

Often the entire conversation on whether to let you run ads or not, is a conversation between 3 different neural networks.

Rarely are humans involved unless you understand how to get the right person to look at your ads at Facebook.

Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Re-review of ads

Even if you got an ad approved – unless you are an expert at Facebook ad policy – you won’t know for certain if it is actually following Facebook’s ad policies. And assuming you do know leads to getting an ad account restriction.

Like I mentioned earlier, you can get re-scanned later for an ad that was approved, then later rejected.

As the article I wrote for Social Media Examiner discusses, you should screenshot rejected ads, then delete them. Or Facebook can and will re-open them later, and punish you a second time for an already rejected ad.

Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Create a new ad or edit your ad

What I usually suggest when facing a rejected FB ad, is audit it first, determine why it was flagged for an ad account restriction, and replace the offending copy with approved ad copy.

And duplicate the ad with the corrected copy before submitting. That’s safer than resubmitting the same ad even with the correct changes.

Additional policies that may apply to your ad

Facebook: Ads that run on Facebook must follow Facebook’s Community Standards which apply to all content on Facebook.
Instagram: Ads that run on Instagram must follow Instagram’s Community Guidelines which apply to all content on Instagram.
Commerce: Advertisers may run certain types of ads, such as ads with product tags or boosted Marketplace listings, or use catalogs to upload products for use in Commerce surfaces, which are subject to our Commerce Policies.
Pages and Events: Advertisers may promote Pages or Events, which are subject to the applicable Pages, Groups and Events policies.
Messenger: Advertisers sending sponsored messages via Messenger or starting automated conversations from ads that click to Messenger must comply with our Developer Policies.
Branded content: Ads may include branded content, which are subject to our Branded Content Policies.

A lot of times I see businesses get flagged because of IP issues with Facebook’s brand assets, which can lead an ad account restriction too, so be careful of that.

Your website

Speaking of common misconceptions – people often don’t realize facebook scans the website you attach to traffic ads. But the bots do scan it. And every thing connected to it, so you have to make sure that it is entirely compliant, not just the optin or sales page or you’ll get an ad account restriction.

Even if you went to a Go High Level event, you’d never find this type of insight there, as most marketers don’t have a contact at Facebook who can provide the level of support I can. Don’t want to read even more articles and just want solutions to Facebook bans? Schedule a discovery call today, for free.

Ad content

It’s good to have a basic checklist for your ads. Like something to review before you create ads, or after you are about to submit for review. Following this can help reduce getting an ad account restriction.

Ensure your ads:

Include improper grammar or punctuation.
Don’t include sexual content, nudity or allusions to sexual activity.
Don’t reference or imply a user’s personal characteristics, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, religion, beliefs and sexual orientation.
Don’t discriminate or promote discrimination.
Do not promote misleading or deceptive practices or products in any capacity.
Don’t run ads that contain images that portray non-existent functionality (for example, a “play” button that doesn’t play actual content).
Avoid making potentially misleading claims or set unrealistic expectations.
Do Not include low quality content (for example, using sensationalized or exaggerated language or withholding key information to entice someone to click on the ad).

Prohibited products in ads

Facebook doesn’t allow you to:

Promote the sale or use of adult products/services.
Promote tobacco, unsafe supplements, prescription drugs, recreational drugs or illegal drugs.
Promote the sale or use of weapons, ammunition, weapon modification accessories or explosives.

Seems obvious I know but where ad agencies get in trouble is when Facebook interprets something you’ve said wrong and then gives you an ad account restriction.

Ad Account Restriction: How to appeal advertising restrictions

The art of appealing an ad account restriction is a balance between understanding exactly what in your funnel triggered the automations to shut you down (BEFORE contacting Facebook ad support), your ratio of bans versus approvals, and how you talk to the outsourced workers on chat.

It’s no easy task, I have successfully recovered a few restricted ad accounts in my time, but I generally advise a much better strategy with clients that has more nuance for long term results that don’t lose you time and money from ad account restrictions.

Learn more

I hope you’ve found this article on how to navigate a Facebook ad account restriction helpful.

I’ve created a lot of helpful guides on my blog, but nothing beats hands on guidance for avoiding shut downs from someone whose worked at Facebook for years.

What if you had a guarantee that your ads were compliant before they went live on Facebook?

Facebook Ad Account Policy Violation 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 at Facebook and I’m trusted by high level brands that take accuracy and results seriously.

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:

It shouldn’t be a mystery on what to do to recover from a ban. I strive for customer satisfaction, being a business owner myself.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. How much is it costing you to have a disabled Facebook ad account? Talk today.

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