What To Do When Your Facebook Ad Account Is Disabled [Updated]

disabled Facebook ad account

It SUCKS balls to get a disabled Facebook ad account! Looking to fix a disabled facebook ad account?! I worked at Facebook and will help you.

The domino principle (and no not the old movie with Gene Hackman) or butterfly effect is that once this starts in motion, one disabled ad account can turn into a restricted Facebook Business Page or even a disabled Facebook Business Manager.

Disabled Facebook Ad Account Help

But, have no fear, I’ll shed some light on disabled facebook ad accounts, how to appeal, and what to do to get your Facebook ads live again.

My last ad guide provided you with a full blueprint to advertise CBD on Facebook after Google’s recent policy change forced Facebook to change their ad policies too!

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.

Understanding Facebook’s Ad Account Policies

Facebook disabled ad accounts don’t happen in a silo – usually they are connected to either a big flag getting triggered by Facebook or a series of smaller flags leading the robots to judge your ad account as untrustworthy.

Disabled Facebook Ad Account Reasons

Common Reasons for Ad Account Disabling

Facebook prohibits the promotion of illegal drugs, tobacco, firearms, and other regulated products. And one of the most common flags is:

Misleading Business Practices – you’ll get this one if you over-sensationalize the claims of results in ads. So, try to sound more realistic to minimize this risk (I also offer pre-scans of ads for compliance).

Another trap door to avoid is getting flagged for ad copy or creative Type A, but the flag is described to you as something unrelated to the real reason you were flagged for content Type B. This obscures the root cause of a shut down because what Facebook tells you differs from the actual flag that led to a ban.

Facebook’s Ad Review Process

Facebook has 24 hours to review an ad and it is done 99% by machines now, except for certain special ad categories. This means, no, a human is not looking at your ads and judging them.

It’s just a machine with preprogrammed prompts to flag specific words and ways they are put together, along with images. Certain articles from people who did not work at Facebook like I have get their information wrong, like this one:

This is incorrect! Facebook’s review process does not include a manual review at all. Due to the massive lay offs and focus on AI, Meta’s automations literally do all of the reviewing with a few exceptions (political ads with a large societal effects may be manually monitored all else it’s bots).

Contrary to popular opinion, most of the Facebook bans are not from glitches on Facebook’s side but due to advertisers simply not understanding where the lines are they can’t cross.

This is partly Facebook’s fault for not being more transparent, but also marketers who focus only on conversions sometimes miss the rules of engagement on a private website, Facebook.com.

Pro-Tip: It’s good to familiarize yourself with the ad policies that affect your specific industry before running ads. The same ad policies may be applied differently by automations, depending on your ad’s industry.

Immediate Steps to Take After Your Ad Account is Disabled

Oh shit!? My Facebook ad account is disabled what should I do?! OK, the 1st step is to take a deep breath and don’t act on impulse or emotion or you’ll dig a deeper hole. You have to put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and begin auditing your ad account for potential flags that led to the Facebook ban.

Reviewing Your Ad Content

The most important thing to do when reviewing your ad content, is to do it through Facebook’s eyes. Facebook wants to protect Facebook users from harmful content. So check your ads for anything that sounds like it could be interpreted that way. This fits in with my earlier pro-tip to study the type of ad policies that affect your specific industry because that will give you a head start finding what led to the Facebook disabled ad account.

Identifying Potential Policy Violations

Identifying potential policy violations will be the only way you have a chance at appealing because if you don’t know why you were shut down, Facebook ad support (if you can even reach someone) are incompetent outsourced workers. Their advice will often lead you to further bans and shut downs and disabled Facebook ad accounts. You have to ensure you know yourself before taking any future steps what language, images, or videos led to the shut down. 

Gathering Necessary Information

If you contact Facebook ad support when submitting an appeal, saying, “I did nothing wrong, reactivate my Facebook ads!” They will shut your chat or email support case down fast. The Facebook ad support contract workers will not have answers. So, be prepared with screenshots and documentation of the possible flags you may have. Now, don’t self admit to more flags than the ones they caught you for, just identify the highest possible flag you could have gotten, and use this to guide the chat. 

Submitting an Appeal to Facebook

Everyone thinks submitting an appeal is a great idea, but it may not be if your entire funnel is not compliant with facebook ad policies. If it’s a small flag you identified and fixed, then an appeal is a good idea. But if the flag is rooted in your business model, you could be knocking over a house of cards, so tread carefully.

Disabled Facebook Ad Account Appeals

How to Submit an Appeal

How you submit an appeal will depend on what part of the world you are in, and what level of ban you have for your disabled facebook ad account. While a disabled Facebook ad account could be the official title to what you’re dealing with, if Facebook’s automations have tracked other behavior they view as sus, you could be dealing with a bigger problem than you think it is and are currently risking all your ad assets (not just one, of only the disabled facebook ad account). 

What to Include in Your Appeal

Really what you want to do is gather the timeline for when the shut down happened, the specific ad account number which Facebook ad support will ask for, and the Business ID for your Business Manager. You’ll want to include the reason why you were banned, what you’ve done to resolve this and your commitment to following Facebook’s policy from here on out.

Tips for a Successful Appeal

Your appeal won’t stand a chance if you are relying on Facebook ad support to tell you why you were banned. These are outsourced workers with barely any marketing education, who have never run Facebook ads to support themselves or pay bills.

So, don’t make the common mistake of relying on Facebook ad support to solve a disabled Facebook ad account. You’ll need to audit your funnel first, and determine where in your funnel the Facebook bots flagged you the hardest that led to the shut down, then present this to Facebook ad support also stating you’ve fixed this specific issue.

Navigating Facebook’s Advertising Policies as a Business is a good read too if you’re looking to go from ignorance on Facebook ad policy to having some clarity.

Preventing Future Ad Account Disabling

The best way to solve a disabled facebook ad account is prevention. Staying on top of all the content you release in ads and knowing where it stands policy-wise is a smart move that few ad agencies take.

Disabled Facebook Ad Account Prevention

Staying Up-to-Date with Facebook’s Ad Policies

New Facebook ad policies pop up every quarter and being ignorant of them is no excuse for getting banned. Stay up to date with these changes (like my last blog’s guide to the new CBD Facebook ad policies) and you’ll be better prepared to face any challenges without risking your money maker – your ad account – in the process.

Regularly Monitoring Your Ad Performance

Regularly monitoring your ad performance is a good best practice for Facebook ads but it also can be the canary in the coal mine for you to prevent Facebook bans. If you see ads that were performing well suddenly dip, this could be a competitor targeting the same audience with more money or Facebook could be reducing your reach because a new policy came out that you are not fully following. 

Implementing Best Practices for Facebook Advertising

The best practice for Facebook advertising is being human, approachable, not a faceless corporate entity selling a product or service. People respond to people. So, focus less on being a machine with your marketing and more on being down to earth – this will help you stay compliant with Facebook ad policies too.

Disabled Facebook Ad Account Myths

Don’t mass promote something without split testing it first – let’s say you run 100 ads at once but they each have 1 small flag in them. Guess what? That’s 100 strikes against your ad account not 1. So, start slow before ramping up to avoid a disabled Facebook ad account.

Did you already say something that got your Facebook ad account disabled?

Don’t get ripped off! 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.