Look at your ads through the eyes of the machines that flag them, and predict where and how the Facebook automations will flag you, and make sure you have compliant ad copy. Stuck trying to figure that out? I worked with the engineers that created these automations at Facebook.
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.
The Facebook Ad Policies Checklist
Step 1: Review Your Facebook Ad Policies History
What happens when you apply for a loan? The lender checks your credit history – and Facebook’s automations do this in a similar fashion. When you submit your ads for review, an automation checks to see what your ad account history is with Facebook.
How many ads have you had rejected in the past few months?
The machines will tally up your rejected ads and compare those to the number of approved ads – it all happens in a few seconds, completely automatic. And, let’s face it, that’s a simple math equation. The number of ads approved versus ads rejected.
Remember: 95% of the review process is done by machines so it comes down to a simple tally. If you have more rejected ads than approved ads within a certain time span like 30 to 60 or 90 days, the machines will conclude you are a bad actor. And then disable your Facebook ad account.
[Read: Your Access Can’t Be Reinstated here]
Of course, there is an easy way to weigh the scales in your favor: Run ads that follow Facebook ad policies. And make sure your motivation here isn’t profit but simply running ads you know will be approved, to help improve your ad account health.
If you need some tips on running ads on FB as a business, read How to Navigate Facebook’s Advertising Policies as a Business.
I guarantee it will save you more time to make a decision and take action on improving your ad account health before running conversion campaigns where everything is on the line.
Step 2: Look Up Facebook Ad Policies for Your Niche
Facebook may be many things, but few will actually say “Facebook is fair.” And the reason why this is a popular sentiment is because of how confusing Facebook ad policies are. They’re confusing af because different industries play by different rules.
Facebook ad policies vary a lot depending on what your business is. For instance, if you run employment ads, political ads, or real estate ads you’re in what’s called the special ad category for social issues.
When Facebook was sued in 2019 for having targeting parameters for income and zipcode (mainly in real estate ads) the backlash was taking away these targeting options and creating special ad categories.
There are specific ad policies that apply only to special ad category ads, so you’ll want to be familiar, even if on a surface level, with those facebook ad policies.
Gambling ads don’t allow you to provide users with the ability to bet using real money on an app for example. Here’s a quick overview of the facebook ad policies:
You can see we covered the special ad categories, but, let’s say you’re in the “how to start a business” niche. One thing you’ll want to be aware of is the Misleading Business Practices ad policy.
This is a policy to help prevent pyramid schemes from creating Facebook ads. Do you actually run an MLM? A multilevel marketing company isn’t allowed to advertise on Facebook. So, knowing that going forward will better prepare you.
I hope the main idea is clear here: get familiar with the facebook ad policies that relate to your business specifically. Even if you’re not an MLM, be aware of how your ads sound.
Don’t sound like an MLM.
That means making realistic claims for the results you promise in the ad copy.
Be aware of what those ad policies are before you press publish on any new ads. Or you can just hire me to review your ads and save time looking at 1000s of facebook ad policies.
Facebook Ad Policies Analysis
Next up, get ready to analyze your ads for flags.
Step 3: Analyze Your Rejected Facebook Ads
Facebook ads have multiple parts:
- The ad copy above the creative
- Creative (image or video)
- Headline beneath the creative
- Display URL
- Leadform (if using Lead gen ads)
To avoid getting your Facebook ad account disabled, you’ll want to ensure you don’t have too many rejected ads. And make sure you don’t have the same ad policy strikes on multiple ads. You’ll want to analyze each part of your ad and look for potential Facebook ad policy violations.
Facebook Ad Policies: Ad Copy
For the ad copy – which is the 1st thing you see on a Facebook ad – you want to be extra careful you accurately represent your company, product, service, or brand being advertised. So, no outlandish promises of big results with little effort.
Facebook Ad Policies: Headline
It’s often said that you need to spend a lot more time split-testing headlines than the content on your lander because the headline is what grabs your audience’s attention.
In the same vein, you also want to keep in mind any ad copy in your headline that sounds spammy. Don’t talk about that “one weird trick.”
Facebook Ad Policies: Display URL
A lot of my clients that come to me with disabled Facebook ad accounts or rejected Facebook ads have been hit by the automations because of issues with their display URLs. What is the display URL?
It’s what you want your audience to see but it has to match your actual landing page’s URL. If you have a messy URL with a lot of numbers that’s super long, sure, you can put the root domain instead of the add-on domain there.
BUT don’t put your bridge page there instead of the actual sales page URL if the website address is different. That will getcha flagged. Too many flags can lead to ad account shutdowns or rejected Facebook ads that hurt your ad account score.
That was the case for my client Jack Randall. Jack is a social media marketer that kept getting shut down by Facebook until we worked together.
“Trevor helped me successfully diagnose exactly why my ad account was disabled, and helped me frame out a plan to move forward.” In a rush? Skip the line with prepaid funnel audits with VIP Access.
Step 4: Check Your Website for Facebook Ad Policies Violations
You’d be surprised how many advertisers tell me, “I didn’t know Facebook scanned my website as well as my Facebook ad.”
Welp! But they do!
Got a ton of ads running to a non-compliant site? I’m gonna have to quote Kermit on you.
A common flaw I’ve seen in advertisers who get the Facebook ban hammer is not making sure every link on their website works. If you have any 404 pages, Facebook automations will find them and flag you for a nonfunctioning landing page.
Also for the love of God, get a dang privacy policy!
This is a must for any website that you run Facebook ads to. And for some special ad categories like political ads, it is a legal requirement.
A common flag I see a lot is Personal Attributes – this happens when you target the pain points of a specific group of people too specifically. Be aware of that and look at your website to make sure you aren’t being too negative.
Look over your website and make sure there isn’t any content on it that violates Facebook ad policies. Don’t skip this step on the checklist!
Also check out: Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts
Step 5. Get Your Funnel Facebook Compliant
(Before Running New Ads or Appealing)
WHEW! You’ve come so far. You’ve reviewed your Facebook ad policies history, looked up facebook ad policies for your niche, analyzed your rejected Facebook ads, and checked your website for Facebook ad policies violations.
The best strategy for keeping Facebook ads active is always going to be a preventative one. You can’t undo a certain level of banning – that’s why this Facebook ad policies checklist is focused on discovering potential flags and current or past facebook policy flags.
Your last step is to put all that knowledge you’ve gained in the previous steps to work. Now that you’ve identified Facebook ad policies you may have violated, you’ll want to get your Facebook funnel compliant.
Take a moment to review your Facebook ads and compare them to the Facebook ad policies online. Your marketing plan should include compliance before conversions. Because it’s a balance between those 2.
Conclusion
A preventative Facebook ad policy approach will SAVE YOU SO MUCH MONEY AND HEADACHES! Is it easier to pay child support for 18 years or pull out? Do the math folks.
Here is a TLDR for Facebook ad policies to check your funnel for:
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Check for improper grammar or punctuation.
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Check for sexual content, nudity, or allusions to sexual activity.
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Reference or imply a user’s personal characteristics, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, religion, beliefs, and sexual orientation.
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Discriminate or promote discrimination.
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Promote misleading or deceptive practices or products in any capacity.
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Contain images that portray non-existent functionality (for example, a “play” button that doesn’t play actual content).
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Make potentially misleading claims or set unrealistic expectations.
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Include low-quality content (for example, using sensationalized or exaggerated language or withholding key information to entice someone to click on the ad).
There you have it! I hope you’ve found the Facebook ad policies checklist helpful.
If you use this Checklist before running new ads you’ll increase your rate of approved Facebook ads and prevent disabled Facebook ad accounts from ever gracing your screen.
Thanks for reading!
Still here?
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:
Facebook Jail Solution
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