Are you looking for a solution on how to solve a Facebook ad account restriction? I’ve worked at Meta and will give you no BS help with figuring out a Facebook ad account restriction.
1. Overview Facebook Ad Account Restriction
Like the Bermuda Triangle, Facebook’s advertising policies are mysterious to businesses running Facebook ads, especially when dealing with a Facebook ad account restriction.
And navigating what happens when your Facebook ads are rejected can be a frustrating experience. Add also that Facebook Profiles have separate rules than Business Pages and you’re asking:
“How can I navigate Facebook’s advertising policies as a business?” or “How do I recover from a Facebook ad account restriction?”
And what’s troubling is the fact that the more Facebook ad account restrictions you get the higher the cost of ads is for you. On top of that, one of my former clients, Mari Smith, the Queen of Facebook just announced that boosted posts on Facebook & Instagram via mobile cost 30% more thanks to Apple. Starting soon (if not already), if you BOOST a post via the Facebook or Instagram app on iOS you will be charged an *additional* 30% service fee.
You want to save money? Get less bans and don’t get a Facebook ad account restriction. Stuck because Facebook won’t tell you why you were banned?
I’ve worked at Facebook for many years in ads, tech and project management and I’ll be helping your business understand Facebook ad policies today and how to solve a Facebook ad account restriction. Schedule a discovery call at no cost, and learn a ton here.
Free eBook: Top 5 Reasons Agencies Fail at Facebook
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Standards
Understanding Facebook Advertising Standards
Facebook’s Advertising Standards provide policy detail and guidance on the types of ad content Meta allows, and the types of ad content Meta prohibits. Breaking these rules leads to a Facebook ad account restriction.
When advertisers place an order, each ad is reviewed against Meta advertising policies. Facebook’s Advertising Standards also provide guidance on advertiser behavior that may result in advertising restrictions being placed on a Business Account or its assets (an ad account, Page, or user account).
If you think your ad was mistakenly rejected, or if you think your Business Account or its assets were mistakenly restricted, you can request a review of either decision in Account Quality or by chatting with Facebook Ad Support.
BUT…
It’s challenging to do this because Facebook outsources all their Facebook ad support reps to call centers with contractors who have zero experience running a business and don’t actually know why your ads are rejected or why you got a Facebook ad account restriction.
On top of that let’s say you pay a few thou to go to a marketing event to learn more from experts, like the Social Media Strategies Summit. Not a single speaker there has worked with the engineers at Facebook like I have, and none will give you a straight answer on avoiding and recovering from bans.
Want to know why Meta gives you a Facebook ad account restriction? It’s a combination a many confusing elements. Given I’ve spent years working at Facebook, I can help you solve a Facebook ad account restriction.
I’ve worked with SMBs, celebrities, and social media influencers. Schedule your complimentary discovery call here.
So let’s get started! Below you’ll find tips for navigating Facebook ad policies as a business and how that differs from using Facebook as just a profile.
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Confusion
Common Points of Confusion
To help you build a compliant and user-friendly ads experience, I’ve highlighted some common areas of confusion. Click the links below to learn more about:
What Facebook won’t tell you is that the automations don’t understand human conversation. So if you have any that could be interpreted as sexual, you may get shut down.
If your landing page seems like it’s implying that Facebook / Meta has endorsed your product you may get the ban hammer.
Or perhaps your ad copy is simply using “you” and “your” incorrectly in ads – this means you’ll get flagged.
Read about how to recover your Facebook ad account for more details on flagging.
Prevention is always going to be a lot easier than trying to recover from having a restricted Facebook ad account. The reason is, simply said, machine-learning. As Facebook’s automations tend to establish patterns after identifying your ad account as a rule-breaker, they will return and scan your Business Manager more frequently.
It’s kind of like pissing off a boss on your first day on the job. The trust that boss was going to extend to you is now obliterated. You feel like you’re walking on eggshells because now it seems like even an innocent mistake is being viewed as a deliberate attempt to circumvent the systems.
Want to stop walking on eggshells around Facebook? Trade doom-scrolling for guaranteed Facebook compliance with a complimentary discovery call.
Even Facebook engineers and Twitter software engineers working for Elon Musk have asked me for help. I don’t work with everyone, but to see if you qualify, schedule a complimentary discovery call here.
Also, I’ve made a complimentary infographic for you, on how to navigate the facebook ad policies if you got a Facebook ad account restriction for Circumventing Systems:
Circumventing Systems Guide 2.0
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Principles
2. Meta Advertising Policy Principles
Meta has some boilerplate ad policies that are enforced by machines and there is very little human review if your business is running Facebook ads. This is what leads to getting a Facebook ad account restriction.
Officially, Facebook says that advertisers contribute to the Meta community in many ways, including highlighting new products and services or drawing attention to events and issues.
In reality, Facebook advertisers pay for Mark Zuckerberg’s mansions in Hawaii but, there is little to no hands-on help from qualified Facebook reps when trying to solve a Facebook ad account restriction.
Be sure to read What to Do If Your Facebook Ad Account Is Disabled
Facebook wants to create a welcoming environment for everyone who uses Meta products and services, so they have put in place Facebook Advertising Standards to guide what is allowed across Meta technologies.
However, in practice, what ends up happening is ads get flagged for a minor detail that isn’t obvious and leads to a Facebook ad account restriction.
Now, Facebook is still profitable and making many of my clients a lot of money. But, if your grasp of compliance is lacking, you may get even lower click-through-rates. The average click-through rate on Facebook ads is 1.4%.
While it’s good to understand Facebook’s philosophy – to create a website based on connecting and community, there are a lot of things lost in translation when trying to avoid a Facebook ad account restriction. Because there are like 10,000 more facebook ad policies relating to how the machines decide to give a Facebook ad account restriction. That’s why I’m trying to help here.
Also, grok that this is ultimately designed to keep Facebook users on the platform as long as possible. This is for Facebook users to see more ads, which makes Facebook wealthier.
So, if you’re wondering why Facebook is so strict on businesses running Facebook ads – it’s because Meta wants to make sure your ads aren’t driving Facebook users off the platform to a competitor.
Who then takes that ad revenue Facebook would have had if your negative or shocking ad didn’t scare Facebook users away? Hypothetically at least, because the FB automations misunderstand human language all the time.
Are you hacked and Facebook isn’t helping, Google isn’t helping and you can’t get answers? Read the ultimate guide to fixing a hacked Facebook account here.
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Ad Principles
Facebook Advertising Principles
Advertisers running ads across Meta technologies must follow the Facebook profile’s Community Standards and the Facebook Advertising Standards. In addition, advertisers on Instagram must also follow Facebook’s Instagram Community Guidelines.
If you don’t follow both the ad rules and the regular FB user rules you’ll be at risk for a Facebook ad account restriction.
Here’s an important distinction: Profiles must abide by the Community Standards, not the Facebook’s advertising policies. This means that certain content that would be banned on Facebook ads, is allowed for Facebook profiles to post. That’s why getting a Facebook ad account restriction can seem like a surprise, because you don’t know which policy you violated.
But, the reverse is not true. If your Facebook ads contain content that is against the Community Standards, you will also be breaking the Facebook ad policies. Are your ad accounts fine but your Facebook ads are rejected? Read about what you can do when you find your Facebook Ads Blocked.
Meta’s policies are guided by the company’s core values and the following principles:
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Enforcement
Enforcement of Facebook Ad Policies
Let me share what this looks like in reality not just the fluffy PR speak you see above from Facebook, so you can sidestep getting a Facebook ad account restriction. Also, be aware of new fake posts on Facebook as Facebook’s new ban on News is causing a rise in bad actors.
Protecting People From Unsafe and Discriminatory Practices
While on the surface this can be interpreted as “don’t sell drugs on Facebook” (which is true of course – don’t do that!) the part to pay attention to is “discriminatory practices,” to avoid getting a Facebook ad account restriction.
In 2023 there was a bug that would randomly flag accounts for “discriminatory practices” that were fully compliant. Yet, the automations glitched out. If you chatted in with one of their outsourced workers in Facebook ad support, 9 out of 10 times you could get your ads active again. But, you could get stuck in the loop with a Facebook ad account restriction if you didn’t say the right thing to Facebook ad support.
Discriminatory practices have a history:
In 2019 a lawsuit forced Facebook to take away real estate ads’ ability to use income and zipcodes from targeting parameters in Ads Manager. This led to a lot more bans and a lot more advertisers got hit with a Facebook ad account restriction. There was a lot more oversight for businesses running ads on Facebook because Zuck didn’t want to lose any more money in court.
So the special ad categories was established and ban bots got even more severe, hitting more marketers with a Facebook ad account restriction.
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Scams
Protecting People From Fraud or Scams
Right now there is a wave of 3rd world country hackers from Vietnam mainly, but also Bangladesh, Mumbai, Philippines, Pakistan, and some from Malaysia. They benefit from you getting a Facebook ad account restriction, because they’ll run crazy ads while you’re locked out of your account.
They are hacking into people’s Facebook profiles, posting bad content to get your Profile taken down because they realized they can run ads and the Ads Manager will sell their shit a lot longer and you can’t shut it off with your profile disabled unless you cancel your credit cards and PayPal account.
If your Facebook Profile has been hacked, Facebook offers no support at all, as the Washington Post accurately reports.
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Hacker Warning
What this means for businesses, is you gotta be careful about your wording, it’s so much easier to get a Facebook ad account restriction. You don’t want to sound like a scam because there are A LOT of scammers out there right now hacking into people’s Profiles.
A lot of companies that focus on teaching people how to start a business comes off as sounding like an MLM because of the wording.
Work-from-home type ad copy can get flagged as a pyramid scheme if you aren’t careful. I help folks audit funnels to be compliant to avoid getting shut down for this.
Read more on frequent Facebook ad policies if you are looking for an explanation of how and why they work the way they do.
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: User Experience
Promoting Positive User Experiences
Remember what I said earlier about Facebook not wanting your ads to drive people off Facebook because that loses them money? So that’s what “promoting positive user experiences” refers to as well.
The most frequent flags you’ll get here are for the Personal Attributes flags. That’s where Facebook feels that your ad copy is targeting a specific group of people too personally. Like weight-loss ads that sound really unflattering talking about “fat” too much in the wrong way
Read the ultimate guide on Personal Attributes, and learn things Facebook isn’t telling you here
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Transparency
Promoting Transparency
This is basically bullshit. Facebook is the least transparent Fortune 500 company I’ve worked at. What this means is, after Cambridge Analytica, Facebook started trying to stoke the fires of a more positive public outlook. So they added the ability to hide ads from advertisers, and go to the Facebook ad library.
What does transparency mean, translated from Facebook-speak to business owner or agency owner?
As a business, when you’re running ads, just make sure you don’t sound too spammy. Don’t overpromise an unrealistic-sounding result.
Don’t miss out on reading How to Remove a Restriction on a Facebook Ad Account
Enforcement of Meta Ad Policies
Meta uses automations 99% of the time and, in some seldom moments, a manual human review to enforce their policies. But beyond reviewing individual ads, Meta also monitors and investigates advertiser behavior.
This is referencing the internal score Facebook has for your ad account that they don’t reveal to you. No, the Account Quality is not accurate – it is often buggy like Page Insights is.
If your ad account’s hidden score goes down enough, Facebook may restrict your advertiser accounts. This is if Facebook feels your ad accounts don’t follow their Advertising Standards, Community Standards, or other Meta policies and terms.
Facebook’s review process does not detect all policy violations, and ads remain subject to review and re-review and may be rejected for violating Meta’s policies at any time.
Translation: Facebook automations make a lot of mistakes, don’t understand human language, and often approve Facebook ads that should be rejected FIRST. And later, these rejected ads are likely to be rescanned, and you’ll get shut down seemingly out of the blue.
Facebook feels it is an advertiser’s responsibility to understand and comply with Meta’s ad policies outlined in Meta’s Advertising Standards, their Terms of Service, and all local laws and regulations.
The message here is, “We don’t really give a F$%k because we make billions of dollars and your 500K a month in ad spend isn’t worth us fixing our broken automations that destroy small businesses.”
The local laws and regulations are mainly for ads for gambling and political ads – most of the time you don’t have to worry about these.
Facebook ad policies’ small print here is that they outsource Facebook ad support to barely literate workers, who give advice that will get you shut down and it is up to you, the advertiser, to intuit the Facebook ad policies on your own.
Now, if you’re working with me, I can help add transparency to how Facebook ad policies work. Not theoretically but in the real business world, having run my own ad agency while I was working in the ads department at Facebook.
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Rejected Ads
Facebook says that advertisers whose ads are rejected will typically be provided an opportunity to edit their ads in order to bring them into compliance and can request another review if they believe their ad was incorrectly rejected.
But the problem with that is if you don’t actually know why your ad was rejected, appealing is a waste of time because you’ll keep repeating the ad copy that got you flagged before in new ads. Or, because due to all the layoffs, there won’t really be a human to review your ads.
If all your business is dealing with is a rejected ad – I can audit it for you and explain why you were rejected and how to get compliant. But if you just appeal without changing your ad, you’ll get hit with circumventing systems flag.
My Underrated Trick to Appeal Rejected Ad Accounts
Make sure your entire funnel is compliant FIRST. Don’t forget to make sure your landing page/website is compliant BEFORE resubmitting the ad. You’ll want to make sure everything is compliant, identify why your ad was rejected, then appeal.
This sometimes can give you the extra edge to get a restricted ad account active.
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Ad Review
3. The Ad Review Process
Facebook’s ad review system is a series of automations based on a specific logic – if this, then that. Meta’s ad review process starts automatically before ads begin running, and is typically completed within 24 hours. If it takes longer than 24 hours for your ad to be approved or rejected, and it’s just in limbo, feel free to reach out to Facebook ad support.
During this review, the status of the ad will be “In review.” Additionally, your ads will be reviewed again, after they are live. Typically, at least once a quarter Facebook re-scans all active ads. Although the automations often skip over many ads that should be rejected.
Facebook’s Business Help Center has some generic info good for people who know nothing about running ads.
But for ad agencies and businesses, it isn’t that helpful. You’ll do better reading some of the in-depth ad guides I’ve written on my site and also reviewing the ads that have been rejected and finding out exactly which copy triggered the automations. Facebook won’t tell you this. I can though.
If you need a more VIP level of support you can see if you can get on my calendar and benefit from my experience working at Facebook.
In a rush and need priority consideration? Prepay and Prebook your call here.
What Is Reviewed
Facebook’s automations scan your ad creative, be it a still image or a video, your ad’s headline, ad copy, and the bots also travel to your website if it’s connected to the Facebook ad.
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Assets
Business Asset Review
Many businesses navigating Facebook’s advertising policies may not know that each advertising asset connected to Facebook has its own score. That means your Business Manager has a score based on disabled ad accounts and rejected ads.
Each ad account has its own score based on the ratio of approved ads versus disapproved ads.
And if you’re running a Facebook shop you know that Facebook Business Pages have a quality score that can’t get too low or you’ll be restricted from advertising. There are ways to boost your internal score with Facebook as well.
Want to make sure your landing page doesn’t get flagged by Facebook? Click here.
If any one of the above mentioned advertising assets drops below a threshold for the internal point system Facebook attributes this is what happens:
You’ll first get put on the radar for the shut down bots. Then, unless it improves, you will eventually be shut down at the:
○ Ad level
○ Ad account level and
○ Business Manager level
And in a worst-case scenario, at the profile level. But you’re thinking – just appeal in a review right?
Facebook Ad Account Restriction: Outcome
Outcome of Review
If your ads violate Facebook’s advertising policies, your ads will be rejected, and the Business Account or its assets may be restricted. The restriction mainly comes from a threshold limitation.
After you have a large number of Facebook ads rejected, Facebook’s machines will determine you are a bad actor and automatically drop the ban hammer on your ad account(s).
Lower-quality ads which don’t directly violate Facebook’s advertising policies often will just jack up your cost per action and cost per click metrics. So any blurry images or screenshot pictures instead of JPG source files you have will trigger the automations to low-key hate without a direct shutdown.
You don’t have an endless amount of ad rejections and disabled ad accounts on deck to mess around with. There’s a limit to how many ad accounts are shut down and ads rejected.
After a certain amount of rejections, Facebook can and will decide to restrict your Profile (the personal profile that is the one key to many doors, creating your Business Page) from advertising.
Or restrict your Page itself from running ads. That’s why it’s super important to consistently run compliant ads.
Facebook Ad Account Restriction FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How to fix ad account disabled on facebook
Your first step should always be to stop active ads running with the same copy as the rejected ad, then audit your funnel for flags, and appeal using the strategy outlined in the appeal section of the FAQs
2. How to enable my disabled facebook ad account
If you have a spare ad account in your Facebook Business Manager that you can run ads from, feel free to. BUT, identify the micro and major flags FIRST, so as not to repeat the same mistake.
3. How to appeal a disabled facebook ad account
As far as how to appeal a disabled Facebook ad account, you’ll get 48 hours to make your appeal. The best strategy is to communicate to Meta | Facebook that:
A. You understand WHY you were banned.
B. You are committed to following the policies from here on out.
C. You have identified and REMOVED the offending content from your funnel.
You can also get some top tips on facebook ad policy in this complimentary eBook: Top 5 Reasons Agencies Fail at Facebook
4. how to get disabled ad account up and running
Depending on how long your ad account was disabled, sometimes, if your appeal is written correctly, the appeal itself CAN potentially get you reactivated, if you understand to communicate with Facebook ad support correctly.
5. How Many Policy Violations Before Account is Shut Down?
Typically, it’s a 1 to 10 ratio. For every single rejected ad that you get, you’ll want 10 Facebook ads that are approved. After a pattern of behavior is established by machine learning, from Meta’s automations, you may spiral rapidly into Facebook jail if your ratios aren’t correct. 3 consecutive ads getting rejected risks your ad account getting disabled. But, it also depends on how severe the ban is.
And, if this still all seems too confusing, your clients are yelling at you to get ads live to bring in money, simply schedule a complimentary Facebook discovery call here
6. How to remove restriction on facebook ad account
As far as removing a restriction on a Facebook ad account, if we’re talking about a disabled ad account, well, you can rehabilitate your funnel and then appeal, possibly getting it reactivated if you do this SMART (I have methods that work if you’re in the appeal window). But as far as removing a restriction from Facebook ads, see the previous FAQ answer: you need to get in a positive approval-cycle ratio.
7. how long does facebook take to review restricted ad account
Now, ask yourself, is it an election year? Have there been over 20,000 Meta employees laid off? Did you word your appeal using specific language Facebook ad support can and will respond better to? These are the factors in play. Typically, you get an answer within a week. If you have a more severe ban or are in the special ad categories, you may get an answer faster but it won’t be one you like. Severe bans end up as permanent restrictions and they deliver that ban hammer faster than other lighter Facebook ad policy restrictions.
8. how to fix your access can’t be reinstated because too much time has passed since we restricted your account
In a situation like this, your recovery options depend on what is banned:
a) Facebook Ad Account
b) Facebook Business Page
c) Facebook Business Manager
d) Facebook profile
So, each one may have a different recovery option, depending on your situation, and type of ban it is, as well as your particular niche or business’s vertical, and the health of the accounts before the ban. Want to get a pathway to get Facebook ads live? Schedule your complimentary discovery call here.
9. How To Get Your Disabled Facebook Ad Account Back
First, let me also address the elephant in the room: personal and emotional attachments to disabled ad accounts. I’ve worked with tons of Fortune 500 level companies, and the amount of hair pulling and FML-ing over ONE ad account being disabled, is incredible. Sometimes, it’s faster, and cheaper, to just start a new ad account, and relaunch, rather than recover a tainted asset.
That being said, the same answer applies here to the instructions above, for appeals
10. How to unblock your Facebook ad account
Now, unblocking an ad account, may be possible if you get in fast enough with the right kind of messaging to Facebook ad support. While they are the gatekeepers, and don’t have any real power, they CAN talk to the right folks who, if you word your appeal right, can unblock your Facebook ad account. And of course, if you need next-level assistance, I’m always available to chat and see if it’s a good fit here.
Re-Review of Ads
Remember Cambridge Analytica? Or when California made additional requirements for Facebook to run ads in Cali? Or when Europe instituted its new privacy laws?
Any time there’s a big change in Facebook ad policies (which the public may not always be informed about), Facebook orders the automations to re-scan the ads again. So what used to be compliant could now be uncompliant.
For businesses navigating Facebook’s advertising policies, it seems bizarre that ads that used to be ok are now shut down. You may hear advertisers call this a glitch. It is not a bug. This is just how Facebook makes sweeping changes to ad policies and doesn’t really care if any honest business people are caught up and shut down in the process.
Don’t want to be at the mercy of Facebook’s machines randomly shutting you down? Want to make sure your ads are compliant before going live with a 100% guarantee they follow Facebook’s ad policies? Keep reading:
New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations
Ad agencies: tired of getting the silent treatment from Facebook after Facebook bans? And all you want is your Facebook ads live making you money?
I’ve 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.
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
Leave a Reply