Facebook ad account limitations often occur due to serious violations. Facebook immediately shuts down accounts after their bots scan them or after a series of minor flags have been added to restrict ad accounts.
Currently, Meta is laying off a swath of employees. Even their heavily mocked virtual reality unit achieved a significant milestone, generating $1 billion in revenue. To bolster confidence, the company announced its first-ever dividend payout. It’s a payout to shareholders—50 cents per share in this case.
What do you gain from this issue? Businesses or advertising agencies running ads on Facebook, if in high spirits, are being hit hard by the automated ad account banning process. This means that with fewer staff, Facebook is even more reliant on their automation capabilities to make critical decisions that could result in an immediate ban for you. If you haven’t missed my guidance on navigating the System Overcome, you’ll have the latest professional tips on avoiding Facebook ad account limitations. In this article, Bluefocus will share expert advice from working at Meta on navigating Facebook’s advertising policies strategically rather than just guessing and hoping you won’t get shut down. Today, you’re in the safe zone.
Facebook ad account limitations due to policy violations often happen
Perhaps you’re unaware, but the Business Manager homepage or Meta Business Suite contains all the answers when you encounter Facebook ad account limitations:
That’s completely misleading. On that page, you often find some vague warnings without any specific details about flagged Facebook ads, the reasons, or compliance versions. To obtain this information, you need to delve deeper into Facebook ad account limitations.
This means that upon encountering a seemingly simple issue that could potentially overhaul your entire advertising process, whether scaling or exploding ads, it not only affects Facebook ad policies but also conversion metrics. Facebook ad expert Bluefocus always points out optimization flaws in ad groups.
For example, many advertisers only select Campaign Objectives (e.g., Traffic – often referred to as “link clicks”) WITHOUT DEFINING performance objectives.
Your targeted performance objective is how Meta determines success—and it’s a factor driving changes in ad delivery. Suppose your campaign objective is Traffic to generate more revenue and your performance objective is:
- “To maximize conversion rate: We will try to show your ads to people who are most likely to take a specific action on your website.”
- When you aim to optimize for purchase activities, the algorithm’s main focus will be on meeting that objective. If you’re not getting purchase transactions, Meta will believe something is off and needs adjustments. This is one of the reasons for “Facebook ads not spending budget.”
- The best way to tackle this is by altering your performance objective: Instead of optimizing for purchase events, optimize for landing page views. This will be a cost-effective way to purchase because you know historically, 5% of visitors to your landing page will convert or similar. Now Facebook is making your CPC cheaper and actually spending your ad budget
Facebook Ad Account Limitations When Business Is Not Accepted
Not only for you, but it’s also one of the flags that confuses many advertisers. When I worked in the advertising department at Facebook (before it renamed itself “Meta”), this Facebook ad policy had a more straightforward name.
Previously, this policy was called “misleading claims,” which everyone at Facebook knew and referred to, and we communicated that to advertisers like you on the outside.
The thing to note is that this issue “moves fast and breaks things,” as Mark, or someone at the operational level or policy group, decided to reset this policy flag.
Why is it a pressing issue?
Previously, everything seemed much easier; if you said something odd in your ads and received a “misleading claims” flag, at least that gave you an idea that your content sounded spammy.
That was the whole meaning of that flag. It meant that Facebook viewed your offer or how you phrased it as deceptive. This could lead to Facebook ad account limitations.
Facebook ad account limitations for suspicious activities
Facebook ad account limitations due to suspicious activities are triggered by Facebook’s automation feature when they suspect you’ve been compromised. Or they may also think you’re a hacker and engaging in activities like using someone else’s bank account to run ads. Or you’re attacking another advertiser’s Business Manager. Bank rejections of Facebook ad fees also often cause this.
I’ve seen advertisers often abandon their Facebook ad campaigns just because they choose the wrong bank to block Facebook ad fees. This is incorrect because Meta or Facebook still remains a profitable market according to current statistics.
Asserting confidently that the issue is not all-or-nothing but rather small changes implemented will help your ads run smoothly and profitably. You can enhance your campaign with “effective Facebook ad creation in 2024.
What you need to know about Facebook ad account limitations.
The important thing about Facebook is that they require you to take 100% responsibility for adhering to their advertising policies even when Meta doesn’t communicate the 10,000 ad policies you must follow to avoid ad account restrictions.
But Facebook never notifies you about the policies you need to comply with to avoid Facebook ad account limitations. Isn’t that wonderful?
Facebook ad account limitations back when Facebook was still just a startup
You must understand that Facebook still operates like a startup despite being established in 2004. Therefore, the automation process is not flawless in flagging you for violating Facebook’s advertising standards. You may encounter situations where your ads are Facebook Ad Account is Restricted, affecting the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns.
At times, you’ll receive false positives where an ad that should have been rejected inadvertently gets approved. But now, you’re thinking because the ad got approved, you can replicate it.
However, everything suddenly shuts down when bots scan your channel again and issue a “Facebook ad account limitation” for you (thanks!).
That’s why absorbing knowledge about Facebook advertising policies at a high level is crucial to your success. Otherwise, you won’t know where the time bombs are hidden in your ad copy, creative content, or privacy policies.
Common Misconceptions
Facebook | Meta suggests these are the top signs people receive when running ads on Facebook:
- Personal attributes
- Adult content
- Using the meta brand in ads
- Advertising restrictions on business assets
With my experience working with thousands of advertisers—from celebrities to everyday people—I’ll share common misconceptions from my own experience helping people avoid Facebook ad account limitations. Both of us have worked at Facebook and in my private practice:
If someone is making the decision to flag you
That’s absurd. Facebook is 90% automated for all ad approval or rejection decisions. It can even be 96% automated after 40K layoffs in 3 consecutive rounds starting from November 2023.
Resubmit “Facebook ad rejected” before appealing
That’s one of the most common misconceptions I’ve seen. People receive an ad rejection and assume Facebook made a mistake, not bothering to spend 30 seconds reviewing the ad, but instead resending the same ad with the same flag you just turned off because of it! This is what causes Facebook ad account limitations.
What you need to do above all is to check your ads for flags, remove them, and then resubmit.
Facebook ad account limitations due to Facebook ad policies.
The automation feature only provides you with limited opportunities before they shut down your Business Manager and potentially restrict your Facebook profile (not just Business Page) from advertising.
Facebook ad policies are never personal – nobody at Facebook cares enough to track you.
You have to understand how the algorithms select copies of your ads, how they scan them, and what this means for your ability to run ads and avoid Facebook ad account limitations. So, you must elevate your understanding of Facebook advertising policy.
Facebook Ad Account Limitations when Content is Reviewed
Facebook’s review process involves specific elements of ads, such as images, videos, text, and Targeting Advertising on Facebook, as well as the related landing pages of the ad or other destinations, along with other information.
Contrary to what you might think, the landing page is included in the scanning process for ad account limitations, not just Facebook ads.
Facebook Ad Account Limitations when Reviewing Business Assets
Facebook ad content – from Page to Business Manager to Ad Account – all have their own nuances. Each of these can be individually affected or affect each other based on the type of ad policy warning you receive when your Facebook ad account is limited.
Facebook ad account limitations: Review Results
Of course, the entire conversation about whether you’re allowed to run ads or not is a conversation between three different nervous systems.
It’s very limited human involvement unless you understand how to attract the right viewers for your ads on Facebook.
Facebook ad account limitations: Ad Revisions
After your ad gets approved – unless you’re a Facebook ad policy expert – you won’t know for sure if that ad actually complies with Facebook ad policies. And assuming you know can lead to Facebook ad account limitations.
As I mentioned earlier, you might get re-scanned later to find ads that were approved and then rejected.
You should screenshot the ads that got rejected, then delete them. Or Facebook might and will re-enable them later and penalize you a second time for an ad that was rejected.
Create new ads or modify your ads
When you’re faced with a rejected FB ad, first review it, determine why it was flagged for ad account limitations, and replace the offending copy with an approved ad copy.
And copy the ad with the corrections before submitting. That’s safer than resubmitting the same ad even with exact changes. Additionally, we also provide Facebook agency account rental services with many superior features, helping you achieve advertising results in your ad campaigns.
Here are some additional policies you can apply to your ads
- Facebook: Ads running on Facebook must adhere to Facebook’s Community Standards, which apply to all content on Facebook.
- Instagram: Ads running on Instagram must comply with Instagram’s Community Guidelines, which apply to all content on Instagram.
- Pages and Events: Advertisers can advertise Pages or Events complying with the current Page, Group, and Event policies.
- Messenger: Advertisers sending sponsored messages via Messenger or starting automated conversations from Messenger click-to-Messenger ads must adhere to our Developer Policies.
Many times, I’ve seen businesses flagged for IP issues with Facebook’s brand assets, which can also lead to ad account limitations, so be careful with that.
Some issues with your website may lead to Facebook ad account limitations
“When it comes to common misconceptions – people often overlook that Facebook scans the website you link in your traffic ad. But the bots will scan it. And everything is tied to it, so you must ensure it fully complies, not just the landing page or the sales page, or else you’ll face ad account restrictions.
Sometimes, when you’ve attended an event, you’ll never find this level of detail there because most marketers don’t have a Facebook contact to provide support levels like I can. Don’t want to read more articles and just want a solution to your Facebook ban? Schedule a free discovery call today.
Advertising content that is not suitable.
The best thing is to have a basic checklist for your ads. It’s like having some content to review before you create an ad or after you prepare it for review. Following this can help reduce the risk of having your Facebook ad account restricted.
You must ensure that:
- Grammar or punctuation is correct.
- There is no sexually explicit content, nudity, or references to sexual activity.
- There are no references or implications regarding users’ personal attributes, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, religion, belief, and sexual orientation.
- No discrimination or encouragement of discrimination.
- No promotion of activities or products that cause misunderstanding or deception in any form.
- Avoid running ads containing images describing non-existent functions (e.g., a “play” button not playing actual content).
- Avoid making misleading or unrealistic claims.
- Do not include low-quality content (e.g., using sensational language or exaggerating or obscuring essential information to entice someone to click on the ad).
Prohibited products in advertising on Facebook include
- Business selling or using products/services for adults.
- Selling tobacco, unsafe supplements, prescription drugs, stimulants, or illegal drugs.
- Promoting the sale or use of weapons, ammunition, weapon modification accessories, or explosives.
- It may seem obvious, but the issue that advertising agencies often run into is when Facebook explains what you’ve said wrong, and then imposes ad account restrictions on you.
How to complain when restricted from advertising on Facebook.
Complaining about ad account restrictions is a balance between accurately understanding what in your channel triggered the automated process that made you stop (BEFORE contacting Facebook’s advertising support team), the ban rate versus approval rate, and how you talk to outside consultants in the conversation.
But this task is quite challenging. I have successfully restored some restricted advertising accounts during my time, but I often advise much better strategies for clients with more nuances to achieve long-term results without wasting your time and money due to ad account restrictions.
Conclusion
Navigating through the intricacies of Facebook ad account limitations can be challenging for businesses like BlueFocus. However, by staying informed about Facebook’s advertising policies, maintaining compliance, and addressing any issues promptly, BlueFocus can mitigate the risk of ad account restrictions and ensure smoother advertising campaigns on the platform.