jul3s
Power Member
- Jan 28, 2010
- 763
- 1,628
I got this interview from a friend, where advertisers were asking a former Facebook Ad reviewer all kinds of questions regarding ads, niche, and account. This might be helpful to some to clear the Facebook Ad Policy myths.
NOTE: Always make your due diligence!
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Q: What's the best solution/method you think we should do in case our accounts get banned or restricted?
A: There is a certain level you just can't control. You can minimize risk (which you're already doing), and have a Plan B ready. That Plan B should look operate on two fronts:
1. Rebuild. Starting from scratch, rebuild with a new account, page, website, whatever is needed to get you able to publish again and duplicate your campaign strategy. Does the idea of doing that suck? Yes! Do you have any other choice? Nope. You don't have to do it now. And maybe you never will. (it's actually very likely you never will because you're minimizing risk, but if planning for it helps you sleep at night—get a plan in place!)
2. Appeal. Get the link handy for appealing a disabled account https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/2026068680760273 be polite, be clear demonstrating your familiarity with policy and your commitment to running compliant ads. And be persistent.
Q: What is the story behind not allowing words like you and your in ads even when they don't reference personal attributes. (i.e., "Do you create training videos to market your business?")
A: You actually CAN say "you" and "your" ... but the problem is that the targeting on FB is so robust that the policy is designed to protect users from feeling like Facebook/Advertisers KNOW about THEM. So when you say "Do you create training videos ..." And they actually DO create training videos; people feel like they are being targeted. A commonly successful workaround is to say something like "IF you create training videos ..." Questions with "you" can definitely be approved, but it takes some trial and error in making them vague because, by nature, questions are inherently personal. 9 times out of 10, just turning the same idea from a question to a sentence will get your ad approved.
Q: Are all the reviews manual?
Does re-submitting with minimal changes give you another chance by delivering the review to a different human?
The personal attributes thing is the one that bothers me the most. I have had times where I absolutely removed every single you/your reference from the text (it was not English though) and still got rejected. It was completely impersonal. Any tips you can share about to workaround these cases?
A: All appeals are manual. However, many ads are not manually reviewed initially. Facebook's auto-flagging AI is constantly updated for images and keywords that are commonly associated with non-compliant ads. Many ads that pass through that automated system are published without a human review.
Resubmitting with minimal changes may eliminate the auto-flagged content and usurp a human review altogether. However, that may also mean a less effective ad. So if you know that your ad is policy compliant--appeal that motherfucker [politely, of course] until someone can verify it's compliance. [FB reviewers are mostly contract workers. They're all over the world, and although they're highly trained they have a lot to do and varying familiarity with certain topics ... not to mention motivation to do their best].
Personal attributes is not about "you" and "your" ... it's about users feeling like FB ads know more than they should about them PERSONALLY. Now that's an inherently subjective motivation to build a policy from, and that's why it's one of the hardest to comply with (hopefully, you can keep some of this in mind and incorporate it into your appeals). For instance, you could say, "Your life can be full of surprises" but you can't say, "Got headaches?" Even though the former speaks directly to the reader, the first is more personal—possibly invasive— if they suffer from headaches.
Q: My website got flagged for "offensive content" or some bullshit like that 6 months ago when I first created my campaign, and I haven't been able to buy any ads since. I own a home service business, so there's no way that there was anything actually "offensive" in my ad, but now FB just won't let me post an ad.
Do you have a workaround? I don't understand why a business like FB would just turn away money from people that want to spend it. I get pretty good results with google ads anyway, so I'm not tripping much, but I would like to see what results I could get with FB.
A: Just because a business is in a certain vertical doesn't make it immune to violating FB policy. I would have to see the ad and/or website to help you understand what may have gone wrong.
Facebook frequently cripples its own moneymaking ability by removing targeting tools/strategies from its advertisers. Their most valuable priority is the user experience. And that's out of necessity, not benevolence. If people leave Facebook because the ads are overwhelming—there's no one left to advertise to ... bye bye business model.
I could likely help you find a workaround if I saw your site and ad. Keep in mind that—like Google ads—policy governs the ad AND the landing page.
Q: Facebook policy apparently allows cbd ads for tropicals but I haven't seen anyone successfully Adverising any kind of cbd without utilizing gray/black hat tactics.
A: CBD is an area of particular interest to me, and on one of the niches my agency specializes in. COMPLIANT cbd ads. If you run black hat tactics, you can get shadowbanned. I have a growing spreadsheet of advertisers running compliant and non compliant CBD ads. The non compliant businesses are typically not usually running ads for more than a couple of weeks.
That said, CBD is typically not flagged for the AD, but the LANDING PAGE. If you are running topicals on the ad, but people can click through and buy ingestibles, your ad will get pulled. I advise my clients to clone their website and run their Facebook ads to a "sister" site that only sells compliant products.
Q: What’s actually going on w cbd? Every other agency I talk with says that their rep is able to approve cbd for them, but my own rep says there’s nothing they can do.
A: No one has a "rep" that can approve. That's not really how the system works. Not even a Facebook employee could approve their own ads, or send them to a specific person. CBD is a tricky policy, so they're just posturing bullshit to get your money.
That said. CBD policy is topical ONLY for the ad unit, and TOPICAL CBD and INGESTIBLE HEMP on the landing page. Sorry for the all caps. Thats the policy.
Q: Starting last year I have found that when setting a Conversion ad as an Offer it almost always gets disapproved, the reason being related to the landing page. It's a simple lead gen landing page, no issues with content being off--but in appeals they will sometimes say it's due to a lack of content.
But I can run the exact same ad with exact same landing page as a Conversions or Traffic ad and it will get approved just fine. It's only when selecting the option for it to be an Offer that there is a problem (and it's about the landing page not the ad content).
Can you explain about that, and how can I get offer ads to be approved?
A: my initial armchair diagnosis would be that this could fall under "User Trust" policy. The spirit of that policy [another subjective one] is to make sure that users are clicking through to experiences that line up with what the ad is promising.
When you set the objective as an "offer" there is a stricter set of criteria that need to align with the Ad + Landing Page [LP] to be compliant for publishing. So while your objective is set to conversion, and the Ad + LP have the same message, the nature of what a user must do to obtain the offer fall under different levels of scrutiny.
Q: I help advertise Medicare plans for a large insurance group but we’ve had such varying reviews of our ads. Since people need to be 65 (for the most part) to enroll, we’ve had ads that say something along the lines of - “you may be soon be eligible for Medicare” which have sometimes been disallowed and sometimes have gotten through.
Can you help me understand whats allowable when it comes to advertising a product that may have age qualifications (same as 18+ or 21+ products) in terms of what we can and cant say or allude to?
A: My first guess is the word 'Medicare' is likely getting autoflagged for "social issues" ... it's a hot button topic so just be prepared that there will inherently be more hoops to jump through for you. Here's a link to brush up on if you haven't already: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1838453822893854 If all of that is buttoned up, you might just be touching on "Personal Attributes" which I have addressed a few times in this thread. You can say "YOU" but you can't make users feel like you know about them personally. Especially when it comes to age and ethnicity. "You may be soon eligible for Medicare" is right on the line IMO. You might need reword that to create a bit more 'psychic distance' so to speak.
Q1: I've heard rumors that Facebook gives a user's account a "score" that reflects how many ads are rejected due to policy violation and then weighs their serving of ads based off this score.
Think Google ad Rank. Is there any truth to this?
Q2: What is the one thing you see that makes you believe most people operating in FB Ads aren't doing right? Call this the golden egg if you will and if you don't want to give that out for free I get it.
A1: I haven't heard of this, so I'll give it a temporary "No" and here's why. Facebook is not PPC, it's pay-per-impression. If 9 ads are rejected for policy and that 10th one is good to go, your dollars are clear to buy inventory. That said, your ads "relevance" is scored and accounted for along with your bid to win auctions for impression delivery, so it is possible that your account may be weighted too. But I also don't think it would make that much of a difference ... if you're not happy with your results, there's probably something in your control that can be done to improve them.
A2: When I do an account audit, the first tab I open is their audiences. It lets me very quickly understand what "level" they're on strategically. It will tell me if they're pixel is installed properly, how healthy their conversion funnel is, and what kind of retargeting opportunities they've employed ... among other things.
Q: My personal account was banned from advertising. I can swear I didn’t violate any policies, at least intentionally. I think it has to do with having an old account before. Any tips for getting around it when they’ve “made their final decision”?
A: Yes, never try to "get around" Facebook. It's too powerful of an advertising tool to risk losing access. Even if it feels like you're starting from scratch with a new page, you can likely get great results from advertising if you play ball and have a good strategy.
Q: Why does Facebook reject ads with “too much text” while it’s not the case, for example a video ad for a game showing a gameplay with in game messages such as “well done”, “5 points!” Etc will get rejected.
A: You can appeal that! If it's a screen shot for a game, it qualifies for a text exemption. But to answer your question, text is auto-flagged. The system automatically scans images for what it thinks is text, superimposes them on a grid and flags anything over 20%.
Google "Facebook Grid Tool" to scan your images before [for other people who are reading this, not you.]
You qualify for an exception for a game, so just know that it will always get flagged, but you can always appeal it. Sorry
Here's a link to the text exemptions: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/980593475366490?id=1240182842783684
Q1: Hi - really appreciate you doing this. Can you provide insight as to why, during the appeal process for disapproved ads, the individual responsible for the manual review can’t give specifics as to why an ad was or wasn’t approved to the advertiser? Or potentially just the review team structure in general? I’ve recently had a ton of issues with my ads and accounts being shut down no matter how many times I reviewed the ad policy and edited my ads, so essentially being told “sorry, try again” every few days was incredibly frustrating.
A1: There are a few factors but mostly it boils down to time. Keep in mind that most reviewers have to meet a minimum of about 300 ads per shift, which a rate of about 30 seconds per ad.
As a reviewer identifies, or "tags" policy violations in an ad, the system automatically attaches a boiler plate statement explaining the violation to the advertiser. These are admittedly vague. When I was working there, we could also offer additional insights to advertisers, but we're not supposed to give away "internal" policy info ... which is a line most reviewers stay on the the right side of by just sticking to the boiler plate messages.
I've gotten a bit more insight by appealing through chat support, but that team has been re-located [to Canada] in the last year or two and become more "scripted" as well.
Q2: What’s the reasoning behind not giving out internal policy info? That’s the piece that kept confusing and frustrating me.
A2: It protects Facebook to have more discretion to reject ads. If people knew the entire policy, they would be able to go right to the line every time. You know how people are.
Take CBD for example. I think they keep that policy intentionally murky because they don't want people's news feeds flooded with CBD ads (as there are now somehow more CBD brands than people on planet Earth).
Q: I’ve been trying to run an ad targeting real estate agents. The service is text marketing. So, we would be the way they add a shortcode to their signage, like “text short code to 555-1234”. Our ad creative looks like a real estate sign in front of a building. The ads have been rejected because it’s being assumed it’s related to housing. Do I just have to change my creative to not look like a real estate sign so it doesn’t het auto flagged? I haven’t had any luck with anyone hearing me out during the manual review.
A: If you're marketing to real estate agents, don't be too surprised if your ads get scrutinized under the new policies for Real Estate. So "Real Estate" is likely getting autoflagged, and then the manual reviewer is probably seeing what looks like a real estate ad.
Maybe you can appeal, but I think the silver lining here is that you're learning valuable information that your ads need to be doing a better job of showing what you do. People are confusing them for real estate ads, which means your target audience might confuse them for real estate ads as well.
Q: Hi there, Could you please shed some light on the confusing arguement of whether or not is acceptable to try to advertize lingerie on facebook? The kind of lngerie I am talking about is high-end and non-sexually provoking. What is your advice on the kind of ads that can be approved easily? Thank you
A: A general tip for EVERYONE is to look at your competition's ads by accessing the "Page Transparency" portal on their Facebook page. Here's a link to one for Fredericks of Hollywood:
https://www.facebook.com/ads/librar...essions_lifetime&view_all_page_id=73993514374
You can sell underwear and lingerie on Facebook, it's just hard to do it without being overtly sexual. This is probably the most subjectively enforced policy, but general guidelines are to show models from at least the waist up, minimal cleavage, and not zoomed in on any single bodypart or area.
NOTE: Always make your due diligence!
-----------
Q: What's the best solution/method you think we should do in case our accounts get banned or restricted?
A: There is a certain level you just can't control. You can minimize risk (which you're already doing), and have a Plan B ready. That Plan B should look operate on two fronts:
1. Rebuild. Starting from scratch, rebuild with a new account, page, website, whatever is needed to get you able to publish again and duplicate your campaign strategy. Does the idea of doing that suck? Yes! Do you have any other choice? Nope. You don't have to do it now. And maybe you never will. (it's actually very likely you never will because you're minimizing risk, but if planning for it helps you sleep at night—get a plan in place!)
2. Appeal. Get the link handy for appealing a disabled account https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/2026068680760273 be polite, be clear demonstrating your familiarity with policy and your commitment to running compliant ads. And be persistent.
Q: What is the story behind not allowing words like you and your in ads even when they don't reference personal attributes. (i.e., "Do you create training videos to market your business?")
A: You actually CAN say "you" and "your" ... but the problem is that the targeting on FB is so robust that the policy is designed to protect users from feeling like Facebook/Advertisers KNOW about THEM. So when you say "Do you create training videos ..." And they actually DO create training videos; people feel like they are being targeted. A commonly successful workaround is to say something like "IF you create training videos ..." Questions with "you" can definitely be approved, but it takes some trial and error in making them vague because, by nature, questions are inherently personal. 9 times out of 10, just turning the same idea from a question to a sentence will get your ad approved.
Q: Are all the reviews manual?
Does re-submitting with minimal changes give you another chance by delivering the review to a different human?
The personal attributes thing is the one that bothers me the most. I have had times where I absolutely removed every single you/your reference from the text (it was not English though) and still got rejected. It was completely impersonal. Any tips you can share about to workaround these cases?
A: All appeals are manual. However, many ads are not manually reviewed initially. Facebook's auto-flagging AI is constantly updated for images and keywords that are commonly associated with non-compliant ads. Many ads that pass through that automated system are published without a human review.
Resubmitting with minimal changes may eliminate the auto-flagged content and usurp a human review altogether. However, that may also mean a less effective ad. So if you know that your ad is policy compliant--appeal that motherfucker [politely, of course] until someone can verify it's compliance. [FB reviewers are mostly contract workers. They're all over the world, and although they're highly trained they have a lot to do and varying familiarity with certain topics ... not to mention motivation to do their best].
Personal attributes is not about "you" and "your" ... it's about users feeling like FB ads know more than they should about them PERSONALLY. Now that's an inherently subjective motivation to build a policy from, and that's why it's one of the hardest to comply with (hopefully, you can keep some of this in mind and incorporate it into your appeals). For instance, you could say, "Your life can be full of surprises" but you can't say, "Got headaches?" Even though the former speaks directly to the reader, the first is more personal—possibly invasive— if they suffer from headaches.
Q: My website got flagged for "offensive content" or some bullshit like that 6 months ago when I first created my campaign, and I haven't been able to buy any ads since. I own a home service business, so there's no way that there was anything actually "offensive" in my ad, but now FB just won't let me post an ad.
Do you have a workaround? I don't understand why a business like FB would just turn away money from people that want to spend it. I get pretty good results with google ads anyway, so I'm not tripping much, but I would like to see what results I could get with FB.
A: Just because a business is in a certain vertical doesn't make it immune to violating FB policy. I would have to see the ad and/or website to help you understand what may have gone wrong.
Facebook frequently cripples its own moneymaking ability by removing targeting tools/strategies from its advertisers. Their most valuable priority is the user experience. And that's out of necessity, not benevolence. If people leave Facebook because the ads are overwhelming—there's no one left to advertise to ... bye bye business model.
I could likely help you find a workaround if I saw your site and ad. Keep in mind that—like Google ads—policy governs the ad AND the landing page.
Q: Facebook policy apparently allows cbd ads for tropicals but I haven't seen anyone successfully Adverising any kind of cbd without utilizing gray/black hat tactics.
A: CBD is an area of particular interest to me, and on one of the niches my agency specializes in. COMPLIANT cbd ads. If you run black hat tactics, you can get shadowbanned. I have a growing spreadsheet of advertisers running compliant and non compliant CBD ads. The non compliant businesses are typically not usually running ads for more than a couple of weeks.
That said, CBD is typically not flagged for the AD, but the LANDING PAGE. If you are running topicals on the ad, but people can click through and buy ingestibles, your ad will get pulled. I advise my clients to clone their website and run their Facebook ads to a "sister" site that only sells compliant products.
Q: What’s actually going on w cbd? Every other agency I talk with says that their rep is able to approve cbd for them, but my own rep says there’s nothing they can do.
A: No one has a "rep" that can approve. That's not really how the system works. Not even a Facebook employee could approve their own ads, or send them to a specific person. CBD is a tricky policy, so they're just posturing bullshit to get your money.
That said. CBD policy is topical ONLY for the ad unit, and TOPICAL CBD and INGESTIBLE HEMP on the landing page. Sorry for the all caps. Thats the policy.
Q: Starting last year I have found that when setting a Conversion ad as an Offer it almost always gets disapproved, the reason being related to the landing page. It's a simple lead gen landing page, no issues with content being off--but in appeals they will sometimes say it's due to a lack of content.
But I can run the exact same ad with exact same landing page as a Conversions or Traffic ad and it will get approved just fine. It's only when selecting the option for it to be an Offer that there is a problem (and it's about the landing page not the ad content).
Can you explain about that, and how can I get offer ads to be approved?
A: my initial armchair diagnosis would be that this could fall under "User Trust" policy. The spirit of that policy [another subjective one] is to make sure that users are clicking through to experiences that line up with what the ad is promising.
When you set the objective as an "offer" there is a stricter set of criteria that need to align with the Ad + Landing Page [LP] to be compliant for publishing. So while your objective is set to conversion, and the Ad + LP have the same message, the nature of what a user must do to obtain the offer fall under different levels of scrutiny.
Q: I help advertise Medicare plans for a large insurance group but we’ve had such varying reviews of our ads. Since people need to be 65 (for the most part) to enroll, we’ve had ads that say something along the lines of - “you may be soon be eligible for Medicare” which have sometimes been disallowed and sometimes have gotten through.
Can you help me understand whats allowable when it comes to advertising a product that may have age qualifications (same as 18+ or 21+ products) in terms of what we can and cant say or allude to?
A: My first guess is the word 'Medicare' is likely getting autoflagged for "social issues" ... it's a hot button topic so just be prepared that there will inherently be more hoops to jump through for you. Here's a link to brush up on if you haven't already: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1838453822893854 If all of that is buttoned up, you might just be touching on "Personal Attributes" which I have addressed a few times in this thread. You can say "YOU" but you can't make users feel like you know about them personally. Especially when it comes to age and ethnicity. "You may be soon eligible for Medicare" is right on the line IMO. You might need reword that to create a bit more 'psychic distance' so to speak.
Q1: I've heard rumors that Facebook gives a user's account a "score" that reflects how many ads are rejected due to policy violation and then weighs their serving of ads based off this score.
Think Google ad Rank. Is there any truth to this?
Q2: What is the one thing you see that makes you believe most people operating in FB Ads aren't doing right? Call this the golden egg if you will and if you don't want to give that out for free I get it.
A1: I haven't heard of this, so I'll give it a temporary "No" and here's why. Facebook is not PPC, it's pay-per-impression. If 9 ads are rejected for policy and that 10th one is good to go, your dollars are clear to buy inventory. That said, your ads "relevance" is scored and accounted for along with your bid to win auctions for impression delivery, so it is possible that your account may be weighted too. But I also don't think it would make that much of a difference ... if you're not happy with your results, there's probably something in your control that can be done to improve them.
A2: When I do an account audit, the first tab I open is their audiences. It lets me very quickly understand what "level" they're on strategically. It will tell me if they're pixel is installed properly, how healthy their conversion funnel is, and what kind of retargeting opportunities they've employed ... among other things.
Q: My personal account was banned from advertising. I can swear I didn’t violate any policies, at least intentionally. I think it has to do with having an old account before. Any tips for getting around it when they’ve “made their final decision”?
A: Yes, never try to "get around" Facebook. It's too powerful of an advertising tool to risk losing access. Even if it feels like you're starting from scratch with a new page, you can likely get great results from advertising if you play ball and have a good strategy.
Q: Why does Facebook reject ads with “too much text” while it’s not the case, for example a video ad for a game showing a gameplay with in game messages such as “well done”, “5 points!” Etc will get rejected.
A: You can appeal that! If it's a screen shot for a game, it qualifies for a text exemption. But to answer your question, text is auto-flagged. The system automatically scans images for what it thinks is text, superimposes them on a grid and flags anything over 20%.
Google "Facebook Grid Tool" to scan your images before [for other people who are reading this, not you.]
You qualify for an exception for a game, so just know that it will always get flagged, but you can always appeal it. Sorry
Here's a link to the text exemptions: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/980593475366490?id=1240182842783684
Q1: Hi - really appreciate you doing this. Can you provide insight as to why, during the appeal process for disapproved ads, the individual responsible for the manual review can’t give specifics as to why an ad was or wasn’t approved to the advertiser? Or potentially just the review team structure in general? I’ve recently had a ton of issues with my ads and accounts being shut down no matter how many times I reviewed the ad policy and edited my ads, so essentially being told “sorry, try again” every few days was incredibly frustrating.
A1: There are a few factors but mostly it boils down to time. Keep in mind that most reviewers have to meet a minimum of about 300 ads per shift, which a rate of about 30 seconds per ad.
As a reviewer identifies, or "tags" policy violations in an ad, the system automatically attaches a boiler plate statement explaining the violation to the advertiser. These are admittedly vague. When I was working there, we could also offer additional insights to advertisers, but we're not supposed to give away "internal" policy info ... which is a line most reviewers stay on the the right side of by just sticking to the boiler plate messages.
I've gotten a bit more insight by appealing through chat support, but that team has been re-located [to Canada] in the last year or two and become more "scripted" as well.
Q2: What’s the reasoning behind not giving out internal policy info? That’s the piece that kept confusing and frustrating me.
A2: It protects Facebook to have more discretion to reject ads. If people knew the entire policy, they would be able to go right to the line every time. You know how people are.
Take CBD for example. I think they keep that policy intentionally murky because they don't want people's news feeds flooded with CBD ads (as there are now somehow more CBD brands than people on planet Earth).
Q: I’ve been trying to run an ad targeting real estate agents. The service is text marketing. So, we would be the way they add a shortcode to their signage, like “text short code to 555-1234”. Our ad creative looks like a real estate sign in front of a building. The ads have been rejected because it’s being assumed it’s related to housing. Do I just have to change my creative to not look like a real estate sign so it doesn’t het auto flagged? I haven’t had any luck with anyone hearing me out during the manual review.
A: If you're marketing to real estate agents, don't be too surprised if your ads get scrutinized under the new policies for Real Estate. So "Real Estate" is likely getting autoflagged, and then the manual reviewer is probably seeing what looks like a real estate ad.
Maybe you can appeal, but I think the silver lining here is that you're learning valuable information that your ads need to be doing a better job of showing what you do. People are confusing them for real estate ads, which means your target audience might confuse them for real estate ads as well.
Q: Hi there, Could you please shed some light on the confusing arguement of whether or not is acceptable to try to advertize lingerie on facebook? The kind of lngerie I am talking about is high-end and non-sexually provoking. What is your advice on the kind of ads that can be approved easily? Thank you
A: A general tip for EVERYONE is to look at your competition's ads by accessing the "Page Transparency" portal on their Facebook page. Here's a link to one for Fredericks of Hollywood:
https://www.facebook.com/ads/librar...essions_lifetime&view_all_page_id=73993514374
You can sell underwear and lingerie on Facebook, it's just hard to do it without being overtly sexual. This is probably the most subjectively enforced policy, but general guidelines are to show models from at least the waist up, minimal cleavage, and not zoomed in on any single bodypart or area.
