What are Facebook’s Advertising Policies?
Like all social platforms, Facebook has rules on what you can or can not do that you agree to when you sign up for an account. Now when you are also signed up for an ad account, you subject yourself to even more rules that you have to follow and remain in compliance with, or else.
When you go to run an ad, Facebook puts your ad under review for on average 24 hours. In addition to the content and message you are promoting, they scan for a functional landing page and positionality. Make sure that all of this has been thought through and you troubleshoot any issues before submitting your ad for review.
When it’s approved, it’ll start running automatically.
What are Common Facebook Advertising Mistakes?
- Having bad grammar
- Ads with features that don’t work
- Sensationalization
- Automatic animation
- Using Facebook’s brand to promote their content (ex: screenshots on the platform)
- Using excessive text on an image
Joshua Hoehne / Unsplash
What Can I Not Advertise on Facebook?
While some of these may be a no-brainer (like not selling an illegal service to a minor), these rules were constructed for a reason. The basis of it is don’t target off of personal information, ask for personal information, or put the ad viewer in any sort of mental, physical, or ideological danger. Make sure you are following them:
- Anything not in compliance with Facebook’s community standards
- Illegal products or services (especially if they’re targeted towards minors)
- Discriminatory messages or actions
- Anything smoking-related
- Anything drug-related
- Unsafe supplements
- The sale or use of weapons (but not communities centered around weapon-related interests)
- Sexual products or services (safe-sex products should not be aimed at minors)
- Adult content
- Anything that could violate third-party rights
- Violent content
- Demographic targeting
- Misinformation (checked by fact-checkers)
- Exploitative content
- Non-functional landing pages
- Malware
- Loans
- Multilevel Marketing
- Alcohol, dating, online gambling, over-the-counter drugs, and social issues are allowed but on a restricted basis
What Happens if I Violate Facebook’s Advertising Policies?
For advertisers, the last thing you want is to violate Facebook advertising policies. It can mean being held within Facebook sanctions that will not run your ad campaign or can even block your account depending on how egregious your violation was.
If your ad is disapproved, Facebook will email you a detailed message containing all the reasons why your ad did not make it through the approval process. You can then edit and resubmit your ad which will trigger the review process over again.
