If you’ve ever had a Facebook ad denied or a Facebook ad account shut down, then you know the pain and frustration that goes along with it.
So, what do you need to do to stay safe?
What should you do if this happens?
That’s exactly what we’re covering here today.
When your ad gets denied or your ad accounts get shut down, it’s not a fun feeling–I know.
And lately, it seems to be happening a lot more frequently and a lot more often to a lot more ad accounts, who, in all senses, are pretty much abiding by all the rules and all the terms of service…
So when they get sucker-punched by that ad getting denied or that ad account getting entirely shut down, it comes as a bit of a shock and surprise.
And it can often lead to a sense of dread and panic, especially if Facebook has been one of your main traffic platforms.
After running Facebook ads for this many years across so many different clients and so many different ad accounts, I’ve had ads denied as well, and I know the feelings that go along with it.
It makes you start to question things like, “What did I do wrong? Was it something I said? Was my image offensive? Did I violate the terms of service? Why does Facebook hate me?”
Before we dive into the specifics, we need to clear something up and make it really, really clear here.
And that’s that Facebook’s primary goal, their primary audience, isn’t you and me as advertisers, but rather to the billions of people that they serve as regular daily users.
When we understand this and when we fully appreciate and respect that it’s not our platform but theirs, and their primary job is to cater to the needs of their users…
Everything gets a little easier and a lot more simple.
This is because it allows us to put ourselves in their shoes and understand that their primary goal is respecting the attention and making sure that people continue to spend time on their platform.
That said, they sometimes mess up and they sometimes deny ads that shouldn’t be denied, or shut down ad accounts that shouldn’t be shut down.
After really diving into why different ads were getting denied and ad accounts were getting shut down, I’ve determined there’s seven different factors that could be leading to your ads getting denied or ad accounts getting shut down.
These seven factors are not all created equal.
In fact, some are more important than others.
So, what I normally suggest to my clients or to my students when they come to me with an ad account getting shut down, is that we start at the top and we work our way through all the way to the bottom.
By taking this sequential and strategic approach to it, we’re often able to correct the problem without too much work involved, and we’re able to do it a lot quicker.
Here are the seven steps where you wanna start and where eventually you’re gonna need to end up:
Step number one is obviously to take a look at the ad.
The first thing that normally happens is an ad gets denied.
This means that for some reason, something in the ad has flagged something and gone against the terms of service.
Whether it’s showing before and after pictures, making claims, or advertising something that Facebook isn’t too fond of.
Whatever it is, for some reason, something’s been flagged.
This could’ve been flagged by a machine and by the algorithm…
Or it could’ve been manually flagged by one of the new employees that Facebook has hired in order to better police the advertising network.
Regardless, take a look at your ad, go through it with a fine-toothed comb, and start to find words that may be getting flagged, or areas that may be making claims.
Anything that goes against the terms of service.
Really try to vanilla your ad up to make it a little more bland and a little more boring just to see if you can get it approved.
If it does get approved, then you know the issue is with the ad.
The second thing is the ad account.
When you’ve got an ad account with a ton of different denied ads or one that’s experienced terms of service violation after terms of service violation, it starts to get a bit of a black mark in the Facebook ad network.
For this reason, if you have an ad account that has a ton of different denied ads, you’ve got all sorts of different issues.
You may need to start a brand new ad account in order to bypass having your ad account get shut down sooner than later, or getting your ads continually denied.
After that, it’s time to take a look at your Facebook page.
If you’re creating ads that are getting denied or you’re starting new ad accounts that keep getting shut down, it could be because of the associated Facebook page that’s going along with them.
Whether you have a backup Facebook page or a different Facebook page, or you wanna create a brand new one, this is the next logical step.
Next up, it’s time to take a look at the URL or the website that you’re sending people to off of Facebook through your ads.
For starters, don’t be sending them to a .clickfunnels or a .lead pages, as this isn’t great.
Try to brand it and put it under your own business.
But again, if your business has continually had infractions or violations of the terms of service, you may need to start sending them to a different URL or a different website.
One that hasn’t been associated with any of the previously banned ads or ad accounts, or any of the previously banned Facebook pages.
Now let’s say you’ve got new ads, a new ad account, a new Facebook page, and you’re sending them to a new URL on a new website.
I know it’s a lot of work, but if your ads keep getting shut down, it might be worth the effort.
Regardless, the next step is to take a look at the credit card that’s associated with the ad accounts.
Again, this is one of those things that Facebook isn’t gonna confirm…
But if you start to look logically at what things are tied to your ad account and why your ads keep getting denied, this is the next logical step.
Try advertising with a completely different credit card and see if that’ll allow you to get through the barriers.
Once that’s done, it’s time to take a look at your business manager overall.
If your business manager is just full of all sorts of different banned ad accounts, it’s gonna put up a bit of a red flag with Facebook, so this is something that you’re gonna wanna take a look at.
Lastly, you’ve gotta take a look really objectively at your entire business structure and any other assets…
This means any other ad accounts, Facebook pages, business managers, URL’s, or any of the other associated online assets with that account and take a look at your business.
If you just can’t get an ad approved and you keep getting ad accounts shut down, it might be time for a complete new re-brand, at least insofar as Facebook ads are concerned.
Now that we’ve got that covered, here are four tips to help keep your ads safe and your ad account in good standing with Facebook:
Tip number one is that any time you’ve got a denied ad or an ad that’s been disapproved by Facebook, you want to delete that from your ad account as soon as possible.
The last thing you wanna do is go into your ads manager and see a whole bunch of different ads that have been denied that are still sitting there because that’s putting up a red flag for Facebook.
The next point is that you always want to have backup ad accounts.
One ad account is simply not enough, especially if you’re doing a lot of advertising with Facebook, so have a backup.
Have a backup to your backup, and maybe even have a backup to your backup’s backup.
The third thing is you need to understand that Facebook may be gunning for you.
What this means is that if you’ve got a history of ads getting denied or terms of service violations or ad accounts getting shut down, you’re gonna be on their radar.
You’re gonna need to play things extra squeaky-clean and extra careful if you wanna get your ads approved and running on their platform.
The fourth tip is, just like having backup ad accounts, you wanna have backup traffic platforms, which means diversifying your traffic source.
Any time that you’re relying solely on Facebook ads for your traffic, you’re running in dangerous waters.
Because if Facebook denies your ads or shuts down your ad account, you’re kind of hooped.
This is why I always suggest having multiple traffic platforms available.
Whether we’re talking about search engine-optimized content, running YouTube ads, organic social posting methods, like on your personal Facebook page or through Twitter…anything like that.
Always look for a backup traffic source so that you’re never putting all your eggs in one basket and leaving yourself at the mercy of Facebook.
