Last week I had a first in my business. One of my client’s ad accounts was deactivated.

I was horrified to be honest, because I had never had that happen before.

We knew that it’s happening across the board at the moment and I had heard about more ads getting rejected and in some cases accounts being shut down.

So I want to tell you what happened and what we did to get the account reactivated within an hour. But first I want to give you some tips.

While Facebook (or its robots) is in control of your account, there are a number of precautions you can take to protect your Facebook Ads account so that it is less likely that you’re going to be booted out of your own page and account.

It’s definitely worth protecting, as Facebook Ads can improve your business results.

So in this episode I’m sharing 5 tips for protecting your Facebook Ads account, so that you can be more mindful of your activities and not have your account suspended.

 

Resources:

Privacy Policy templates via Legally Shalini or 123Legal

Facebook advertising policies

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Website: www.newschoolofmarketing.com
Facebook: @newschoolofmarketing
Facebook group: @newschoolofmarketing
Instagram: @bianca_mckenzie

 

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Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. How are you?

There have been so many changes in the world since my last solo episode and I can feel the collective relief in some ways, and the collective anxiety in others.

Even though I’m in Australia, I’m so incredibly relieved by the election outcome in the US.

I’m also relieved because our covid cases continue to drop and are stable, at least while I’m recording this. Australia is a very safe country to live in right now in terms of the pandemic.

But let’s get onto today’s topic.

Last week I had a first in my business. One of my client’s ad accounts was deactivated.

I was horrified to be honest, because I had never had that happen before.

We knew that it’s happening across the board at the moment and I had heard about more ads getting rejected and in some cases accounts being shut down.

So I want to tell you what happened and what we did to get the account reactivated within an hour. But first I want to give you some tips.

As I said…. Something is going on at Facebook and although I’m not sure exactly what is going on, I’m hearing about more and more people being locked out of their Facebook Ads account, or having their ads disapproved.

While Facebook (or its robots) is in control of your account, there are a number of precautions you can take to protect your Facebook Ads account so that it is less likely that you’re going to be booted out of your own page and account.

It’s definitely worth protecting, as Facebook Ads can improve your business results.

So in this episode I’m sharing 5 tips for protecting your Facebook Ads account, so that you can be more mindful of your activities and not have your account suspended.

Let’s dive in at the top.

1. Privacy policy on your website

The first tip is to add a privacy policy to your website. This isn’t just relevant for protecting your Facebook Ad, this is a must to protect your business. A privacy policy is something that outlays how you will use your reader’s information and how they and you are protected by the governing law.

When you run Facebook ads to a landing page or website, Facebook will scan your website to see if you have a privacy policy so don’t skip this and make sure it’s on every page you advertise to.

2. Disable pop-ups on your page

Pop-ups are fabulous for collecting email addresses, but Facebook doesn’t necessarily like them. It’s a bit of a catch 22 as some pop ups are really effective for growing your list but when you’re running Facebook Ads you might just want to disable them. You can always switch them back on later.

3. Be mindful of your copy

Your copy, including your images, will be the first thing that captures your audience’s eyes.

Facebook wants to make sure that you use copy that is right for your audience and generally doesn’t like anything that has a negative tone to it. So you want to avoid sentences such as ‘are you sick and tired’ as this refers to a health related issue even though you might mean something completely different.

Try to use positive language such as ‘would you like to’ and ‘dreaming of’. Avoid negative phrases, avoid the word Facebook and generally be mindful of what you’re writing.

A little bit more about copy is that one of the guidelines that is often breached is the one that says you’re not allowed to call people out, discriminate or single them out based on personal attributes or personal behaviours.

Generally, ads that are rejected contain the pronoun “you” or “your.”

For example, if you’re a health coach, you could be saying, “Are you looking to lose those extra kilos?”

If you’re a relationship coach, maybe your ad says, “Are you ready to find your dream partner?”

Or, if you’re a money mindset coach, you could say something like, “Are you ready to make a million dollars?”

Using the pronoun “you” or ‘your” could get picked up by Facebook’s software and your ads might be rejected because of the frequent use of “you” or “your”..

There are certain words inside of Facebook that can trigger the software to disapprove your ads. Get familiar with these words. They often apply to industries that can be somewhat delicate and touchy, for example the health and wellness industry, relationships and sex, making money, alternative medicine etc.

4. Make it aligned

When setting up your ad, make sure that it aligns with your opt-in page or website page.

So, your ad must reflect what’s on your opt-in page or landing page and vice versa.

You want to make it very obvious that your ad reflects what they’re getting when they sign up for your offer.

Make sure your branding is consistent and your copy reflects what you’re offering in the ad.

Facebook doesn’t just look at your ads, they also scan your website or landing pages to make sure the two match up.

5. Be mindful of your overall activity

Facebook monitors what you do on your pages and in your ads, so if your ads are disapproved a few times it increases the likelihood of being evicted from your account.

So be mindful with what you put out there, read up on and stay current with Facebook’s advertising policies so that you’re less likely to upset Facebook.

Now that we’ve talked about what you can do to protect your Facebook ad account and increase the likelihood of your ads being approved, here’s what we did to get my client’s ad account back up.

As soon as the account was disabled I asked for a review by using Facebook’s processes to ask for a review.

When your account is disabled you can request a review via a button on the ad account.

I also went to https://www.facebook.com/business/help and contacted their support team via chat. They were really fast to help and I asked if they could review the case and help reinstate the account.

Remember that if you’re using this service that you’re actually talking to another human so be kind and tell them how much you appreciate their help.

Their support team was able to review the account and the ads that were rejected and reactivate the account.

Rather than running ads straight away again we did a thorough audit of the website to make sure the privacy policy was there, we also went through all of the ads to make sure that none of the policies were violated.

At the moment we’re not 100% sure what caused the shut down and which policy in particular we violated but we’re being extra cautious and careful with what we put out there.

In a way it was a good lesson because it’s making us review every step of the ads process to see how we can prevent this from happening.

Of course it’s not 100% bullet-proof, Facebook is still totally in control, but we’re definitely trying to do the right thing and make sure we play nicely with Facebook.

So to wrap up this episode, I’d like to suggest that you give your own ad account, landing pages and website a review to make sure you’re compliant with Facebook’s ad policies.

That’s it for this week’s episode.