Is your marketing campaign under fire with Facebook blocking your ad account for no good reason? Here’s everything you need to know about why Facebook bans ad accounts, and what you can do it get back on track.
The largest social media network company has come a long way from being just an online platform to connect with your pals from school or reach out to loved ones far away.
Facebook in 2021, has evolved to become one of, if not, the largest digital marketing company in the world, raking in more than $80 Billion from users all across the globe in 2020.
With a quarter of all humanity visiting Facebook regularly (2.85 Billion active users), it is indeed the largest and most effective platform to find and connect with customers worldwide.
However, to reach out and garner the attention of these users, you’re going to need more than just organic growth, which is where Facebook Ads come into play.
But what do you do when the social media giant drops the ban hammer on your Facebook ads account?
Why Facebook Bans Ad Accounts
Facebook is, of course, one of the significant revenue-generating social media platforms in digital marketing.
But Facebook can block ads, ban the account that owns the ad for specific reasons. Let’s check out different scenarios where Facebook takes action against ads. As Facebook puts it:
“Advertisers are responsible for understanding and complying with all applicable laws and regulations. Failure to comply may result in a variety of consequences, including the cancellation of ads you have placed and termination of your account.”
1. When the Credibility of The Account Is Under Suspicion
If the ad account performs any of the following, Facebook can ban or block the user account:
- VPN usage to connect Facebook. If the account is used from different locations simultaneously, the Facebook algorithm will find it weird.
- Facebook asks for certain mandatory information while creating the ad account if the user is not providing those details.
- Questionable actions from the ad accounts such as not paying for the ads created.
(Source: agora pulse)
2. If the Ad Violates Facebook Ads Policy
Like any other establishment, Facebook has its terms and conditions that the user has to follow while creating and submitting the advertisements.
If the ad violates any conditions, the Facebook algorithm will block them. Facebook explains nine or more specific guidelines that the user has to follow while posting content or advertisement.
Facebook has a strict No-policy for ads related to weapons, explosives, illegal products, discriminations, controversial content, multi-level marketing, misleading claims, etc. Some Facebook policies are country-based customized.
For example:- You cannot encourage ads related to Alchohol in countries such as Bangladesh, Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Some policies come under age-restricted such as Adult content, Drug, violence, Disruptive content, etc., again a disproportionate representation of any of these can lead to an account ban.
3. Negative Feedback raised by Customers.
Even though ad revenue is an excellent source of income for Facebook, its first and foremost duty is to create a perfect environment for its members.
Hence Facebook offers every customer an option to review the ads. Customers can choose any of the options below whenever they see an ad.
If the advertisement is annoying and repeating, customers will probably choose the “hide ad” option. But sometimes, customers will report the ad based on their experience with the ad content.
Users can choose any of the options as shown above. All of the above options are considered negative feedback by Facebook.
If an ad gets considerable negative feedback, it will be removed from the account, or even worse; the account will be banned.
What Will Happen when Facebook Disables an Ad Account
At least this part is very transparent. Facebook won’t remove your personal account if you have one. But the ad account will be banned for life or suspended till further notice.
- You cannot access the ads associated with the blocked account.
- No, you cannot call somebody over the phone to get a quick fix since Facebook doesn’t have any hotline customer support.
- Facebook can remove even the best-performing ad despite its reach.
- You cannot add an alternative payment method to overcome the issue or create new ads with the same account.
- All the analytics and insights related to the account will be lost.
How to Recover Blocked Facebook Ads Account
When you open your ad account and see a red alert message like below, you can confirm that the ad account has been blocked by Facebook due to negative feedback or violating Facebook policies.
This adblocking can happen all of a sudden without any warnings. If you are a digital marketing expert and manage your client’s account, then this will be a piece of bad news.
All the ads related to the account will be taken down or lost no matter how much fund you have invested into it.
Let’s see what you can do to recover the blocked ad account.
It is not easy to sort out all the issues since Facebook customer support is mainly automated. It may take roughly a month or more to get a response from an actual human from their team.
Again, this doesn’t ensure that you can recover the ad account.
1. Request Review of Restricted Ad Account
The first step is to request a review from the Facebook team regarding the blocked account. Please click here to apply.
There will be a page, as shown in the image below.
The actual time you will need to resolve the issue is unsure, but you will get a response from the team at some point!
2. Disabled Consumer Payment Support
The second method is to appeal for the account if you don’t know why it is blocked. Automated systems monitor your Facebook ads and take action. The decisions made by such mechanical systems can be inaccurate.
Ad accounts managed by people from different countries or proxies can also trigger actions from the Facebook automated systems.
If you think this will be the case, please click here and fill out the form. The application will look like this.
You should fill the application truthfully. Again, since Facebook is a large enterprise, the issues raised may take weeks or even months to sort out.
As mentioned earlier, the chances of reinstating the blocked account are slim.
3. Start Building Another Ad Account from Scratch.
Considering the time, Facebook will take to answer your queries, it will be better to move forward with a new ad account for your client or company to maintain your customer interactions.
If the real issue is not related to the payment method, you can run your ads that agree with facebook guidelines without any trouble.
You can also use an existing secondary ad account that has a similar name to the lost one.
4. Facebook Business Support Page
In case you noticed, Facebook has a Business support forum. Most of the queries on this page are related to the lost ad accounts.
You can also post your complaints and concerns carefully crafted in a non-abusive manner on Twitter, Linkedin, etc., to grab their attention.
5. Be Patient and Consistent.
Most probably, Facebook doesn’t care about the money invested by small-scale ad agencies.
Even $10,000 per month is not a significant amount for them! Also, the human interaction in the customer support portal is almost null.
Hence it is always advised to create ads that meet all the necessary criteria put forward by Facebook.
The ad account managers can wait for Facebook to respond, or they can proceed to develop ads compatible with the Facebook guidelines.
How to Prevent Your Facebook Ads Account from Getting Blocked
Over the past decade, Facebook has spread its roots to all possible countries and communities, making it the most used social media platform globally.
The advertisements posted on Facebook get an extensive reach compared to any other digital marketing platform.
Hence It is always an excellent approach to put advertisements about your product and service through Facebook.
However, Facebook is a platform used by people from different ethnicities, colors, social statuses, beliefs, religions, and thoughts.
Facebook wants to ensure that the advertisements, be it a photo or a 2-second video, should never hurt any communities feelings or misguide any age group.
The detailed ad policy set by Facebook has some strict guidelines that the ad agencies must follow while using their accounts.
Let’s check out some of the essential things that an ad account must follow to prevent getting blocked.
1. Carefully Read Facebook Ads Policy
The community guidelines on the Facebook page are almost a 10-minute read. Facebook explains every procedure, Do’s and Dont’s, in simple sentences to ensure that it won’t take much effort to go through the details. It is always better to create the ads based on the terms and conditions to avoid future bans.
Please read Facebook Ads policies here: https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/.
2. the Customer Is King!
For Facebook, its existence is due to the supportive crowd. If Facebook didn’t recognize the voice of the active users, then the chances of losing them are high.
Hence Facebook will always stick with the interest of its user. Facebook provides its customer the option to hide the ads if it is repetitive, inappropriate, irritating or sensitive.
People can also put negative feedback regarding the ad. Such feedback will help Facebook understand the content of the ad.
Hence, it is the responsibility of the ad creator to make sure that the advertisement doesn’t offend anything dear to the customer.
The ad insights provide details of the customer experience. From Facebook Ads Manager, click the “Go To Ads Manager” option.
The new window displays all the ads managed by the advertiser. When you click on a specific ad and click the “Preview” option, you will see a pop-up window as shown below. Choose the “Facebook Post with Comments” option.
(Image Source: Social Media Examiner)
The “Post Details” option will show you the reactions of the people. The bottom side of the page shows the negative feedbacks section.
This section contains details about how many people hide your ad from their page, reported the ad, etc.
From people’s reactions, the Ad manager can understand the merits and demerits of the ad. If the ad has raised a significant amount of negative feedback, the manager should take quick action.
Else Facebook will remove the ads without further notice. So the ad manager should constantly monitor the progress of the uploaded advertisement.
3. Try to Keep a Minimum Risk Score
The Facebook algorithm has a unique way of working. Based on certain factors, it can calculate the risk factor of the ad account and the business manager associated with it.
Sometimes Facebook will ban ad accounts even without a valid reason. But the ad account manager can reduce such chances by keeping a low-risk score.
Below are some of the points to be considered while creating an ad.
1. Always use a permanent IP location for ads.
Sometimes the business owner assigns digital marketing teams to handle the Facebook ads. The IP address will change if the team is working in a different country. Facebook security will identify this as a threat. So it is better to use the exact IP location.
2. Beware of outsourcing
Commonly, the agencies or people working in the ad marketing industry get the Facebook ban. If the person or company that manages your ad account has a history like this, it can also affect your ad account. You can resolve such issues by controlling the ad account by yourself.
3. Consistency is important
Some ad agencies create multiple Facebook pages to promote the same ad. The use of more than one Facebook page to accelerate the same ad is inadvisable. Facebook security considers this as a scam and will take quick action.
Another factor is the ad upload frequency. If you post several ads initially, it will confuse the Facebook algorithm and put your account under suspicion.
It is necessary to build a trust bridge with Facebook for a great future. Hence ad account managers should post single posts first and gradually increase the rate of ad upload.
4. Payment Issues
Ad accounts should provide a reliable payment option. For example, If the ad account has the details of an expired credit card, Facebook security will consider this as an issue.
Using multiple credit cards for the same account or using a different person’s credit card can cause the same trust issue with Facebook.
What Are The Benefits of Facebook Ads?
Facebook is undoubtedly the most prominent platform where 1.9 billion people gather every day compared to other social media.
Facebook generated a whooping revenue of more than $84 billion in 2020 through advertising.
Businesses can economically create ads on Facebook specifically targeted to millions of selected audiences compared to the amount needed to design a physical flex board on the roadside.
Besides direct marketing, Facebook allows businesses the opportunity to interact with their customers directly.
Direct interaction is critical to building customer loyalty which Facebook ads can achieve. The organic growth of customers is always a long road, no matter how creative and innovative the business is.
Facebook amplifies the reach of the products or services provided by the industries, reaching more people and communities.
Since these people are active on Facebook, there are chances to become regular customers of the business.
Unlike other marketing options, Facebook can identify people with similar thoughts and tastes, which helps the business to reach the right customers. It is challenging to earn the trust of people.
For example, everyone knows Amazon, and only a few know about a business firm called “XYZ.”
Even if the business “XYZ” sells the same product at a lower rate than that in the amazon platform, people will settle with amazon due to trust issues. Hence, convincing them to buy something from an unknown website will take some time.
The customers should see the business’s presence more often(say 3-4 times) on the platform before spending their money.
Whatever Facebook does is based on data analytics. The industry can see the weekly post engagement, likes, shares and comments, conversions, and sales growth.
This analytics data is key to the industry as they can quickly make decisions based on the outcomes from these monthly/weekly insights.