Why Does Facebook Ban an Ad Account? Here Are Some Reasons.

Facebook advertising is one of the most efficient and effective digital advertising products out there. Since more than 22% of the global population uses Facebook daily, brands get more visibility for their content and boost traffic to their website through Facebook ads. But if you’re a marketer, running Facebook ads comes with the risk of getting banned or losing your Facebook Ad account. 

Facebook is known to be notorious for suddenly banning advertiser accounts without any warning. Marketers have experienced marketers suddenly waking up to locked Facebook Ads Manager accounts. Sometimes the reasons are clear, but it’s tricky to tell which rule was violated at other times.

So, why do Facebook Ad accounts get banned, and what should marketers do to avoid this? We rounded up the most common reasons why this happens on Facebook and what you could do to stay on top of things.

5 Reasons Why Your Facebook Ad Account Could Get Banned 

When you get banned on Facebook, it’s either your business page becomes unpublished or permanently deleted, or you are temporarily or permanently denied access to your account. If you’re using social advertising as the primary source of clients, losing access to a Facebook ad account hurts your business. You won’t be able to launch, start or stop advertising campaigns in Ads Manager, can’t post, and won’t be able to respond to your customers and other users on Facebook.  

To make sure you’re not running the risk of having your Facebook Ads account banned, let’s talk about each of these five red flags.  

1. Breaking Ad Policies and Community Guidelines

All advertisers experience getting flagged for breaking an ad policy sometimes, but if done consistently, your ads get disapproved, then your Facebook Ad account might be shut down.

Marketers should be careful that the ads are not anything illegal. This includes fake official documents and counterfeit products. Facebook does not approve tobacco (except for anti-smoking campaigns), tobacco, weapons, and sex toys. These are a no-go for ads on the platform. Avoid products and services that are questionable or seem to aim to take advantage of people. Some examples of these banned content are payday loans, cryptocurrencies, and multilevel marketing schemes.

Some topics could get more leeway from Facebook. These are gambling, nudity, political posts, and CBD, but it’s still best to have nothing to do with them. But if it is in line with your core business, then securing the proper permits from your local government and Facebook is critical. It’s essential to play by the rules on Facebook. If not, you get kicked out of the sandbox. 

 2. Irrelevant content and a lot of subpar customer experiences

Since Facebook screens all landing pages, downloads, or links to websites, then these follow the same ad rules. Make sure that all ad content is relevant and ensures a high-quality customer experience. Bad customer experiences usually come from the disconnect between the brand and the products or services you’re selling and the social media platforms where these are promoted. If you choose to push for ads despite the disconnect, they become irrelevant content, completely ignoring customer issues. 

Remember that Facebook still checks those links for overall trustworthiness when it comes to your landing page or website. If Facebook sees that the site advertises misleading or illegal products or contains malware, this may result in a ban. Make sure to stay away from too many distractions or pop-ups. Avoid misleading content or ads that are not relevant. There shouldn’t be any broken links, videos that don’t play, or low-quality images.  

3. Low Facebook Page Quality  

When a Facebook page repeatedly violates community guidelines, this can result in a low page quality score. This threatens your ability to advertise. Low Facebook page quality is also caused by sharing fake news, posts that incite antisocial behavior, or sharing misleading content. These types of posts make you look like a nuisance within the Facebook community. Your Ad account may even be banned because of this. \

4. Questionable Advertiser Profiles

Some common reasons Facebook ad accounts seem questionable include not verifying business details, consistently skipping payments or having payment methods declined, or accessing your Facebook account from multiple countries within short periods due to a VPN. If any of those situations happen, this raises a red flag, and your account may get suspended if it becomes a pattern.

5. Clickbait or Engagement = Low-Quality Ranking Scores for Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are scored for relevance and accuracy for the target audience. Although ads do get approved, some are considered low in quality because of various reasons. This leads to an account being banned. If not, it’ll take longer for your ads to be approved by Facebook. To prevent this, marketers should avoid using clickbait or engagement bait. These ad copies don’t show all information and instead bait people to interact — this is considered low quality.

Also, watch out for ads that get hidden by users or cause them to choose to “Hide All Ads From This Advertiser.” This also hurts your ad quality score. When it comes to ads with images, Facebook doesn’t like too much text over an image. Even if Facebook allows ads with more than 20% of text over an image to run, these are considered low in quality, reducing reach and ad quality score. One helpful tip is to use Facebook’s Image Text Check tool to check the proportion of the text in your image. To see if the proportion of text in your image is too high, use Facebook’s Image Text Check tool. To make sure you don’t end up on Facebook’s “naughty list,” use available tools that allow you to check if your ads have issues. 

Final Thoughts

Facebook is notorious when it comes to ads because the platform prioritizes protecting the user experience and the advertisers themselves. The platform requires businesses to play by the rules and offer ads that offer relevant experiences that are good quality. As marketers, be sure to go over the ad policies that affect your niche or industry. Learn more about policy violations that could leave you vulnerable. Finally, maximize the use of Facebook’s Ad Library and other creative tools to create and run ads successfully.