Why do Facebook Ad accounts get disabled?
When your Facebook Ad account gets disabled, it’s typically because one or multiple of your ads violated their advertising policies.
It’s always been hard to get approval for Facebook ads. You got used to. But one day you’ll find that your entire advertising account has been blocked. And this is where real problems could begin.
Every advertiser faces the problem of deactivating the advertising account, and this has become a serious obstacle for people who are just thinking of starting to advertise on the channel.
Why can’t you access your advertising account?
There are two reasons why an advertiser might lose access to their account in Facebook Ad Manager:
- Advertiser’s personal account is blocked;
- The Ad account itself got banned.
Personal account shut down
Before blocking your ad account, Facebook pauses all ads until you restore access and can manage your campaigns again. However, if your personal account is removed from the platform, your ads are still up and running. Facebook keeps spending your budget, and there’s no way you can log into your account, optimize recently launched campaigns, and pause the ones that are wasting your money.
All you can do to address the issue is to fill out this form and wait for the Facebook team to review and approve your application.
Ad account ban
When your business account is blocked, your ads are stopped, and you get a message similar to this one:
Why is your Facebook ad account disabled?
Facebook isn’t verbose when explaining the reasons for the account ban. You’ll receive a generic notification that informs you that ‘your ad account has been flagged for policy violations.’ That’s it.
To figure out why this happened, you’ll need to go through Facebook Advertising Policies and make guesses on the point(s) you might have violated. These learnings won’t help you restore your account, but at least you’ll avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
Violation of Facebook’s Advertising Policies
Facebook Ad Policies provide guidelines on what types of campaign content, creatives, and messaging are allowed. If you violate one of these, your ad will be disapproved. If you do this repeatedly, this will cause an account ban.
In case you didn’t pay close attention to the list of prohibited practices before, it’s worth taking a look now:
- Before-and-after images.
- Capital letters.
- The 20-percent rule.
- Restricted keywords.
- Subscription services.
- Low-quality content.
- Deceitful practices.
- Bad grammar or punctuation.
- Low-quality content.
- Sensational content.
- Misinformation.
- Sexually Explicit Content.
- Prohibited categories.
- Facebook brand usage.
- Personal attributes.
Here you have a list of all Advertising Policies.
So, what can be done with disabled Facebook Ads accounts in 2021?
Before you contact Facebook and tell them why your account shouldn’t have been blocked, you need to understand that your ad spend isn’t a strong argument for Facebook. It’s typical for the company to disable accounts that have already spent hundreds of thousands on Facebook ads, and your case isn’t unique.
Facebook can ban your Facebook Ads Account for a specific reason or no reason at all. And they can also enable your account for reasons that may defy logic.
Here is probably the most critical information to know:
Every personal Facebook profile has a personal advertising account attached, most people are not even aware of this because they have zero use for a Facebook advertising account. This means that you and your friends or family can create an ad with minimal effort.
But every company can have many Facebook advertising accounts, but what does that mean?
For example:
- If your personal Facebook Ad Account is disabled, you may be able to open up a new business in the Facebook business manager.
- But if one business is disabled, you may be able to open up another.
- Or if one ad account within a business is disabled, you may open up another.
It is far better to have these accounts open BEFORE something gets banned because having one thing banned can often put a lock on your opening something else.
What remains to be done if you have exhausted these options?
You can start using a friend’s account or creating a new profile. In theory, this is a great idea. In practice, it is not as easy as you might think.
First of all, you need to make sure that nothing connects your old profile to your new profile. So you can’t use the same name, address, phone number, credit card, or IP. However, you will often need to provide a valid photo id.
Here are some precautions that you may want to take:
- Open up the new account in a similar name to yours but not the same. For example, instead of John Smith, use Jonathan Smith. This means that if/when you have to confirm your identity, it will likely be accepted.
- When you log into the new Facebook account, ALWAYS use an incognito browser. This means not to use Facebook apps to log in to your new account.
- Avoid using the same Paypal account to pay for your new ad account as your own account.
- Use a totally new website for advertising. This means a new domain and preferably a new IP also. You don’t want two different pixels (Your old and new Facebook pixel) firing on the same page/domain.
- Everything you do from now on requires great attention! If you’re heating up a new account, be sure to fill in any optional details on your page or Personal Details. Also, make sure your landing page is compliant. This will increase the overall quality score of your account overall.
- Read through and follow the advertising policy of Facebook.
When you open up a new ad account, there are certain stages that it goes through even if you are totally Kosher and are careful not to have a disapproved ad. The first thing that will probably happen is that they will disable your account before you even start advertising. You can appeal to Facebook Support by using the link that they give you in the disable notice.
Until you spend a certain amount, bots keep an eye on your account, which catches people doing things far dirtier than you.
There will become a point, though, you have spent a few thousand dollars, and your account will get a manual review. Once again, you will have to appeal against your disabled ad account.
In Conclusion
Losing your Facebook account is awful and is currently the main advertising platform that can bring a considerable percentage of your customers.
However, you should spend some time and money on other platforms, so if the hammer falls one day, you will be able to keep the lights on.
Unfortunately, as an advertiser, Facebook is not our friend. Even if you spend millions a year, what you need to calculate is the best way to work with them to use their platform.
