Oooh, that sting of your Facebook ads account being banned sure does hurt.
The sudden panic and confusion of what has happened? Did you do something wrong? Or is this a mistake.. sure is gripping hey? Like a brick in the stomach.
Well if you are reading this because this is currently you, I can tell you, you’re not alone. In fact, during the past 6[ish] months, Facebook has been cracking down on ads accounts and accounts in general. World factors such as the US election, the 1 in 100 year event we won’t name and the pesky old fake news, has left Facebook no option but to turn those filters up. Fair, fake news sucks and we want Facebook to remain a safe space.
So if you find your Facebook ads account banned suddenly, pop that stress to the side and let’s have a look at what to do to get your amazing ads activity back up and running.
Breathe and focus
Firstly, do your best to limit your stress. I can’t stress this enough. I know it’s hard but you won’t be able to do too much on your end to speed this up. If this is a client’s account, you will need to let them know that you’re aware of this issue and you are doing everything possible to rectify the account. Unfortunately, it has been pretty common lately for ad accounts to be banned, most by mistake, but let’s make sure you haven’t breached a policy.
Check the policies & payments
I know, you probably think you haven’t breached a policy, but let’s remember our activity is being reviewed by machine learning bots. So you may be selling skinless hot dogs but the bots might see something a little … different. Haha trust the bots.
Have a look through the policies set out by Facebook and try to put yourself in the bots shoes. Is there anything … ANYTHING, that could possibly be seen as breaching a policy?
Your next check is to make sure you have paid your bills. Yep, it’s probably on direct debit but occasionally your card has expired or disconnected from your account. So double check you payments have gone through.
Appeal the ban
Ok, you’ve done your checks and you’re an A+ advertiser that meets all policies and pays their bills on time. I’m not surprised you look like a pro. We now need to appeal the shutdown to Facebook, and this is why you need to park your stress because this can take upto 72 hours. Hold tight. I know, it’s a bloody long time in the life of some campaigns and you want to get those ads back up and running, so here are a few pointers of what to include in the review request to get it moving.
Hi my name is [ insert name ] and I am the [insert job title/or owner ] for ad account [ name of account ]. I work on behalf of my client [ if this applies to you – name client business ]
I am aware my ad account has been shut down for breach of [ name policy ] and I have made sure all my ads now meet Facebook’s policies and will make sure this does not happen again. It is in our interest to adhere to all policies set by Facebook and will make sure to do so in future.
If you spend a considerable amount with Facebook, it might be worth including what your next quarters media spend with them will be.
Facebook advertising is an integral part of our business and we would love to make sure we can advertise in the future as we have budget X amount of media spend for Facebook advertising.
We appreciate your time and consideration in reviewing our account and look forward to a long term partnership with Facebook.
Cross your fingers and toes
Now we wait, and hopefully your account is reinstated and off you go again. If it takes longer the 72 hours, follow up on Facebook chat support and they can check the progress. Once you have it back, if you did need to change any ad copy or creative, do so straight away or turn off those ads that will be rejected until you can update them. We want to avoid another shutdown.
We have all our fingers and toes crossed for you and hopefully it is back soon. While you wait, this is a great time to read Cheries blog on what to do if your Instagram account gets hacked.