fbpx

Thank you for supporting us for 13 lovely years!

We have decided to end the LYF Solutions chapter after 13 lovely years in small business (24 if you count our hobby days).

I want to thank every client who supported our purpose-led mission and invite you to continue this with us at our company, True Green® Hosting.

For Google Analytics 4 services, please use our new brief form whilst we create a new website dedicated to this service area featuring my personal brand Ray Pastoors. We have some exciting features to share with you.

Take note that these services have different terms of use and privacy policies.

Lots of love,

Ray Pastoors

Founder – LYF Solutions

Ray Pastoors Founder of LYF Solutions ethical digital marketing firm

What to do: Facebook ad account disabled

Since COVID-19 many businesses, organisations and agencies have reported that their Facebook ad account was or is disabled.

If you look at Google Trends, you can see where it has happened.

Google Trends shows a rise in searches for facebook ad account disabled queries from advertisers and businesses since COVID19

In this blog, we take a look at why Facebook may have disabled your ad account and how to appeal it.

Why did Facebook disable my ad account?

Facebook reviews millions of ad accounts every day on the platform.

Example of facebook ad account disabled message on an ads manager account

They usually review ad accounts which are not compliant with their list of terms and guidelines.

Note, Facebook changes their terms and the platform on a regular basis, so you are not alone if you feel this information is confusing.

Facebook has the following guidelines for advertisers:

  • Ad Policy: your ads will be reviewed by Facebook when you go to publish them. Typically an ad will be reviewed within 24 hours, sometimes more.
  • Terms of Service: details around what Facebook allows and does not allow on its platform from a user level. If your ad account is linked to your personal Facebook, make sure your account follows the rules to prevent it from being removed or suspended. Often Facebook user accounts are disabled due to fake names being used or using your personal profile for business purposes. We also recommend your account has a strong password and looks to set up 2-factor authentication.
  • Prohibited content: there are around 31 categories of prohibited content on Facebook ads which can range from Facebook not allowing the promotion or selling of drugs (legal and illegal), adult products or content, profanity, poor grammar, deceptive or misleading claims and personal attributes. Although Facebook ads often have greater targeting, a lot of advertisers get tricked by this personal attribute rule because you cannot in your ad copy presume you know the audience and their personal interests or demographics. There is a fine line and this will change over time. As an example, in the wellness space, a common occurrence is when we say things like “feeling stressed or anxious” because this goes against Facebook ad guidelines. Often by asking a question and not implying we know someone, our ad will be less likely to be rejected. Playing on emotional language too directly can also impact this.
  • Political advertising or social issues: advertisers will need to verify their identity in order to run these ads on the platform. You’ll need to ensure your ID matches your Facebook name. If not, you will need the ID to be sighted and notarised by a public official (justice of the peace). Also, note Facebook does not allow expired passports, licences or identification, they need to be active and current.

Note: If your ad account repeatedly does the wrong thing, you could face permanent suspension or deletion of your ad account at the discretion of Facebook.

For some users since COVID-19, however (and even for some of our LYF Solutions® clients) we have discovered a few scenarios where ad accounts were wrongly disabled. Some say it may also be due to the USA elections.

Upon a successful appeal, the accounts get restored and things tend to go back to normal. In this scenario, it often relates to a bug or issue on Facebook’s side. Our bet is that the issues come from their automated systems or artificial intelligence, which tries to make reviewing millions of accounts easier for the platform, but in return causes good advertisers to be punished.

What does the Facebook disabled ad account email look like?

This email is an example of what the message from Facebook looks like.

In this email is a link which allows you to request a review for the ad account.

The email should also include general details on why the account was disabled.

In some cases, the information provided may not be correct as was the case for this client.

Example of an email a client received for a facebook ad account being disabled due to policy reasons

Note, always check your Account Quality page first and ensure the message is legitimate before clicking links or viewing any attachments.

The email should have come from Facebook.

In most of the emails we have seen from clients, there were no documents attached.

You can also check if an email ‘from’ address is correct by forwarding the email to you, as this can sometimes reveal another masked email address. However, this method should not be the only way to verify a legitimate email from Facebook, as your ad account will include the information if it is true.

Facebook ad account disabled appeal process

In order for your account to run ads again or even to add users, you will need to submit an appeal.

  1. Visit your Account Quality page.
  2. Under ‘What you can do’, select the option “Request review”.
  3. Then follow the steps to submit your review.
  4. In the review process make sure you include any relevant details.

The review process can take a few days, sometimes a few weeks depending on how many tickets Facebook support is managing.

How do I access the Facebook help centre?

Facebook provides limited support for advertisers.

You can also see this live status page for any known problems reported by Facebook.

If you have a Business Manager account, depending on your ad account Facebook may provide access to you with their live chat.

To find out if your one of the lucky ones (we are one):

Go to Facebook Help Centre

Scroll down and you may see this live chat or email option.

Facebook offers some users the option to a help centre live chat but not for everyone

When they are busy, it can sometimes look like this:

Facebook help centre features a live chat or email when they are busy to some users

If you can’t see this, it is likely you don’t have access.

Another way to access live chat (if you have access) is to:

  1. Go to Facebook Ads Manager (you may need to change the account in the top left-hand side dropdown if you have more than one).
  2. On the bottom left-hand side select the ‘?’ circle icon box.
  3. On the bottom right-hand side, a sidebar opens up. On here select “help centre” (it’s in small text) and a new page will open up.
  4. Scroll down to see if the page has the option to contact them or not.

We found that by doing this second step live chat would appear, yet if we went to the business help centre in a new tab directly it said that email was only available. Cheeky!

Why can’t I see the Facebook ads manager live chat or email options?

Not all users will have access to this support mechanism.

Facebook chooses to provide live chat/email options at their discretion.

They also don’t allow or have any way for people to request the feature.

Tips for communicating with Facebook support teams

In most cases, the Facebook live chat support teams are limited in their level of support and will often refer the issue to a case manager.

Most of Facebook’s support teams are overseas and can sometimes struggle to understand complex information.

If you are chatting to the support whether email or via live chat, make sure to provide the details in a simple format and look to provide screenshots or screen recordings to make things easier.

For a screen record e.g. by using a browser extension like Awesome Screenshot, you can share this by adding the recording link from a Dropbox or Google Drive account or similar.

What can I ask Facebook ads help centre live chat?

Facebook has the following support categories on their email form which can be used as a guide for live chat too (note these may change):

Ad account level issues

  • Disabled ad account
  • Managing ad account permissions
  • Other

Ad delivery

  • No delivery
  • Under-delivery
  • Over-delivery
  • Other

Ad policy or disapproved ad

Ad targeting

Billing or invoicing

Dynamic ads

Instagram accounts

  • Claim an IG username
  • Lost access to an IG account
  • Other

Pages

  • Request a page name change
  • Request a page merge
  • Request to change your page’s URL
  • Request to take down a page
  • Create a locations structure
  • Other
  • Add/edit a global page structure

Reach and frequency

Technical issue

Ads reporting

  • Business Manager
  • Can’t log in/hacked/blocked from features
  • Creating ads
  • Mobile app
  • Other
  • Ad targeting
  • Ad formatting
  • Page

Other

Facebook will ask you what product you are referring to.

COVID-19

Facebook Business Suite

This refers to Facebook’s new Business Suite tool launched in September 2020 to connect Facebook and Instagram together in one single app.

Why do my ads keep getting rejected?

Your ads can get rejected for a number of reasons.

Hint: Look up above where we explain the various rules and guidelines Facebook has for advertisers.

When an ad is rejected, Facebook will provide a reason based on the category you may have broken.

Visit your Account Quality page to see what ads have an issue. You can also choose to appeal a decision if you feel the review was a mistake.

Note: Facebook’s reply for ads that don’t comply will not be specific and when you ask support to give you an exact reason, they will not do this and refer you back to their terms or ad policies.

Often the best way to find out if your ad is being rejected over one reason over another is to try and edit the ad for an area you believe is the issue.

Say for example you change the question in your disapproved ad to something more generic and then resubmit the ad and it gets approved, then you can no doubt presume that was the problem.

There is no issue with trying a few times – although we’d not recommend going against Facebook ad guidelines all the time because your account may get suspended.

How do I get help if I am still stuck?

If the above information has not helped, we may be able to assist you.

Our consultation fees are $80 + GST per hour. To engage with us, please contact us and let us know more information about the issue you are having.

We will get back to you in a few business days.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

More inspiration