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Banned from Facebook Advertising ... well pretty much!
easyrider
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Joined: 25 Jul 10
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20 Mar 12 1:28 am

Banned from Facebook Advertising ... well pretty much!

A few days ago I started a Facebook advertising campaign to promote my new dating and relationships product for women. My approach was to drive traffic to a free offer on my Facebook page and then get them to sign up to my list to receive the free product on offer.

I created a total of 36 ads in the first two days and the all got approved without any issues. The clickthrough rates for all the ads were at best mediocre so I decided to create some new ones with different images. The first one got approved fine. The second one was disapproved, the third one got disapproved and the fourth one got approved.

Then I received this message for the Facebook Ads Team:

Hi, We've noticed that you are currently running ads that violate Facebook’s Advertising Guidelines or Terms of Use.

The content advertised by this ad is prohibited. We reserve the right to determine what advertising we accept, and we may choose to not accept ads containing or relating to certain products or services.

We will not allow the creation of any further Facebook Ads for this product and appreciate your cooperation with this policy. Please note that we do our best to implement our policies accurately and fairly.

Continuing to create or run ads that violate our policies may result in additional action being taken on your account, including possible termination.

For more information including examples and explanations of our ad policies, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/help/adpolicy

You can also review our guidelines by visiting: http://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php .

Thanks,

The Facebook Ads Team


So what happened was that they went back and disapproved all my previous ads that they had approved, accused me of "running ads that violate Facebook’s Advertising Guidelines or Terms of Use" (which they allowed me to run) and now they won't allow me to create any more ads "for this product" (for which I assume they mean my free offer and the Facebook page in general. If I transgress again they could delete my account which includes my personal profile.

What a bunch of idiots. The offending ads were of a man and woman kissing each other - which they allowed in my first set of 36 ads. And I was directing the ads to women who were at least 30 years old - not to 15 year old. Do they think that women 30+ can't handle seeing a man and woman kiss?

And now they are sending me messages telling me how I can optimise the clickthrough rates of these banned ads!!! LOL

I remember seeing parts of Mark Zucherburg's interview with Oprah. In it he said that he encourages staff at Facebook to "Fail big and fast" (or something to that effect) - meaning to try lots of things and don't worry about when they don't work or you make mistakes. It is a pity that he doesn't extend that same liberty to users of his service.

It just seems that whenever a company gets really, really big and dominates their market, they suddenly become arrogant and think they can treat people like crap. In the end though it will catch up with them and they will fall. But then someone else will come along and take their place and act the same way!
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Greg
 
cecille.l
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20 Mar 12 6:12 am

 Hi Greg,

I'm sorry to hear you're no longer able to advertise in Facebook. Have they sent you another email after the one you posted there? From what I understand of their email they are no longer allowing you to advertise for this particular product only. You can still advertise for other types of products, but of course that is not any consolation at all if you only have 1 product to advertise through them.

I've read their advertising guidelines and while we can argue about what it says and it doesn't say, the bottom line is they decide whether to approve your ad or not. I know they have "manual" reviewers so that would explain why 1 ad got accepted and the second one turned down.

I think it's important to have a couple ads from various sources ( AdSense, Facebook, AdCenter, etc) running. This way you always have a fallback.

Have a good day!
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Cecille

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easyrider
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20 Mar 12 10:01 am

 Yes, I am still allowed to advertise on Facebook, but since I am only doing dating and relationship stuff at the moment, this means that I am effectively banned. I am not sure whether they have anything in principle against this niche or whether they are trying to make an example out of me.

The facts are that I created 36 ads which they approved and then they went back and disapproved the lot of them after they found fault with later ads I created.

A bit of communication could have resolved most of the issues, but they decided to just call in the firing squad to make sure that there would be no more trouble from me. I can't even contact them for clarification as there is no email address to send anything to (the one they sent their notification from was a noreply address).

At the end of the day though, while Facebook advertising is easy and quite fun, I found the cost per click to be quite expensive (around 35-55 cents) for what I was wanting to do. But it could be great if you have a really high paying CPA offer which you can target effectively using the Facebook demographics.

I didn't waste any money though as I had a free $50 trial credit from Facebook. If anyone is interested in getting this, all you need to do is go to "Advertising" at the bottom of your Facebook profile and then click on "create an ad". Don't finish creating the ad and then exit. After this, wait for a few weeks and then you should get an email offering the free trial.
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Greg
 
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sirmatts
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20 Mar 12 10:13 am

 quick question, did you direct link?
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easyrider
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20 Mar 12 10:23 am

 If by direct linking you mean to the product page, then no. The ads directed people to the welcome page of my Facebook Page. At this point people are asked to hit "like" to receive a free report. Once they hit "like" an email signup box appears.
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Greg
 
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michellerana
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20 Mar 12 3:45 pm

 I'm sorry to hear that your ads were not allowed. Facebook's Advertising Guidelines has this clause on dating services:

Dating
Ads for adult friend finders or dating sites with a sexual emphasis are not permitted. Ads for other online dating services must adhere to the dating targeting requirements and the name of the product or service must be included in the ad text or image.
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Michelle
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easyrider
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21 Mar 12 6:28 am

 Well by "dating sites", they are really meaning online match-making services. And the stuff that I was advertising did not have an overly sexual emphasis. Well, one photo that I using for an ad was a bit borderline - it was of a couple passionately kissing on the ground. But other than that everything would have got either a G or a PG rating.
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Greg
 
bbirdkt1
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29 Oct 15 12:17 pm

 Hello
If it is possible, how is it moving further with your case Greg? I just got banned too by promoting the free ebook for golf loving fans. Do you still late advertise on FB anymore ? Greg
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