Why is my Facebook Ad Account Banned
If you have recently used Facebook Advertising or perhaps you are considering trying it out, this really is vital that you read and become acquainted with. Facebook is not like other advertising networks or companies that will undoubtedly let you sign up, become a paying member, and start utilizing their platform to advertise. Facebook has to balance the on site experience of their users with the revenue they are generating from advertisers. If Facebook just allowed one to start making ads, as much as they like, in whatever ways they choose, and spending whatever they want, Facebook would lose users. Facebook would just become a platform diluted and disrupted by so many advertisements that people would get fed up and quit using Facebook. The number of individuals using Facebook Advertising has grown to the point where Facebook was forced to implement some significant measures to ensure they can mitigate the risk of “bad” advertisers using their platform .
Facebook is tech company, and like the majority of other tech companies, want to innovate and automate just as much as they can, no matter what. They choose to automate the entire process of sifting thru which advertisers are “good”, and which of them are “bad”. Unfortunately, it is not a “black and white” tactic to identify good advertisers, and often times “good” advertisers end up having their Facebook Ad Account disabled or banned. If this happened to you, your Facebook Ad Account was likely disabled due to one of the following:
START TOO FAST
Create a Facebook Ad Account and start attempting to make ads immediately. Facebook assumes the typical user will be cautious when generating ads, and not rush. If you begin and produce 5,10, or 20 ads right off the bat, they are going to consider that suspicious and disable the account.
CHANGE DAILY MAXIMUM
Create a Facebook ad in a new Facebook Ad Account, set your daily maximum on the ad, then change the daily max by double or even more. Again, Facebook assumes that new users will be cautious and this could be considered suspicious.
CHANGE AUTO BID TO MANUAL
Create a Facebook ad in a new Facebook Ad Account, set your bidding to auto, then change to manual bid and adjust the bid, then change bidding back to auto. This is another scenario that would be considered suspicious and lead an automatic disabling of the new ad account.
LOGIN AT DIFFERENT LOCATION
Create a Facebook Ad Account and/or ads from your home computer, then log into the account from any other location. Facebook logs the IP address that you create the account on and they track the IP addresses that you typically log in from, to develop a “location profile” of your usage. However, you log in to a new Facebook Ad Account from anywhere other than the location where you created the account, they flag your account and it is disabled.
“BAD” PAYMENT METHOD
Add a payment method to your account that has previously been used with another Facebook Ad Account that was disabled for any reason. They store all payment methods using the first 5 and last 4 numbers on every credit card, because they cannot legally store and access the full credit card number (PCI Compliance). However, with these numbers they can “black list” certain payment methods. When Facebook blacklists a payment method, they also blacklist the IP address used to submit the payment method, and the address information associated with the payment method.
PAYMENT METHOD DOESN’T MATCH
Add a payment method to your account where any of the information about the account doesn’t match the payment method information. This is not just restricted to the names matching; if you add a credit card that has a billing address 10 miles from the location you created the Facebook Ad Account, the account could be disabled.
TWO PLACES AT ONCE
Log into your Facebook personal account from a different device than your Ad Account was set up on and in a different location, while you are logged in on your desktop computer. This is one of the easiest ways for Facebook to flag your account. They simply assume that you cannot be logged into your account from two different locations, and for that reason someone else should be logged into your account as well. Having anyone access your personal account, besides you, is against Facebook Terms of Service.
These are the most common reasons why “good” advertisers may have their Facebook Ad Account disabled or banned. Most of these reasons are not explicitly provided by Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/) and suggestions made in their community discussions are typically not specific (https://www.facebook.com/business/help/community/question/?id=10152842858838579).
The main reason your account was disabled can vary greatly slightly from the reasons above, or it may be a mix of things. If you need help or consulting, feel free to reach us at consulting@fissionads.com to schedule an appointment. We have been working with Facebook advertising for years and inevitably have had issues come up, but most can be resolved and prevented from happening in the future.