In 2021, Meta recorded revenues of $117 billion, nearly all of which was generated through businesses paying to advertise on their Facebook and Instagram platforms.
With Meta so reliant on this revenue, it is both puzzling and frustrating that their support for advertisers is shockingly bad. The internet is awash with stories of both small companies and major advertising agencies having their Facebook ad accounts disabled without notice.
Often, accounts will be restricted for nonsensical reasons. Account quality can be excellent – unfortunately, that doesn’t stop users from waking up one morning to find themselves deprived of their advertising access.
The hard work usually starts when trying to figure out how to resolve a disabled ad account. Be warned – it’s not a simple process. If you are successful, it will likely take many days, if not weeks.
As you are reading this, we assume you need help to restore your Facebook Ad account, so let’s crack on…
Share Your Discontent Loudly
In the high-tech world of Facebook, you would assume there would be a user-friendly way to reach out to knowledgeable customer support and get the matter quickly resolved.
Unfortunately there isn’t.
The best chance you have is the age-old ‘whoever shouts the loudest gets heard’ approach.
This basically means using all the contact points Facebook provides, while keeping your fingers crossed that a human will eventually see your concerns, and show sympathy with your situation.
Here’s a list (in order of importance) of things you should do:
- Contact an Account Manager – If you are lucky enough to have a Facebook Account Manager, contacting them is probably the best solution. They may be able to get access restored much quicker than using any other method.
- Use Business Chat Support – It could end up being a fruitless pursuit, but this is how Facebook recommends you raise your problems. Be prepared to REPEATEDLY contact support, even if one agent has told you there is nothing more they can do. Another agent may prove more capable. Use this link to get started.
- Craft an Email – Dispute the reasons given for your account disablement. State your (hopefully) long history of previous good behaviour and compliance with Facebook policies. Attach a copy of your ID to the email. Send the email to each of these addresses; support@fb.com, disabled@fb.com, advertise@fb.com, appeals@fb.com
- Leave Feedback – If you still have access to your ads manager account (but just can’t run ads), navigate to the ‘?’ icon. In the ‘leave feedback’ field, be sure to report your problem again.
Quite commonly, Facebook business support will offer no resolution to your issues, and the situation may seem particularly dire. However, on a couple of occasions, the above approach has seen my access restored.
No contact. No apologies. No replies to emails. Just restored access.
Hopefully, it works for you too. Meanwhile, you should be actively looking for other platforms to replace the ad revenue you (or your clients) are losing while your Facebook ads are on hold.
Spread The Risk
If nothing else, a disabled ad account is a big wake-up call – being overly reliant on one advertising platform is never a good idea.
Sure, Facebook ads may still have some of the best targeting methods in the digital marketing world, but this is gradually being diluted by the removal of many interest and demographic filters.
Using TikTok ads is now a no-brainer. In many cases, it can deliver results that are competitive with Facebook, and in some industries may even surpass them. Sign up for TikTok Ads on the day your Facebook account is restricted.
Native advertising via Taboola or Outbrain should also be considered. The ability to advertise next to news content can significantly increase brand recognition and trust.
Fashion, beauty, and cosmetic adverts perform particularly well on native – to get a good idea of how to draft effective native ads, visit Taboola trends.
After a short trial and error process, it’s possible to drive excellent results.
Click-through rates are typically lower than Facebook but so are the CPC’s. Native can be a reliable and profitable channel for many industries.
Future Proof Facebook – The View From Spike
Hopefully, your Facebook access will be restored, but how can you stop this stressful event from happening again?
In all honesty, it’s impossible to 100% future-proof your Facebook advertising account. Especially when your account gets incorrectly flagged by a questionable AI system.
However, aside from regularly reviewing and adhering to Facebook policies, having a ‘testing’ and a ‘production’ advertising account can be a good idea.
When dealing with sensitive topics and potentially risky creatives, ads should be trialled for a couple of weeks in the testing account, before being rolled out into the production account. Therefore any issues (such as people reporting adverts) should be limited to the testing account. This will hopefully ensure the production account remains ‘clean’ and free from quality issues.
It also allows you to gain a broader knowledge of the types of wording, images, and industries that can prove problematic, while still ensuring you have access to at least one advertising account.
Ultimately though, diversification of advertising platforms is the only way to truly reduce the impact of a Facebook account restriction. By advertising on multiple platforms, revenues will be protected should your account be restricted. In addition, brand awareness will increase as new audiences are explored.
Author spike.digital