7 Ways To Help Stop Your Facebook Ad Account Being Disabled

Logging into your Facebook account and seeing the dreaded words ‘your Facebook ad account has been disabled’ is becoming more and more common these days. I know this for a fact as it happened to me a couple of months ago.

Unable to understand what the issue was, I began to carry out some research. In my case it turned out to be a simple security issue, I didn’t have the two factor authentication turned on. I did previously use this option, some time ago, but found it a little irritating so I switched it off, which was clearly a bad move as it is now a standard requirement if you wish to run Facebook ads. However, as there are so many personal accounts being hacked right now, this is also a good practice even if you only use Facebook from a personal point of view too.

If you are using Facebook ads, which as a business owner you absolutely should be, here are 7 tactics you can use to help prevent your Facebook ad account from being disabled.

Generally speaking, if your ad account gets disabled it’s most likely down to one of three things:

Two Factor Authentication

So starting with this, make sure you have the two factor authentication switched on. You can do this by going to your personal profile settings, scroll to settings and privacy, click settings, look for security and login, scroll down to two factor authentication and switch to on.

Recovery Codes

If you set up the two factor authentication option Facebook will send you a text message with a code each time you log into your account. Yes, it’s a bit of a faff but it does improve the security on your account massively, and as so many accounts are being hacked just now I would strongly suggest that the pros of doing this far outweigh the cons and as I said earlier, if you want to use the advertising platform then this option is a must!

However, what happens if you don’t have your phone with you or the battery has died? It would be impossible to access the code sent by text from Facebook? This is where the recovery codes come into play. Facebook provide you with 10 such codes that you can then use to access your account. You must do this step if you set up the two factor authentication.

You can find the codes just below the section where you set up the two factor authentication. I would suggest you copy the codes and save them to a safe and secure place, if not a few safe and secure places.

Verify Your Facebook Ad Account

On occasions Facebook may need to verify that you are a real person, so if your personal account name doesn’t match your verification documentations then you’ll be in for a rough ride. I have experienced this a few times with clients and it can be costly.

Business Manager

Set up and run your ads through Business Manager rather than through your personal ads manager. Business Manager is basically just a portal, a sort of umbrella that sits over everything inside your account from your personal profile, your business pages, your ad accounts and pixels through to product catalogues etc. It provides you with centralised access. You can set up Business Manager by visiting www.business.facebook.com. Once you’ve set up your ad account inside of Business Manager it’s also a good idea to request a second account so that you have a back up should your primary account get disabled.

Verify Your Business

By verifying your business to Facebook it proves that you are a real business and you are trying to do everything right. You can verify your account by going to the settings section inside of Business Manager. This is a really important step as once you are verified, Facebook categorise you differently as they now have confirmation that you are a legitimate business.

New Advertising Accounts

If you have a brand new Facebook ad account and you go straight for the traffic or conversions objectives, then the chances of your account being disabled are significantly increased. And even more so if you suddenly go from no ad spend at all to £30/£50/£100 per day. In fact this will raise a red flag with Facebook. A better strategy would be to start with a £5 per day Like page campaign which runs for 3 or 4 days. This warms up the account and gives Facebook time to understand what your page is about, charge your card for a small amount and confirm that you are a legitimate business.

Adhere To Facebook’s Advertising Policy

Facebook have 31 prohibited products that contravene their advertising policy. Click here to view them. On top of these most people get caught out with either a) personal attributes or b) claims.

Personal Attributes
Although marketing is all about solving pain points for customers, you must totally avoid implying that someone has a problem when using Facebook advertising. What I mean by this is, I can’t say “are you struggling with social media?” or another example might be “do you suffer from back pain?” The word ‘you’ is the issue here.

Claims
Facebook also doesn’t like false hyped up claims, especially when it comes to health and finance. If the result isn’t a ‘typical’ result, ie everyone gets the same result, then don’t use it. Rather than say “this course will generate you 200 leads per week” try using “this course helped me generate 200 leads per week”. This is your result and you are not implying that they will get the same result. Try making indirect claim by using the words “may”, “might” or even “potentially” and use the word “I” over “you”. Of course if you sell a product like a soup maker and you say “it will make soup in 20 minutes”
then that’s fine because it is a physical product with a typical result that everyone will get.

Conclusion
Keep on the right side of Facebook because once your account gets closed down it can be very difficult, time consuming and in some cases very costly to get it reinstated if indeed you can!

For further help with Facebook advertising or social media training please contact me on 01423 529 708 or email me at rachel@rachelmooresocialmedia.com