“Your ad account has been shut down”

It’s the last thing any Ad Manager or Business owner wants to hear.

Unfortunately – with Meta Ads – it happens all too often – due to the fact that it’s bots that make most of the decisions. 

However, there are things you can do to significantly alleviate the stress – should this come up for you. 

Read on to learn

• why you’re suddenly not able to run ads
• what to do when this happens
• how to prevent it in the first place

There are FOUR ways that you can get  disabled or banned from advertising on Facebook. 

It could happen because 

1. Your Personal Profile has been banned

2. Your Business Page has been restricted from advertising

3. Your Ad Account has been disabled

4. Your Business Manager has got shut down

All of the above will impact your ability to run ads – and all of them require a different approach to handling it. 

What to do when your Facebook personal profile gets banned

According to Facebook policy, you’re only allowed one Facebook profile. 

If your Facebook profile gets banned – reach out to Facebook Help and ask for a manual review. 

Most of the time, shutdowns and restrictions happen due to overzealous bots – so it is *nothing* personal if your profile gets banned.

With a human review, it can be overturned. 

AND if at first you don’t succeed, keep on reaching out.

How to safeguard against this

To protect your ad accounts and business manager, make sure that somebody else you trust has Admin access to

• your Facebook Business Page
• your Ad Account
• your Business Manager

👀 NB: Once your profile is banned you won’t be able to make changes to any of these – so this is an action you need to take now.

What to do when your Facebook Business Page gets restricted from advertising

Again, most of the time, overzealous bots are to blame.

If your Facebook Business Page is restricted – reach out to Facebook Chat Support and ask for a manual review. 

A message like this should get a response

“We believe this is a false positive. Could a human please review it?”

They can legitimately restrict your page if you regularly post content that goes against Facebook Community Standards (ie get rich quick schemes – and if your page quality is low – due to a lot of negative feedback)

You can check your page quality here. >>

https://www.facebook.com/insert-your-page-name-here/quality

ie https://www.facebook.com/pollylavarello/quality

To ensure you’re abiding by Facebook’s Community Standards, you can learn about Facebook Community Standards here. 

Your page can also be restricted due to:

• your payment method being declined
• your address – if it looks suspicious

How to safeguard against this

Create a backup Facebook Page. They’re a great insurance policy because Facebook pages are not connected to ad accounts. 

What to do when your Facebook Ads Manager gets shut down

Your ad account will be shut down is Facebook believes you are going against their advertising policies (which you can read here).

Request a manual review with “We believe this is a false positive. Could a human please review it?” They often tell you which policy they suspect you have violated.  

NB: Facebook bots scan both ads AND landing pages so make sure both are compliant.

How to safeguard against this

You should set up a back up Ad Account within a back up Business Manager (which can be running ads from your backup page – you only need a tiny budget running through it).

It’s also worth having backup pixel on your website – so that if your ad account gets shut down, you don’t lose access to all the pixel data.

What to do when your Facebook Business Manager gets shut down

If your business manager gets shut down you lose access to everything. Your page, your ad account and your pixel. 

How to safeguard against this

You need to have a backup Business Manager – but it shouldn’t be owned by you. It should owned by somebody you trust (a business partner/life partner).

>> The reason for this, is if your profile gets shut down, then both of your business managers would get shut down too.

Extra measures you should take

To limit the chances of your Business Manager, Ad Manager or personal profile getting flagged – it’s worth taking these measures.

Here are a few ways you can safeguard your personal FB profile and business manager

1. Turn your two-factor authentication on 

Facebook > settings > security and login > two factor authentication > use two factor authentication

2. Confirm your identity on your personal profile (do this using your phone as you’ll need to scan an official identity document as part of the process).

Facebook > settings  & privacy > settings > general > identity confirmation

4. Get alerts about unrecognized logins.

Facebook > settings > security and login > Get alerts about unrecognised logins

5. If you receive an email you’re not sure is from Facebook – you can check it here:

Facebook > settings > security and login > advanced > see recent emails from Facebook

DO Make sure you only have ONE Facebook profile – anything else is against terms of service. (It can get you banned.)

DO Add two trusted contacts as admin to your business manager AFTER having them complete the same steps above. This way if anything happens to your profile, you will still have a way to access your Business Manager.

DO remove yourself as an admin on FB pages which you aren’t using anymore. If you are invited to admin a page which isn’t your own, only accept as a partner via Business Manager. (This doesn’t/can’t apply to your own page.)

DO turn on two factor authentication on Business Manager for everyone.

I hope that is helpful and answers most of your questions.

If you have anymore, come on over and say hi to me on Linkedin or Instagram where I host regular lives answering your scaling questions.