Your Facebook or Instagram ad failed review, and the account says something vague about a “policy violation”. Sound familiar? Often the cause is a small thing you can spot in a minute, if you know where to look. A business owner does not need to know every Meta rule, but the five common reasons below are worth keeping in front of you before launch.
A word on accuracy. Meta’s rules are called the Advertising Standards. Under them, four of the five points below end in a rejected ad, not a blocked account. Meta states advertising restrictions outright only in the fifth point. So we use words like “ban” and “blocked” only where it is confirmed, and we say separately when it is practitioners telling the story. We give each rule’s official name so you can look it up yourself, and we give no word-for-word quotes. The examples below are made up. Section names in your account may differ slightly depending on language and interface version.
1. A borrowed image
What it is. A photo from Pinterest or Google search. It looks free, but it has an owner.
Example. A salon took a nice manicure photo from the internet, and its author complained.
What Meta says. The “Copyrights and Trademarks” rule: ads may not contain content that infringes the rights of third parties. Ads can be rejected after a report from the rights holder. The rule works through a complaint, so an ad may run for a week and be stopped later.
What to do yourself. Use your own photos, ones bought from a stock site, or generated ones. “I found it online” is not permission. The same goes for other people’s logos and brand names in the text. One sentence on music: Meta’s own sound collection is allowed in ads, while popular songs are licensed for other uses, not for ads; that is what practitioners say.
2. A drawn button
What it is. A “Play” button you cannot press, a fake notification, a checkbox or answer options drawn right on the picture.
Example. A photo with a “play” triangle in the middle and no video behind it.
What Meta says. The “Non-Existent Functionality” rule sits in the section on deceptive content. Images must not copy interactive elements such as a play button, notifications or checkboxes, and what is shown in the picture must work the way it looks. To Meta this is deception: the function the image promises does not exist.
What to do yourself. The button is added by the ad account itself, in the “Call to action” field. Keep only the product and a short text on the image. If you want to show video, make a real video.
3. “Tired of excess weight?”
What it is. Addressing a person as if you know about their health, age, money or faith.
Example. “Does your back hurt?”, “Are you in debt?”, “Are you over 50?”.
What Meta says. The “Personal Attributes” rule. Ads must not assert or imply that you know a person’s personal attributes. The list includes race, religion, age, orientation, health condition, financial hardship, criminal record, union membership and more, directly or indirectly. Practitioners add that “you” plus an attribute is what usually gets caught. That is their interpretation; we did not confirm such wording in the rule itself.
What to do yourself. Reread the headline: if it starts with “Are you…” and names a person’s condition, rewrite it. Talk about the product, not the person: not “does your back hurt?” but “back massage, 45 minutes”.
4. The website does not open
What it is. The site is down, the page was deleted or moved, and the ad still leads to it.
Example. A shop updated its site over the weekend, and until Monday every click led to an error.
What Meta says. The “Non-Functional Landing Page” rule: an ad must not lead to a page that does not work; the page must open, be accessible and honestly match the advertised product. This also covers pages that are hard to leave. Practitioners add that long redirect chains and intrusive pop-ups go badly too.
What to do yourself. Before launch, open the link from your phone in a window where you are not logged in. A site under repair means pausing the ad, not “we’ll sort it later”. Also check that the page is about the same product as the ad, not about everything at once.
5. A new account after a block
What it is. Your account was restricted for a violation, and you opened a new one with the same ad.
What Meta says. The “Evading Enforcement” rule. Among the prohibited behaviours: running the same or similar policy-violating ads from several business assets, and trying to create new assets after the old ones were restricted. For this Meta may restrict advertising rights (in the original, “may face advertising restrictions”). Restrictions can apply to an account, a Page or a business account, not just to one ad.
What practitioners say. Some describe a chain block of all linked assets; others advise opening an additional account with a different email after a hack (not after a violation). Meta does not officially promise such a thing, so the guideline is simple: fix the policy problem, do not work around it.
What to do yourself. First remove the cause and request a review. A new account does not remove the problem.
6. If the ad is already rejected: do not delete it
The account tells you which rule was broken. Take a screenshot, fix the cause and request a review. According to Meta’s help, if you think a decision was wrong, you can appeal it in Account Quality, and a rejected advertiser is usually given the chance to edit the ad and ask for another review. Practitioners describe the path like this: Account Quality → details → “Request review”; the exact button names in your account may differ.
From our practice: if you delete the rejected ad, there is nothing left to appeal. Practitioners add that a copy of the ad with no changes usually gets the same refusal. There is also a second view: piles of rejected ads supposedly damage trust in the account, so they advise cleaning them up at some point, but only after screenshots and only once the matter is closed. Meta does not publish such figures; this is practitioners’ experience.
Three more things from practice
Everything below is what practitioners report, not something written in the rules we could check.
- Health and beauty. “Before and after” photos, promises of amazing results and close-ups of body parts are often rejected. Wording like “before you start using it and after three months” and a calm tone without promises helps.
- Risky niches. Medicine, finance, alcohol and gambling are checked more strictly: it is better to prepare documents in advance.
- A first rejection is not a verdict. Automation looks at the ad first. A person, practitioners say, looks at it after a review request, so do not panic and file the request straight away.
A short checklist before launch
One minute before you press “Publish”: is this image mine, is there no drawn button on it, does the headline avoid a person’s health, age or money, does the link open from a phone. If all four checks pass, you have already removed the most common reasons for rejection.
Summary
Four of the five small things mean a rejected ad, not a lost account: a borrowed image, a drawn button, addressing a personal attribute and a page that does not open. Only the fifth is more serious: Meta explicitly calls a new account after a restriction evading review. Before launch, check the image, the button, the headline and the link, and if the ad is rejected, keep a screenshot and request a review. What to expect from ads after launch we covered in the article on how long to wait for ad results. To see how we run ads in social networks, go to the Meta advertising section.
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