Ready to start advertising on Facebook without getting shut down? Discover how to write a Facebook compliant ad!
Facebook’s paid ads are an amazing way to market your business without huge upfront costs. In fact, you only pay per action or click. This makes Facebook ads one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise online.
But there is one problem:
In the last few years, Facebook’s advertising policies are getting stricter and stricter. But there are so many rules that it’s really hard to keep an overview of. So, knowing how to write a Facebook compliant ad is vital.
The thing is, if you violate Facebook’s advertising rules, your ads get either disapproved or, in the worst case, your whole Facebook ad account can get shut down. This means you are banned from advertising and there is no way to get your account back.
We are not lawyers and Facebook’s rules change almost daily. Still, in this article, we want to give you some pointers on how to write Facebook-compliant ads that are less likely to get disapproved.
1. No Assumptions About The Reader
Now, usually, when you write sales copy, you want to show the reader that you understand them and know what they are going through. But not on Facebook.
Facebook has lots of data on every single user. But at the same time, Facebook wants users to think that they don’t know much about them – probably because Facebook got in trouble for collecting data before.
What does all of that mean for you when you write a Facebook compliant ad? It means that you have to make your copy less direct. Phrases like “do you feel tired when you get up in the morning?” are too direct because they assume something negative about the reader (we are assuming that they are tired in the morning).
What you can do is tell a story from a 1st person perspective. Or you can make it more general and say “many people are tired when they get up in the morning.”
Avoid addressing the reader directly, especially when you are talking about negative things.
2. No Weight-Loss or Income Claims
Writing an ad as a fitness or business coach can be tricky because Facebook isn’t a big fan of any weight-loss or income claims. You can’t promise users that they’ll lose weight or make a certain amount of money after getting coached by you.
Even if you can prove that previous clients had similar results, it’s against Facebook’s advertising rules.
Same goes for the mentioning of any kind of disease. It’s off-limits.
3. Some Content Is Completely Prohibited or Restricted
Certain niches are completely forbidden on Facebook, such as gambling and adult content.
If you are a coach or consultant in these niches, you, unfortunately, can’t advertise on Facebook. (Same goes for Instagram since Instagram belongs to Facebook).
Some niches are restricted which means you need to contact Facebook and get special permission.
You can find an overview of all forbidden and restricted content here.
4. Don’t Withhold Information or Make False Claims
Now, this should be a best practice in all marketing, not just on Facebook. Many marketers are used to creating a lot of curiosity in their sales copy.
They hope that the reader gets so intrigued, they will buy the product just to find out how it really works.
But while this strategy might make you a few quick bucks, it also leaves a bitter aftertaste in your customer’s mouths. It’s definitely not a long-term strategy and it’s also not 100% ethical. And that’s probably why Facebook actively goes against it.
All your ads get checked by a machine and by a human being that works for Facebook. If they think that you are withholding crucial information in your ads or if they think that your claims are too outrageous, they can take down your ad any time.
5. Not Only Your Ad Copy Gets Checked
This is an important detail that most advertisers on Facebook don’t know: it’s not only your ad copy that gets checked. So while you need to write a Facebook compliant ad, there are other things to pay attention to.
Facebook also checks your images and your landing pages. Let’s assume your Facebook ad has a link that leads to a sales page. In that case, your sales page also has to be compliant with Facebook’s rules.
And as a general rule of thumb: the more money you spend on Facebook, the stricter your ads get checked.
Either way, the best thing you can do is to learn Facebook’s rules and to be very mindful of them when writing your copy.
You might also be interested in this article on proven Facebook ad templates.
Take Out The Guesswork and Write Facebook Ads Faster
Inside Instant Scripts™, we have hundreds of Facebook ad templates. We keep ourselves updated on Facebook’s guidelines and do our best to only provide Facebook-compliant ad templates (just keep in mind that rules change fast).
Still, using Instant Scripts™ makes writing Facebook ads as fast and easy as never before. That’s because all the templates are proven to work and you only need to fill in some blanks.
Curious? Sign up to Instant Scripts™ today.
