Restricted Account Can't Advertise on Facebook? How to Fix

If you've had your Facebook account restricted, don't fret—you're in the same boat as many Facebook advertisers have been in the past.

In this post, we'll cover why your ad account was banned in the first place, what you can do to fix it, and how to prevent it in the future.

Allons-y!

Your advertising access is restricted - what does it mean?

Before we dive into the reasons why your advertising access might be restricted, it's essential to know which thing actually has the restrictions put upon it.

Each of the following assets can be restricted on Facebook:

• Your ad account
• Your personal Facebook profile
• Your Business Manager account
• Your Facebook Page

Each of these different restrictions has its own unique consequences as well.

If your ad account has been disabled (restricted from advertising), you will not be able to create new campaigns using this account. All of your currently running ads will be turned off.

If your personal Facebook profile has been restricted from advertising, you won't be able to create or manage new ads or create new ad accounts or assets. This will also be followed by a message from Facebook stating the same thing:

"Your Advertising Access is Restricted. You're no longer allowed to use Facebook Products to advertise. You can't run ads, manage advertising assets or create new ad or business accounts."

You can also see a slightly different phrasing of the same thing in your account dashboard:

If your Business account has been restricted from advertising, you won't be able to manage any aspects of it, such as adding or creating new ad accounts, pixels, custom audiences, etc.

If your Facebook Page is restricted from advertising, you won't be able to use that page for any of your ads. You can still use your ad account for advertising.

Now that we know a little bit about each asset that can be restricted, we can cover some of the reasons it may have happened and how to fix it.

Why does Facebook say my advertising access is restricted?

It's easier to count the number of stars in the sky than it is to give an accurate count of just how many ways your account can be restricted from advertising.

(Okay, maybe not THAT much easier).

That being said, there are a ton of common reasons that I see all the time, so let's start with those.

Your ads have been rejected for policy violations

While these aren't technically 'account restrictions', as you'll see soon, they are definitely a huge part of the process.

It's true that nobody likes to read legalese (and in fact, most people don't). However, in the Facebook ad world, this can cause bigger problems than an hour or two of lost time.

Facebook policy violations can either refer to their advertising policies, terms of use, or community standards offenses.

The most common ones we see are related to Facebook advertising policies. Here are some common Facebook policy offenses to be on the lookout for:

• Sexually Explicit Content. This one is a no-brainer: you can't advertise anything sexual on Facebook. Given that Facebook's approval is partly automated, health-based services (spas, etc.) can be flagged for body parts even if they're not sexually suggestive.
• Prohibited categories. Even though some items may not be illegal per se, Facebook does have restrictions about advertising the following: Drugs or tobacco, supplements, weapons, and financial products (auctions, loans, etc.).
• Misinformation. False news on Facebook is a no-go.
• Sensational content. No click-bait, sensationalist content either.
• Bad grammar or punctuation. This is also a bad advertising practice in general.
• Inflammatory content. This is any content that could be categorized as hate speech.
• Unacceptable Business Practices. This generic term describes ads that "promote products, services, schemes or offers using deceptive or misleading practices, including those meant to scam people out of money or personal information." This can be things like fake celebrity-endorsed products, subscription-based services that do not have the appropriate requirements met, or making exaggerated claims about a product.
• Low-quality or deceptive content. This includes ads that are cropped so that you need to click to see the full image, or anything sexually suggestive or shocking. It's important to note that Facebook also looks at your ad destination to make sure the content is relevant to the ad itself.
• Personal attributes. This one is a bit tricky, Essentially, you cannot make it known that you know (or assume to know) any specific detail about your audience. This can be things like medical conditions, demographics, or even sexual preference. This can be statements such as "Is your asthma acting up again?", or, "You're a New Yorker."

If you find yourself caught in this situation, your best course of action is to change the ad to comply with the policy.

If you feel that your ads do comply and this was a mistake, you can request a manual review of the ad in question.

To learn how to do that (and prevent your ad from getting rejected in the first place) you can check out our guide here.

Note: If you don't see 'rejected' next to your ad, but don't see any ad spend for more than 24 hours after review, you could be having delivery issues instead.

Your ad account was banned for too many rejected ads

If you run afoul of Facebook's policies for too long, you'll likely find your entire ad account has been restricted due to too many rejected ads—and that's not a great situation to be in.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot to be done here except to appeal the decision and await Facebook's final verdict (more on that below).

Facebook account has been restricted from advertising for security reasons

This one is one of the more serious restrictions to keep a lookout for.

Facebook typically throws this ban down when they feel that there has been 'suspicious activity' in your account.

This can be things like hacking attempts, too much ad spend in a short time for new accounts, or if someone is using a gray account (aka using a fake Facebook profile to run ads). If you believe your account may have been hacked, you can use Facebook's guided tool to help resolve the issue.

You have too much negative feedback on your ads

Did you know that people can leave feedback on your ads?

When viewing an ad on Facebook, if you click the three dots on the upper right-hand side of your ad, you'll see a few options:

The first two options are considered negative feedback and can have serious consequences.

In addition, Facebook will occasionally reach out to users via push notification to get their direct feedback about their experience with your brand.

While one or two pieces of negative feedback may be forgiven, large quantities of negative feedback will get your ads disabled. 

Over time, these disabled ads can push you into the disabled ad account territory as well. In short, never underestimate the power of a customer’s review—and always make sure the experience they have with your brand is a positive one.

How do I unrestrict my Facebook ads?

While the specific reasons your Facebook account has been restricted may vary, the usual answer to all of these remains the same: you need to contact Facebook to resolve your issue and continue to advertise.

Facebook has made its review process more convenient than it used to be by introducing the Account Quality page.

On this page, you'll be able to see an overview of any issues within your account. If your Facebook profile, ad account, or Business Manager has been disabled, you'll see a "what you can do" box on the upper right-hand side of the page.

The instructions here can differ depending on the exact reason for the ban. Ad accounts/Business Manager bans will have an account review button, while Facebook profile bans usually have an identity verification action to complete.

After that, Facebook states that the decision will take a maximum of 48 hours to complete—however, I've seen threads on forums like Reddit that mention wait times of a few weeks.

When the decision has been made, you'll end up with one of two outcomes:

• Your appeal has been accepted, and you can celebrate with a glass of bubbly 🍾
• Your appeal has been rejected, and you're in the exact same place

For either situation, make sure to have wine on hand.

If you find that your appeal was rejected, you can, in certain cases, reject the appeal decision once more using the same method. You can also see if you can reach out to Facebook's support directly by clicking the link inside the help center.

If everything fails, you can always create a new ad account or Business Manager. Though, you'll likely want to make sure that you use a different credit card for your new account as this can be flagged on Facebook.

If your profile has been banned, unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do about that. Facebook is pretty good at catching gray accounts these days, so it will likely only be a matter of time before they detect any new Facebook profile you may have created.

While I have read that many choose to ask a co-worker or close friend for access to their profile to continue advertising, this is another risky move as Facebook could read these actions as fraud, restricting that profile from advertising as well. You may want to consider asking a co-worker or agency to create and manage your ads for you instead.

Conclusion

In this article, we've covered some of the most common reasons for Facebook account restrictions, as well as how to deal with them and prevent them in the first place.

While your restriction may be easily resolved this time, it's important to stay aware of the latest Facebook policies so that one mistake doesn't turn into a banhammer of epic proportions.