When an ad account gets banned in spite of all the precautions in the previous post, you can try to appeal.

That would be step 2 in our 4-step plan for FB accounts.


Here’s the 4-Step Plan for FB Accounts:

1)Do our best to avoid bans.

2)If we get banned, learn to appeal.

3)If we can’t get that account back, run on a new account.

4)If we run out of accounts, figure out how to get new ones.


***************

How FB Bans Accounts

***************

As far as I’m aware, FB bans accounts in two ways: Automatically with their algorithm, and manually by human reviewers.


Automatic Account Bans

Facebook will often deactivate accounts en masse – their algorithm is designed to ban first, ask questions never.

I feel that they are using the “guilty until proven innocent” approach – basically just wipe out anyone and everyone that looks suspicious, on a regular basis, and only do a manual review when an advertiser bothers to appeal – at which time they will decide whether or not to reactivate the account.

There are numerous reasons as to why an automatic ban would be triggered – the facebook policies and reasons for disapproval linked to in the previous post may just be some of them.

However, the automatic banning algorithm is not perfect. Some of the ad accounts banned could be perfectly legitimate. And this is where human reviewers come in – to evaluate and make a decision.


Manual Account Bans

Sometimes, due to one reason or another, a human reviewer would decide to deactivate an account.

Many things can trigger a manual review. Examples:

-When new ads are submitted for review, and the reviewer doesn’t like the ads (i.e. for violating ad policies). They may also look at your account history to get a better picture of what and how you’ve been running, and decide to ban the account.

-When one or more payments don’t go through successfully.

-When the algorithm flags the FB page / ad(s) / landing page(s) as low quality or non-compliant.

-When the algorithm gets flagged in other ways to alert a reviewer to investigate the account.

-When you request for a manual review, e.g. in the case of an appeal.


No matter whether it’s the algo or a human that has banned your account, you should appeal the decision. The only exception I can think of is if you know you’re running non-compliant, in which case appealing may result in a manual review of your other ad accounts (assuming that it hasn’t already happened when they banned that first account) to lead to MORE accounts being banned. Other than that, you have nothing to lose by appealing. The worst that could happen is they say no.



***************

What a Ban Looks Like

***************

(Warning: The following images can cause your heart to sink to the floor, and even trigger PTSD and nightmares.)

An account ban can happen at any time.

One fine day, you may be logging into your ad account as usual, and BAM! You see this message looming over your stats like a death sentence:

Or, you could be checking email, and suddenly this love note from the “Facebook Ads Team” catches your attention:

“Ad Account Disabled for Policy Violation” must be one of the most common reasons they give for banning accounts. However, there are a million and one ways their policies can be violated, and they don’t tell you exactly which one(s) it is they’re banning you for.

No worries though. This vagueness will actually give us something to write about in our appeal message – as we’ll cover in the next section below.

Another common ban message is this one:

I’ve made suggestions on how to avoid this type of ban in the previous lesson, but will quote it here for your reference:

FB does not like dormant ad accounts that are sitting around not doing anything. To avoid getting accounts deactivated due to inactivity, either avoid creating more accounts than you need, or keep a low spend running – to a PPE campaign to your page for example which can give more authority to your page.

(The latter may be a better option if you run volume and want to create backup accounts while it’s still possible.)

If you’re wanting to save some money, you don’t necessarily need to leave that campaign running ALL the time. FB’s criterion for inactivity is no ad spend in 60 days. So just run that PPE campaign once in a while so the period of inactivity doesn’t exceed 60 days.

I even found this article which suggests you don’t need to spend any money at all, and still keep those backup accounts alive:

https://davidlye.net/latest-facebook…ok-ad-account/

I haven’t tried this personally though, so can’t comment on effectiveness.

***************

How to Appeal

***************

To submit an appeal, simply click on the “Request a Review of this ad account” link, either from the message in your ad account, or in the notification email.

Or, click on this link.

You’ll be directed to this page:

Select “Yes” to “Is this your account?”

Select your disabled ad account from the dropdown.

Lastly – what to put in the “Please provide information that will help us investigate” field?

I’m not going to provide a script here and risk having multiple people cutting and pasting the same message – that would create the equivalent of ad fatigue. But here’s what I would suggest for you to include in the message:

1)You did your best to comply.

2)You have no idea why the account was banned.

3)Ask politely for the reason why it was banned.

I want to stress here that it’s important to be courteous. Remember how we were taught as kids to say “please” and “thank you” where appropriate? Don’t use an accusing or impatient tone – FB reviewers are just doing their job. I’m sure they get enough nasty messages from pissed-off advertisers. We want to be a breath of fresh air.

Being genuine is also very important. Messages carry energy with them, and if we’re not sincere in what we say, it will show through in the message. We have nothing to hide if we have indeed been doing our best to comply with their policies. It’s not like we’re trying to deceive them with excuses.

(I suspect it’s not even always a human reviewer that replies to appeals – sometimes it may still be bots replying. But you can’t go wrong with being courteous and sincere just in case.

Reason why I suspect bots may be replying, is I’ve gotten replies like this:

But I digress…)

The 3-punch combo above should suffice for a first appeal. If it was the oversensitive algo that banned the account by mistake, the reviewer would usually reactivate it.

I’ve never had to wait more than a day to get a response – FB support usually replies within a few hours. However, people have reported having to wait a week or longer for a response, so be patient.

You’ll see your appeal and their response here:

https://www.facebook.com/support

I would keep this page open and refresh every once in a while to update it. Hopefully, within a few hours, you will see a reply like this:

***************

What If the Appeal is Rejected?

***************

What if, instead of the “We’ve reactivated your advertising account” message, you get a reply like this?

It’s not the end! Try to appeal again.

As far as I’m aware, there are no set limits on the number of times you can appeal for a banned account to be reactivated. There were times when I had to appeal multiple times to get an account reactivated.

Even if they reject your appeal with “please consider this decision final”, as long as the “Your response” box is still visible, you can still appeal – and I would encourage you to!

Chances are, it won’t be the same reviewer that “handles your case”. You’ll likely have a different person (or even the bot!) replying to your appeal each time. The reviewers have different standards and interpretations and tolerances towards what constitutes a policy violation, so when you keep appealing, the next reviewer that comes along may just be more lenient, or more sympathetic to your plight/plea. So don’t give up too soon!

For this and subsequent appeals, try to include one or more of the following elements. You can throw all of them into a message if you like – but keep in mind that if this appeal gets rejected again, you may run out of reasons.

(You can recycle these though, basically by rewriting the same message multiple times in subsequent appeals. I’ll leave this to your discretion.)

1)Tell them you’re an ad agency running ads for a client, and losing the ad account can really affect your business. (You can word this to sound more desperate.)

2)Restate the fact that you’ve done your best to comply with policies. Even tell them you’ve re-read all the policies and still don’t know what you did wrong. Perhaps even describe at length WHAT you’re promoting and your advertising angles to emphasize you’re not trying to deceive users. If the product/service has been around for a while, or has received a lot of good customer reviews – anything you can think of that can instill trust – mention that as well.

3)If, after re-reading their policies again, you think you know what you did that may have caused the ban (e.g. wording in your ads): Tell them so! And express remorse at your mistake and vow to never do it again.

4)While logged into your FB account, go here to complete this module in the FB blueprint (Ad Policies for Content, Creative, and Targeting).

Go through all 4 lessons in the module. When you’re done, you’ll be marked as complete (this is why you need to be logged in – so they’ll have a record of your progress). Take a screenshot of the certificate that’s displayed afterwards.

Then, in your appeal, tell them you’ve gone through this module as they’ve requested (which they often do – I’ve pointed them out in the account ban notification screenshots above), and that you now understand their policies better.

5)Let them know that if all goes well, you’re planning to run campaigns on facebook for a long time to come. (Emphasize on wanting to create a long-term relationship instead of flaunting the budget you can afford to spend – whatever amount it is, they won’t likely care. There are advertisers spending millions with them a year that still can’t get a rep.)


Also, in their reply, the reviewer may ask for additional details, or ask you to provide information to verify your account. Obviously, in this case, you wouldn’t need to use any of the material above – just provide what they asked for.



***************

Introducing – FB Support Live Chat

***************

If you’ve waited a week and still haven’t gotten a reply, you can try hitting up Facebook support’s live chat. Not everyone has access to this feature apparently, and nobody seems to know how to get access if they don’t already do (I have a suggestion on this though – will tell you later). But if you do have access, this is worth a try.

Go here – https://www.facebook.com/business/help

Scroll down to here:

Click on “Policy and Account Security”, then select “My ad account was disabled”:

Click on “Chat with a Representative”:

Then fill out the form and “Start Chat”.

To get your Ad Account ID, go to the Business Manager for that account and you’ll see your ad account(s) listed with account ID(s).

Here’s a sample of a filled-in form you can tweak for your purpose:

It’s worth noting that at least some of these chat representatives don’t have the authority to unban our accounts. In fact, the ones I’ve spoken to didn’t even have access to the exact reasons why the account was banned. (I hope you have better luck.) But they may be able to get a reviewer to look at the account for you.


Alternatively, you can also message support by chat here: https://www.facebook.com/facebookadsupport


Lastly, as promised above: If you don’t already have access to live chat, this is what I would suggest for you to do…

1)Schedule a call with a Facebook Marketing Expert: https://www.facebook.com/business/m/…xperts-program

2)While on the call, explain that your account was deactivated, and that you’re not getting a reply. Ask for any help they can provide.

3)Hopefully, they’ll put in a ticket to activate live chat for your account. They may call it “VIP Support”.

How I found out about this: I was chatting with an FB Marketing Expert and asked him for tips on how to avoid account bans. He didn’t have access to information as to why the accounts were banned in the first place (of course) but offered to put me in touch with “VIP Support”. I got excited for a few minutes – until he sent over the link for the regular support live chat, which I ready had access to prior to our chat.

(Still very grateful for his help though!)


I guess that’s all I have to say about appeals! The next post will be on FB accounts – I’ll try to finish it and get it posted later tonight. Thank you everyone for your patience!



Amy