Before we even start our first campaign, there is something important that needs to be addressed first:

Running whitehat does NOT mean you’ll NEVER lose an account again.

Even if you adhere to all the advertising policies, you may still lose accounts.

However, here’s the plus side: When running whitehat, even when you get banned, the chances of getting the account reactivated when you appeal are way better than when you’re caught running blackhat.

(It would be the difference between saying “I did my best to adhere to policies – please tell me what I did wrong!” vs. “Sorry I was cloaking to deceive your reviewers while misleading your users with my farticles – I won’t do that again I swear!”)

And even if you do get all your accounts banned, there are ways to get more (we’ll talk a little bit more on that later on).

Here is what I would suggest in general when it comes to accounts and running on FB:

Don’t let the risk of account bans stop you from running on FB.

Know that account bans will likely happen. Be prepared to deal with them. But don’t be so scared that you never start.

There are risks to every business model, and different battles to fight and hoops to jump through. For FB, the risk of losing accounts is one of the hoops.



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.


Let’s do everything in our power to avoid bans in the first place – this is what this lesson is about.

Disclaimer: It would be extremely difficult to say for sure that doing X or Y will or will not decrease the likelihood of an account ban. Even if you know how FB’s algorithm works, there are human reviewers – and each person will interpret things differently to arrive at different decisions.

So I feel that the best approach would be to present you with a list of ways that MAY help to avoid bans, that I’ve come across.

Either through spying + my own speculation, or from talking to or reading on trusted sources.

I would suggest – if you’re an FB newbie (which you probably are if you’re going through this tutorial) – that you heed as many of the suggestions in the following list as possible, just to “play it safe”.

As you gain experience, you may want to push the envelope to see how far you can go without getting the banhammer.

Or not.

Your call.

Without further ado, here’s my list (which will be updated as needed)…



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Study FB’s Advertising Policies

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1)Study FB’s advertising policies, straight from the horse’s mouth.

Find them here: https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/

Don’t just read this general page – click into all the links in each paragraph and read those pages as well.

Read everything a few times slowly and carefully. Then re-read again as needed (e.g. when deciding on products/services to promote, when crafting ads, when you get ads rejected, etc.)


2)Read articles from FB’s Business Help Centre, that are related to ad policies:

Ads Policy on Personal Health (Click on links in the left side bar and read those too: Ads policy, Prohibited content, Example ads, What to do for rejected ads.)

Ads Policy on Prohibited Financial Products

Facebook’s Non-Discrimination Policy

Advertising Attributes to Avoid to Improve Ad Quality and Performance


3)Facebook Blueprint Courses

I’m talking about this: https://www.facebook.com/business/learn

These can be useful, but not only in the way you may be thinking.

Please hold off on going through these for now – I have a better suggestion on how to leverage them when it comes time to appeal deactivated accounts.

If you’d like to browse through them to get a basic working knowledge of FB (which would be a great idea if you have the time), I would suggest to do so after logging out of your FB account, so that progress is not tracked.


4)Facebook’s List of Disapproval Reasons

@tijn, our long-time member and moderator, discovered a complete list of ad disapproval reasons while doing some digging:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea…-of-12-May-18)

Browsing through that list will give you a better idea on what FB frowns upon, so you can avoid them to stay on FB’s good side.

(Although that list is over a year old, if I know FB at all, the current list would only include the older list plus more – not less.)



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Be Picky in Choosing What to Promote

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This is a biggie. I will definitely expand on this topic in a separate lesson.

But what you choose to promote can play such a big factor in whether or not accounts get banned, that I want to start the discussion here.

Obviously, you’d want to avoid verticals that are prohibited by FB: Nutraceuticals, dating, crypto, etc. – stuff you’ve read in the ad policies linked to above.

Another major consideration is how FB can ban by association.

@Mr Baffoe alerted us to the fact that FB will ban new pages that are associated with a page that was banned in the past, or new pages that are associated with the same group of administrators:

https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/01…e-transparent/

This is the post where Mr Baffoe talked about this:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea…l=1#post364619

Although that newsroom link above refers to FB pages and groups, there is no doubt in my mind that Mr Baffoe is correct in his speculation: That FB extends the same treatment to links we promote in ads.

If we are correct in this assumption, then it would only take a couple of affiliates (or even a single affiliate) that are ALSO promoting the same offer, to get caught and banned for non-compliance, for us to get banned too when we try to promote the same offer.

I talked about this in the introduction – in section “Affiliate Links – and the Risks Hierarchy”:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea…l=1#post387512

In a separate lesson, I will suggest some safe business models / campaign setups for you to consider, that will minimize the risks/frequency of account bans.

Also: When promoting an affiliate offer, be sure to ask your affiliate manager to turn off geo-redirection. Otherwise, if a Facebook reviewer clicks on your offer link and gets redirected to an irrelevant offer (or worse, one that doesn’t comply with FB ad policies, such as a crypto or adult offer), you can say bye-bye to your ad account.



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Avoid Getting Banned by Association

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The “banned by association” mentioned above can be applied not just to FB pages/groups and links we promote in ads, but also to other campaign elements.

When you get one or more accounts banned, and appeals are rejected, and you subsequently start running on other accounts you own:

-Don’t use any of the ad elements – images, videos, ad copy – that was used in ads in a banned account.

-Don’t use any of the pixels that were used in a banned account.

-Don’t use the same landing page domain that was used in a banned account.

-Better, don’t even promote the same offer/business/service you did in a banned account. Doing so would be risky – unless you’re sure that the account was banned as a result of your ads and not the product/service you were promoting with that account.

This is all assuming you’re still running on accounts you legitimately own, from your facebook profile. If you start running from purchased accounts, then there’d be lots more things you need to do to cover your tracks. Unfortunately, stuff like this is beyond the scope of this tutorial, as I’ll explain in a subsequent lesson.



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Look Legit

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I’ll probably go into this topic more when it comes time for us to create an FB page. But again, I thought it would be good to start talking about this here, as it’s highly relevant to avoiding bans.

I’ve been using FB spy tools to try to figure out what types of setups have ads that can run for long periods – at least a year or longer. (I’ll go into spy tools in later lessons.)

And I’ve noticed that practically all of them have the common attributes of 1)a legit-looking FB page, 2)a legit-looking website.


Legit FB Page:

Complete with address and phone number, and linked to a legit website (or, for online businesses, at least a link to a legit website – more on that below), page posts published on a regular basis that get good engagement, and followers.

Also: It must help if the page has been around for a while. And I’m sure positive customer reviews on the FB page can’t hurt either.

Here’s an example of a legit FB page: https://www.facebook.com/princeedwardislandrealestate

Another example is our (STM’s) FB page: https://www.facebook.com/stmforum/

Our FB page and website have been around since 2011. Fellow affiliates have wondered how we’ve been able to get ads approved that contain income claims (we have to – proof that our members are succeeding is our biggest selling point). Our “secret” is what I’m telling you right now – that we have a legit FB page and legit website. We continue to run ads today from the same ad account. Point made.

@Mr Baffoe has put together a very insightful FB guide, in which he talks about the importance of having a good FB page, among other things. I would encourage you to read the whole PDF – there’s quite a lot of useful insights in there:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea…l=1#post361731

(It HAS been a little while though since he posted that PDF, so please be aware that some things may have changed in the meantime. I just took another quick glance at it and everything still looks relevant as of February 2020, but things can change in the near future.

Do please keep the same thing in mind when reading ANY information about FB posted ANYWHERE. Info can become outdated as soon as it’s posted. A combination of reading and then testing to verify the information would be a good approach.)


Legit Website:

First of all, the overall look-and-feel and content needs to look professional and honest. No outrageous claims or farticles etc. This should be basic and obvious.

Also: It’s no secret that FB’s been using WoT (Web of Trust) to identify “bad” websites, so we need to make sure that the website we’re linking to from our FB page (and also from our ads!) are not flagged by WoT.

To check the WoT rating for your lander site or offer site, simply paste it into the search field here:

https://www.mywot.com/

There are also browser extensions you can install from the same site. The chrome extension can be found here.

Other things that can make a website look more legit: Age, amount of content, transparency (address + phone number + privacy policy + terms of service etc.).

Here’s an example of a legit website (the one linked to from the example FB page above): https://michaelshomes.com/

Note the professional-looking site, the amount of content, the contact info. Whois.net tells us the domain’s been around since 1998 – I’m guessing that may be helping as well.

Obviously, if you’re just starting a new FB page and website right now, you won’t have the age advantage. But all the more reason to do everything else you CAN do to make your page and site look legit.



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Other Tips For Avoiding Bans

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-Make sure you know how and when FB charges you for ad spend, and make sure those payments never fail. (I’ll go into details on how billing works in a later lesson.)

-Watch engagement on your ads like a hawk. If an ad gets more than a few negative comments or angry emojis, consider pausing it.

In the very least, either hide negative comments, or reply to them to address users’ concerns so other users don’t follow suit.

If it’s the offer/service/product you’re promoting that is getting a lot of negative reaction and not just specific ads, stop promoting it.

When people get angry, they would click “hide ad” or “report ad”. Enough people do that and an account ban can happen.

-Make sure the ad frequency isn’t high. Ad frequency is the number of times each person in your target audience has seen the ad.

When this number gets too high, not only ad blindness would set in to increase your cost per conversion, but people would get pissed off at seeing the same ad over and over again.

And when people get irritated, they click on “hide ad” or “report ad” – and we already know what kind of fun can ensue.

-Don’t use public proxies or VPNs when accessing FB. Two considerations here:

a)If another user, while connected to FB using the same IP, gets caught doing something non-compliant to get the IP blacklisted, you would become suspicious by association for using the same IP.

b)If the proxy/VPN IP is from another country, and you access FB from your actual IP right before or after using the proxy/VPN, FB may flag that as suspicious activity because it’s unlikely for someone to travel between countries in a very short time.

-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.

-This tip isn’t about avoiding bans, but I see a lot of advice on how we shouldn’t use our personal ad account to run campaigns, but should instead set up ad accounts under Business Managers. I haven’t yet found a compelling reason to do so (if you have one please tell me), aside from that running under a BM may “remove” your personal profile a bit from your campaigns, so that risks of FB banning your profile is reduced. If you want to play it safe, don’t run from your personal ad account.

-I haven’t really gone into how to create compliant ads – will provide more details in later lessons when we talk about how to create ads.

-Also: Here’s a great thread by @stickupkid that lists more possible reasons for account bans:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea…s-Your-Account



I’ll update this post to add to the list above as needed. Heeding the reasons already listed should go a long way in minimizing the frequency of account bans.

In the next lesson, we’ll go into step 2 of the 4-step plan: How to Appeal Banned Accounts.


Long live our FB ad accounts!




Amy

@janijmoney has very generously shared a google doc with a lot of tips on how to create ad accounts and keep them compliant – see this post for details:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea…l=1#post394204


FB Beginner Tutorial: Index