It is no secret that Facebook Ads can be a great way to drive traffic and sales for your business, but what do you do if your ad account gets banned?
The stress of such an event can be overwhelming, especially when you rely on the ad account’s performance to keep your business afloat.
With stringent changes to Facebook’s policies over the years, it's getting harder to keep your accounts in good standing, let alone revive a banned account!
The good news is that there are steps you can take to recover a disabled Facebook ad account.
In this article, we'll discuss possible reasons why your ad account was blocked, the restoration process, and tips on avoiding this frustrating problem going forward.
Let's get started!
Why does Facebook disable ad accounts?
Imagine this; you've been running Facebook ad campaigns for months. You're putting a lot of time, energy, and money into your Facebook Ads, but seeing the returns makes all of it worthwhile.
But one day, things suddenly changed.
You log into your Facebook ad account and discover that it has been disabled, with no explanation as to why or how long it would be disabled for.
At first, you might think that's just some technical glitch, but after numerous unsuccessful attempts to access the account, you realize that this is a severe issue.
But why did Facebook disable your ad account?
While the exact reasoning is often unclear, understanding some of the most common reasons for ad accounts getting disabled can help to provide insight into your own situation.
So, here are the three most common causes!
1. You didn't follow Facebook's Advertising Standards
The first reason why your Facebook ad account may have been disabled is that you didn't closely follow Facebook's Advertising Standards.
If you never took the time to go through these advertising standards, it's easy to accidentally go against one of the rules.
For example, one policy is that if you sell any health- or weight loss-related products, your ad can't suggest any ‘unrealistic outcomes.' Or another one is that your ad must not contain any incorrect grammar or punctuation.
If many people don't like seeing your ads and click on the ‘X' to hide them, it may cause issues with your Facebook ad account.
Here's what a former Facebook customer support representative is saying about it:
If people hide your Ads too much, click “X”, your Ads can go into review and your Page can get restricted due to it. Usually they only delete Pages though if you are using copyrighted audio or videos… Or impersonating someone or selling knock off products. Or, you know, when they just feel like it…….
Source
3. Your Facebook ad account was hacked
Lately, it also seems like hackers are becoming an increasingly more significant problem for Facebook ad accounts.
For example, take a look at this news article:
Once the hackers get access to your Facebook ad account, they will use it to run all kinds of ads that are against Facebook's guidelines. And, of course, they will try to squeeze everything they can out of your credit card(s).
It's one of the quickest ways to get your Facebook ad account disabled!
Even if you care about the security of your Facebook account, there's still a chance it can get hacked. Lately, there have been reports of Meta employees being fired for selling account information to hackers!
7 Tips to recover a banned Facebook ad account in 2023
Having your Facebook ad account disabled without warning is one of the most frustrating things you can experience as a Facebook advertiser.
Mainly because it's simply incredibly hard to contact Facebook's support, let alone recover your ad account!
Although it's hard to recover a banned Facebook ad account, it's not impossible, and some people do manage their accounts.
So, how do they do it? Here are seven tips for recovering your disabled Facebook ad account in 2023!
1. Contact Facebook's official support
When your Facebook ad account gets banned, the most logical thing to do is contact Facebook's official support, right?
Unfortunately, many people find trying to contact Facebook's official support a waste of time, even when you manage to get to a human representative.
This is the official link to Facebook's support for ad accounts (not personal accounts).
Depending on some unknown factors, some of you may find a button there that will allow you to chat with someone working at Facebook to explain your problem.
Unfortunately, we didn't find a way to get the chat button to appear for us.
There's also a way to contact Facebook support through the Meta Business Settings, as explained in this video:
From the video's comments, it seems that some people succeed in contacting Facebook Support using this method, but others (like us) don't see the ‘Contact support team' button.
Either way, as mentioned before, many people find that contacting Facebook's official support isn't an effective strategy to recover their banned ad accounts.
That's mainly because customer support representatives at Facebook don't have the permission or tools to recover your Facebook ad account. A former Facebook customer support representative confirmed this:
But be warned, we can barely do anything on our side as well, as we don't have permissions or tools to enable your accounts. The Internal Team will tell us to tell you to appeal through Account Quality or close our Escalations without giving an answer to help you with…
Source (Slightly modified to fix spelling errors)
Note: If you want to learn more about what a Facebook customer representative can and can't do, as well as see an overview of all of Facebook's self-service help links, take a look at this Reddit post created by the same former Facebook representative.
2. File a complaint on Facebook
The next tip (that can only be applied if you can still log into your Facebook business account) is to file a complaint on Facebook.
You can do so by heading to the Meta Account Quality page.
Click on ‘Meta Business Accounts,' and you will see an overview of all your ad accounts along with their status.
If you didn't comply with Facebook's Advertising Policies or other standards, you would see it here!
After you've filed a complaint, you can keep track of its status through the Facebook Support page.
3. File an Attorney General complaint form (The AG Method)
The following method to recover a disabled Facebook ad account is to file an Attorney General complaint form.
This is probably the most effective method to recover a banned Facebook ad account, as many people have had success with it recently.
A consumer can use an Attorney General complaint form to report a complaint about a business. Attorney Generals are the top legal officers of their state in the United States. They advise and act as the ‘People's Lawyer' for the citizens.
Filing an Attorney General (AG) complaint form may sound complicated, but it's actually quite doable. You can also do it for free, so you have nothing to lose!
The first step is to find the AG complaint form. Each state in the US has one, so quite a few of them exist.
Here is a list of the most popular AG complaint forms people have been using to recover their ad accounts:
For a complete list of all AG complaint forms, you can check out this Reddit post.
Once you've found the complaint form, it's time to fill it in. Here are some tips for doing that:
- Your location. If you don't live in the US, the complaint forms sometimes also have a field where you can mention that.
Some people claim that if you don't live in the state of the Attorney General you're contacting, you shouldn't include any address, as the form can be disregarded. However, we couldn't confirm whether this is true.
Alternatively, this Reddit user from France used fake US addresses and a VPN to file the AG complaint forms, and they managed to recover their Facebook ad account. - Your story. Try to give as much detail as you can in terms of the story of having your Facebook ad account banned.
- Highlight the importance of the issue. Say that your Facebook ad account is essential to you, that you've been an active user for a long time, and that you've been unsuccessful in resolving this issue directly with Facebook and this is your last hope.
If you would like an example template for an AG complaint form, you can pause the YouTube video below at 9:49:
After filling in your form, the AG office will contact Facebook in your name to try and resolve the issue. (But remember that it can take several weeks before the issue may get resolved.)
Hopefully, if everything goes right, you will receive an email similar to the one below at the end!
4. Send emails to Facebook
Another option for trying to recover your disabled Facebook ad account is to contact the social media giant directly via email.
In your email, include any evidence or screenshots of the ad campaigns you ran, as well as a reflection on what might have gone wrong and how you plan to rectify it in the future.
Additionally, include as many receipts of the money you spent on ads as possible and an official identification document like your driver's license so that Facebook can verify your identity.
Remember to stay professional and polite in all correspondence with Facebook, as this could be the key to resolving your issue quickly and successfully.
The email address that seems to work the best is:
- accounts@support.facebook.com
And here is a list of other email addresses you could try:
- disabled@support.facebook.com
- datarequests@support.facebook.com
- appeals@support.facebook.com
- case@support.facebook.com
- info@support.facebook.com
- info@facebook.com
- privacy@facebook.com
- appeals@fb.com
- disabled@fb.com
- phish@fb.com
If you don't get any responses to your emails, try to send the emails again with an email account that's not associated with any of your ad accounts.
Some users claim that Meta blocks all emails from your ad account's registered email address.
5. Reach out to a Facebook Agency Partner
If the previous tips weren't successful, then it could be useful to reach out to a Facebook Agency Partner for help.
Facebook Agency Partners specialize in digital marketing and have extensive experience dealing with disabled ad accounts.
They can provide you with additional guidance and advice about how to get your account back up and running. Additionally, they might also be able to contact a representative at Facebook directly on your behalf, which could facilitate the process further.
So, here's how this method works:
- Go to LinkedIn and find Facebook's company page.
- Click the ‘People' tab.
- Try to find Facebook Agency Partners in your country/region (you can also try it with Facebook employees).
- Send them a message about your situation.
Here is a template you could use to craft your message:
Hi [Name],
I hope you are doing well. I apologize for messaging you out of the blue, but I don't know who else to contact right now.
I write to ask for your assistance in a perplexing situation; my entire Facebook ad account has been disabled with no explanation given from Facebook's side.
As an experienced digital marketer based out of [Place], this poses an immense challenge as [Amount] has already been invested by me into advertising through Facebook – With campaigns currently running despite there being no access or control over them!
Though every effort has been made to resolve this issue with Facebook from my end, numerous cases online report ad accounts being disabled for months' time without resolution which is raising alarm bells around potential loss of livelihood due to such circumstances.
As an [Place]-based Facebook representative, I'm hoping you can be of aid. The disabled Facebook ad account has the email address: [Email].
Thanks in advance,
[Your name]
If nothing has worked so far, you can try to grab Facebook's attention on social media.
If possible, consider tagging or messaging directly to the official Facebook account to make them aware of your issue and hopefully speed up the process of restoring access to your ad account.
While posts to Facebook itself might be the best way to reach out to the company, Twitter can also be a great platform for grabbing the attention of Facebook's team.
Posting and engaging with relevant hashtags related to the disabled ad account issue (like #facebookdisabledme) can direct others who may have faced similar problems to your posts and garner more attention from people within Facebook.
Bonus tip: If you find any people on Twitter that work for Facebook, you can also try tweeting at them!
7. Check out the latest information on r/facebookdisabledme and ask for help
As a last tip, you should know that a great resource for finding information regarding disabled Facebook ad accounts is the subreddit r/facebookdisabledme.
Here, you can read stories of how others got their Facebook ad account disabled and, more importantly, how they recovered them again!
And if the tips in this article didn't work for you, this subreddit is a great place to ask for help!
Either way, we hope that you receive a message similar to this one after all your efforts:
How do you prevent Facebook from banning your ad account in the future?
If you had your Facebook ad account disabled in the past, chances are you're willing to do everything it takes to prevent it from happening again in the future.
In the end, it's a frustrating situation to deal with!
So, here are three proactive steps you can take to avoid it:
Familiarize yourself with Facebook's Advertising Standards
Avoiding a situation where your Facebook ad account gets disabled can be achieved by familiarizing yourself with the Advertising Standards set by Facebook.
Reading and understanding these guidelines can help ensure that your ads comply with all regulations, avoiding potential problems such as ad disapprovals or outright account disabling.
By taking proactive steps in understanding what is required of you, you can save yourself from the hassle of potentially dealing with a disabled account later on!
Set up two-factor authentication
Another way to protect your Facebook ad account from getting disabled is by setting up two-factor authentication (2FA).
2FA adds an extra layer of protection to your account, requiring a second form of verification, such as a code sent to your phone or email address, before being able to log in.
With this enabled, even if someone were to get their hands on your password, they would still need access to another device with the code to log in and make any changes.
Make sure to enable 2FA on the following:
- Your primary Facebook profile.
- Your Meta Business Manager account. (Meta also requires this if the account is over 90 days old.)
- The email associated with your Facebook account.
To enable 2FA on Facebook, head to the ‘Security and login' tab. There, you will see a section where you can set up two-factor authentication:
Add someone you trust as an admin
Adding someone you trust as an admin to your Facebook ad account can be a great way of preventing you from losing access should the account get disabled.
If you've taken this preventative step and your ad account gets banned, you will still be able to access your business/ads manager through the admin profiles.
To add an admin to your Facebook ad account:
- Go to the Meta Ads Manager Settings.
- Click the blue ‘Add people' button.
- Enter the name or email address of your friend.
- Select ‘Ad account admin.'
- Click the ‘Confirm' button.
Summary
Before we go to the conclusion, we've created a quick summary of this article for you, so you can easily remember it:
- Facebook may disable your ad account if you don't follow their Advertising Standards, if your ads are being hidden too often, or if your account was hacked.
- The most effective methods to recover a banned Facebook ad account include filing an Attorney General complaint form, sending emails to Facebook, reaching out to a Facebook Agency Partner, or checking r/facebookdisabledme for more information.
- To avoid your Facebook ad account from getting disabled in the future, familiarize yourself with Facebook's Advertising Standards, set up two-factor authentication, and add someone you trust as an admin to your Facebook ad account.
Conclusion
Facebook disabling ad accounts is a major blow to businesses that rely on the platform to reach their target audience.
Luckily, there are ways you can recover your Facebook ad account if it has been banned.
You can contact file a complaint on Facebook, try the AG method, or even reach out to Facebook on social media.
By following the tips outlined in this article, you stand a good chance of getting your account reinstated and back up and running again.
And to prevent FB from banning your account in the future, familiarize yourself with their Advertising Standards and take steps to secure your account by adding two-factor authentication and an extra trusted admin.
If you've experienced your Facebook ad account being banned and have other tips for recovering it, let us know by leaving a comment below!
Want to learn more about Facebook Ads?
Ready to move your Facebook Ads skills to the next level? Check out the articles below:
- 14 Great Facebook Ad Examples for Ecommerce | Inspiration
- Why Are My Facebook Ads Not Converting? 11 Tips to Fix It!
- Facebook Ads Interest Targeting for Ecommerce: An Easy Guide
Plus, don’t forget to check out our in-depth how to start with Facebook Ads for ecommerce guide here!
