Is Your Ad Stuck In Facebook Review Limbo?

Learn which Facebook advertising policies could be holding up your ad approval process.

So you wrote the perfect copy for a Facebook ad and your designer is super talented. When you finalize the ad, you can’t wait for the new leads to come rolling in. The only problem is that it’s been over a day and your ad is still pending for approval by Facebook. What’s going on?!

Before you lose sleep over what could have possibly gone wrong, let’s take a look at Facebook advertising policies that might explain why your ad campaign is still pending (or was maybe even rejected).

😑Frustrated because your ad was rejected? Read up on what you need to know about Decoding (and Fixing!) Facebook Ad Disapprovals. →

What Do They Think When They Look at Your Ad Anyway?

Facebook’s ad review process takes up to 24 hours. During this time, Facebook is looking at your ad’s images, text, and targeting. Here’s what they’re checking for:

The 20% text rule. This does not mean you should just stamp one word on the entire face of the image to make it more “impactful.” No, instead focus on writing clean, precise copy that promotes your brand—as long as the text only takes up 20 percent of the entire image size. 

Accurate links. It’s important that your ad is not taking users to a different landing page than the one advertised.  There is such a thing as predatory advertising practices. If you don’t know what that is, it's because Facebook rejects those ads (phew!). You cannot use your ad budget to harass, interrupt or be discriminatory toward audiences.

Controversial or political statements. Facebook has strict policies in place against what you can and cannot talk about in an ad on its platform. The top social media sites always prohibit content such as that related to violence, ammunition, drugs, and loan schemes.

In every ad that you produce, make sure you are adhering to Facebook’s Community Standards.

What Could You Possibly Be Missing?

If you’re pretty sure your ad meets all of the requirements of the approval process and your brain is still reeling about what it could possibly be, you’ll need to take another look at restrictions. Here are some of the things that you might have missed. 

• You can pick your demographic by their financial status, gender, and location but you cannot mention any individual assumption about your potential target market in an ad. 
• You cannot imply adult content. Find subtler ways—probably way more subtle than what you’d expect—to get your message across. 
• Is your ad for age sensitive content, but targeting an outside age group? For instance, ads for wine shouldn’t be targeted to a 16 year old audience.
• Make limited reference to the Facebook ad itself, as their brand collateral is for their own advertising and corporate purposes. Using Facebook branding in an ad for your own business is a big no-no.

Your ad might also be delayed if it was triggered for review due to changes to any of the following features:

• Ad creative (text, images, links, etc)
• Targeting parameters
• Optimization goals
• Billing events