A Facebook Slap?

Posted by Neil in Saturday, July 19th 2008 under: Facebook

After logging into my Facebook account the other day I noticed I was hit hard by the first of probably many Facebook “slaps”. Several of my ads went from green arrows to disapproved red explanation marks. Needless to say I was not very happy.

After closely examining my campaigns and analyzing what happened it became evident that Facebook is trying to cut down on ads that directly specify what you are targeting. For example, a great way to increase CTR is to put the users age in your title. Unfortunately Facebook does not seem to like this anymore and all my ads of this nature were disapproved:

Later on in that day I tried submitting some more ads with ages in the title they all got rejected for the most idiotic reasons:

What do they mean it does not accurately represent the product? It clearly stated it will reduce wrinkles! I figured they didn’t like the 63.5% thing so I resubmitted it with that adjustment but nope… rejected for the same reason.

On the other hand it appears you can still keep keywords in your ad text. So if you are targeting people who like yoga they will let you write “Do you like yoga”. I also noticed an increase in traffic to all my ads that were not disapproved. One campaign that was starting to die actually got a 50% boost in clicks.

13 Comments Already

Craig Said,

July 19th, 2008 @3:42 am

Yes - I too can’t get the “specific age” ads through anymore.

But I am also starting to notice certain types of products are being disapproved but citing inappropriate language as the reason. It seems FB are starting to expand what products they deem inappropriate but have not updated their guidelines to include them.

Smaxor Said,

July 19th, 2008 @4:24 am

Alway fun to wake up to an inbox full of emails saying your ads got smacked. There is honestly 0 rhyme or reason to the approvals and disapprovals as I’ve seen it. Just keep it borderline and submit a lot

browie Said,

July 19th, 2008 @7:39 am

I just can’t get anything accepted on Facebook. I’m going to have to keep trying.

Affiliate Marketing Said,

July 19th, 2008 @8:56 am

Great post as usual. Thanks for the info.

Marketing Newb Said,

July 19th, 2008 @1:16 pm

Same thing happened to me today. Very frustrating!! Still can’t figure out why I got the “does not accurately represent” message on one campaign. How deep are they going into the landing pages really?

Jared Stenzel Said,

July 20th, 2008 @3:52 am

Looks like they are making some changes. I’m sure you’ll adjust to them shortly.

ryan Said,

July 21st, 2008 @2:15 am

I got smacked as well. Apparently they even stopped accepting ads that lead to sites promoting “make money online” products.

BUT, I gave them a SERIOUS speech and they actually activated some of my “flagged” ads. I told them that I think its bull that the ads get accepted and then later they are flagged. Getting an ad approved is much like a contract. I told them if an ad was accepted by facebook it should stay that way.

Cheers,
Ryan

Luke Said,

July 21st, 2008 @4:13 pm

I agree w/ everyone else that the FB approval system is total bullshit. Here’s an idea for your ‘wrinkles’ ad though: since they won’t let you say “29 with wrinkles?” but you’re obviously trying to target people who are wrinkling early and would thus be concerned, what about a headline that just said something like “Too Young for Wrinkles?” or something like that? Might still get the same message across even w/o the users specific age… Just a thought.

nohatter Said,

July 22nd, 2008 @6:59 pm

@ luke

You don’t seem to remember that we are targetting facebook people here. They be like WOW, what a coincidence that the age on the ad is actually what my age is!! <-see the WOW-factor plays a big part in the CTR

July 29th, 2008 @8:42 pm

@ nohatter

No, I knew that. And obviously having the age in the title helps CTR quite a bit - I was just trying to think of alternatives which would get approved if having the age in your title wasn’t working.