New Facebook tool could ban bad advertisers! How to make sure you’re not one

Facebook launched a new tool this week, aimed at further controlling the quality and truthfulness of ads on its platform. Found within the Ads Activity tab, the new tool allows users to review businesses whose ads they’ve interacted with, “with the hope of connecting more people with businesses that meet their expectations”.

Facebook noted in their official announcement that feedback from users has suggested two main pain points: ads that quote inaccurate shipping times or which misrepresent products.

The new tool goes attacks these pain points head on, by harnessing the power of the Facebook user base, and trusting the voice of the majority to filter out bad actors.

This new tool was just one of the subjects we covered in today’s Facebook Live, nicknamed ‘On the Couch with Joe & Reachy’. Watch the full replay below for analysis of 5 of the biggest news stories in social media from this week.

What the new feedback tool means for advertisers

If you get enough negative feedback on your ads, it will be shared with you by Facebook who, as a first step, will provide some guidelines on improving your ads. Facebook have advised that if feedback does not improve over time, they will take steps to reduce the number of ads you can run and this may lead a complete ban in extreme cases.

Here are some steps to take to ensure your ads don’t get caught up:

• If you ship a physical product, set clear expectations upfront about shipping speed.
• Provide black-and-white transparency about return policies, and what your product is (and isn’t).
• Make sure you set up clear communication with relevant departments within your business, to ensure that the product or service you advertise on Facebook is indeed what the end customer will receive.

This announcement could also be a good reminder to regularly check Facebook’s ad policies. Are you seeing a lot of your ads rejected by the Facebook algorithm? Or just really sluggish performance? It could be that your ads aren’t well aligned with Facebook’s advertising policies.

Are you trying to advertise a product or service related to restricted content? It could be that you need to tweak your messaging or targeting to improve ad performance. Do you have too much text in your ad images? These are all things to consider if you’re looking to improve performance.