Common Issues with Facebook’s Business Ad’s Manager

Love or loathe Facebook, most of us rely on its Ad’s manager to advertise what we do on Facebook or Instagram. There are, however, some common issues with using Facebook Ad’s manager so it can be problematic, to say the least!

In this blog, I want to talk through some of the most common issues that business owners experience using Facebook Ad’s manager and some solutions that may solve the problem for you.

Facebook Ads account is getting shut down

You’ve probably seen the posts in your Facebook networking groups where a business owner is panicking because their ad’s account has been shut down suddenly, and apparently for no reason.

There are a few reasons why Facebook might take this action, including:

• Declined payments for ad spend
• Violating community guidelines (with inappropriate content, etc)
• Low-quality ads with poor engagement (tend to be the clickbait type where the ad doesn’t reflect the actual product/service
• Facebook ad policy violations (advertising services/products that aren’t permitted, etc)

Usually, if any of these reasons are the cause you will find a message in your dashboard telling you why your service has been suspended. Often, it may be the case you’ve done nothing wrong but the AI screening your advert has flagged something from a particular word or phrase you’ve used, so asking for a human to review the content may get everything working again.

Unable to log in/use Facebook Ads manager

It’s actually surprisingly common for business owners not to be able to log into their Facebook Ads account at all. This is often due to server outages, using third party software, the app not working, etc.

If the phone app isn’t working for you trying the browser version is your first port of call (and vice versa). If you’re still unable to log in, have a quick Google search for “is Facebook Ads down?” to see if others are having the issue or if there is a known server outage. If that is the case, try logging in again later.

If you’re still unable to log in, chatting to Facebook support is your only remaining option to get to the bottom of this issue.

Payment source has been disabled

If you have multiple Facebook business pages for which you manage ads and one of those pages is suspended, you may very well find that you’re unable to create ads for your other pages/websites too. This is particularly the case if you use the same payment source for each account, basically, Facebook disables the payment source associated with the problematic account.

The best way around this issue is to use a different payment source for each account. Consider credit cards that you immediately pay off through your business account for ads spend for each business page you plan to run ads on, this avoids any interest charges whilst ensuring you’ll always be able to run some ads if you do run into any issues in the future.

Facebook Ads pixel isn’t working

Pixel issues are amongst the most common, such as not being able to connect the pixel to your website at all, to it working one day but not the next.

One of the main culprits for this is using ad blocking software on your computer, it stops Facebook from completing the process of Pixel installation and recognition, so try disabling your ad blocker to see if that fixes the issue.

Check that you have the Pixel installed correctly on your website. If the Html code isn’t working, a plugin might work better for you. If you do use a plugin and that isn’t working, double-check to ensure there aren’t any plugin conflicts.

Facebook ad not approved

Everything might be working fine with your Facebook Ads manager until one day you get a message “ad not approved”. This might have you stumped if you’ve been running similar ads since you started advertising through Facebook and can’t see an obvious reason for the non-approval.

Knowing the Facebook advertising policies is important particularly when you’re in another country. Even though you might be in the UK, ads are approved against US standards where advertising rules are a little different. This might particularly be the case if you’re advertising something health-related where in the USA, they have very specific laws to abide by that differ somewhat from those in the UK.

Another key reason for an ad to be rejected is picture quality. Facebook wants a clear and relevant picture accompanied by relevant text that links to the correct, relevant page (so clickbait adverts are not a good idea). If the image you use is of low quality, isn’t directly relevant to what you’re advertising or has text imposed over the picture, you’re likely to run into issues.

Facebook will tell you why an ad is rejected but it’s always a good idea to follow best practices before it can get that far.

Those are the most common issues for business owner’s using Facebook Ad’s manager – have you experienced any of them yourself? Facebook support can be slow to respond, and I know how frustrating it can be waiting for their reply, so I hope this blog has given you a better understanding of what might be the cause of each issue and how to fix it while you wait.