As Facebook’s algorithms get better and smarter at finding inappropriate content, more personal accounts are being blocked.
Since more people are giving a try at affiliate marketing or with any kind of business, more people are advertising on Facebook.
At the end of 2020, Facebook had 10 million active advertisers on its platform. That’s a lot of ads to manage.
The use of artificial intelligence and algorithms is required so the ads can be approved at a good pace. I don’t think any entrepreneur would be happy to wait a few weeks so a human can verify their ad and approve it or not.
Imagine the cost related to humans checking every ad…
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Why is my account getting blocked?
Because the algorithm decided that you were violating Facebook ad policies. Then it blocks your business manager, so you can’t use ads.
Since you can always create a new business manager, at some point, it’s your personal account that gets totally blocked from doing any kind of ads on Facebook.
There are multiple rules to follow and Facebook makes changes regularly, it can be hard to stay up to date.
Here is the link to read all Facebook ads regulations
What it basically says is that you can’t promote scams or anything with false claims/promises.
You receive an email saying what happened. Then you can ask for more details so you know exactly what Not to do so it doesn’t happen again. This can work once and you can get your access to your account (or business manager)again.
That brings us to two problem industries : Health and Wealth.
Why? “Get rich quick” is forbidden on Facebook and so is everything related to MLM (multi level marketing).
Even if the program you are promoting is not in those categories, it’s easy to get suspicious in the eyes of Facebook, especially when many others are promoting the exact same thing with the same ad image and somewhat the same ad copy.
The false claims/promises are tricky ones. Your ad can be disapproved if there are numbers in it or if anything that relates to earning money in any way is in the ad.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t have to be about earning money. You can’t make claims like lose 10 pounds in the next 5 days either.
For the health niche, there are a lot of scams and false claims in different niches of that industry. If weight loss products really worked long-term, it wouldn’t be a billion dollar industry.
Also, if there was a cure for diabetes, it wouldn’t be a well kept secret that is now exposed to the public via a Facebook ad.
So this means that as soon as you get into those industries, you get flagged by Facebook and it might be harder to advertise there.
The problem with “organic” reach
Another reason that can get your account restricted is adding too many people on your friends list.
You know that trend about organic marketing that consists in adding as many people as possible to your friends list on Facebook? You hang out where your ideal client is, like Facebook groups, and then you add him as a friend
Then you contact them via Messenger and you try to sell them something…
Guess what? There is a maximum of people you can add to your friends list everyday. It was recently 50. It might have changed.
Oh but the best thing is that you can actually use a software/app that can make friend requests for you, everyday!
How cool is that!? Well…
I know someone who uses it and got his personal account blocked for 2 weeks. So this means you can’t access your pages or groups during that time.
I don’t think it’s the best option.
What can you do?
First of all, you have to stay super clean and you need to follow Facebook ads policies.
If your personal account gets banned, you can appeal the decision until you get to talk to someone ( a human) to help you change the decision.
If only your ad account (business manager) got blocked, you can create a new business manager account.
But when it’s your personal account, while waiting for the decision of the appeal, you can start from scratch. This means you create another entity(account) that is not directly linked to you.
That works for real companies with many people working there. If you are a solopreneur, it might get hard to find someone to help you build a business entity on Facebook.
There are 2 places to be: under the algorithm or above/over it.
Most people and entrepreneurs are under it. So they are at the mercy of the algorithm changes and of Facebook restricting the account.
The people that are over, or above the algorithm are the ones who know someone on the inside that can let them do whatever they please or they are entrepreneurs that don’t depend on only one source of traffic for their business.
The best way to avoid losing everything is to eventually diversify where you can reach your potential clients.
Facebook isn’t the only platform where you can advertise. You can do Google ads, YouTube ads, TikTok ads, SnapChat ads, use Mediavine or other companies to put ads on other people’s websites, etc.
The only reason Facebook is so popular is because it’s really easy to get started. It’s also probably “easy” because so many people have been using it for so long that they are not used to using other platforms.
That also brings up the importance of creating an email list and a network of people.
You can read more about email marketing in this article I wrote.
In Conclusion
As an affiliate marketer, if you are just starting, I strongly suggest you stay away from the make money online and wealth industry. It is too easy to trigger Facebook disapproval.
The same applies to the health industry.
I know that in most courses to become an affiliate and make money online, they tell you that this is where the money is.
The main reason they tell you that usually is because they have their own course to sell and they are recruiting you as an affiliate.
So it’s a really rough place to get started.
There are so many other interesting niches with great affiliate programs you can choose from.
Cynthia