Why Meta rejected your ad, and how to fix it

Meta reviews every ad before it runs, mainly with automated systems and with people involved in some cases. The review looks at the image and any text in it, the copy, the targeting, the product and the landing page. Meta says most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, though some take longer. Meta can also review an approved ad again after an edit or a report, and reject it then.

These are summaries, not the policy text. Check Meta's Advertising Standards for the exact rules that apply to your ad.

• Misleading or unproven claims. Promised results you cannot back up, exaggerated outcomes, false urgency, or prices and offers that differ from the landing page.

• Personal attributes. Copy that says or implies you know something personal about the reader, such as a health condition, their finances, their religion or another sensitive trait.

• Body image and before and after. Images that focus on body parts or compare bodies, particularly for health, weight loss and cosmetic products.

• Prohibited and restricted products. Some products cannot be advertised at all. Others, such as alcohol, gambling, dating and some health and financial products, need authorisation, age limits or country limits.

• Special ad categories. Ads about credit or financial products, employment, housing, and social issues, elections or politics must be declared when you set up the campaign, and they carry targeting limits.

• Features that do not work. Play buttons, notification badges, checkboxes or menus drawn onto a still image so they look clickable.

• Landing page problems. A page that does not load, is under construction, blocks visitors with pop-ups, or sells something different from the ad.

• Intellectual property. Another company's logo, trademark, photos or other assets used without permission.

• Grammar and profanity. Profanity, or odd spellings and symbols used to slip words past the review.

Most rejections have a direct fix once you know the cause. The guide at /guides/facebook-ad-copy covers how to write claims you can stand behind.

• For personal attributes, describe the product or the situation instead of the reader. 'Are you in debt?' becomes 'A simpler way to plan a monthly budget.'

• For health or body images, show the product, the routine or the setting rather than a body, and drop any before and after comparison.

• For unproven claims, add the evidence to the landing page and keep the claim as narrow as the evidence, or remove it.

• For offer mismatches, make the price, discount and terms on the landing page match the ad exactly.

• For fake buttons, remove anything on the image that looks clickable.

• For restricted categories, check whether you need authorisation or age targeting, and set the campaign up that way before you resubmit.

Automated review sometimes flags an ad that follows the rules, often because a word has a second meaning or an image resembles something restricted. If you have read the policy and your ad complies, request another review rather than editing it, and explain in a sentence why it complies. Do not upload the same rejected ad again under a new name or in a new ad account to get around the review. Meta treats that as circumventing its systems, which can lead to restrictions on the account.

One rejection is routine. A pattern can lead Meta to restrict what the account can do, so treat repeated rejections as a signal about how you write ads, not as bad luck. Check the account's status in Meta's business tools from time to time, and fix any warnings there. For stores that sell physical products, Meta's customer feedback score also affects delivery. The guide at /guides/meta-ads-for-dropshipping explains how it works.

Run this check before you publish. The guide at /guides/facebook-ad-headlines covers headline wording that gets ads rejected.

• Every claim is true, specific and something you can prove.

• The product in the image is the real product, shown as it is.

• The copy talks about the product and the situation, not the reader's personal traits.

• Nothing on the image looks clickable.

• The landing page loads on a phone and matches the ad's product, price and offer.

• If your category is restricted, you have read that section of the Advertising Standards.