_{1,332 Words | 5 Min 35 Sec Read}

Welcome to another issue of Passionate Income.

Today we’ll be discussing how to make sure both your ads accounts and personal accounts stay safe on Facebook and Instagram.

Let’s dive in.

This issue is sponsored by us - Passionate Income!

Unhappy with your job?

Would some extra checking account deposits help?

This Thursday at 2:00pm EST, we at Passionate Income will be holding a free training on the #1 best side hustle for 2024.

Click below to join us live!

​>> Discover the Best Side Hustle for 2024 <<

Know what sucks?

Losing a social media account you've spent months or even years building.

And know what sucks even more?

Losing the Facebook or Instagram advertising account that drives 90% or more of your company's sales.

Sadly, both of these realities play out ever single day for people who don't know how to stay compliant on Meta.

So as someone who used to run a Facebook Compliance offer, I thought I'd share some tips to help you prevent a catastrophic headache.

With that said, please understand there is no such thing as a 100% compliance guarantee. The only people who actually know how this stuff works are Meta's employees, and you should assume their rules are in a constant state of flux.

#1 - Use 2FA

So the first thing you should do is to secure your account using what’s called Two Factor Authentication. If you’re unfamiliar with this technology, it’s an app you install on your phone that constantly updates a numeric code every 15 seconds.

By connecting the two, no one can sign into your ad account from an unrecognized IP address without also typing in the code.

But because your phone is the only place that code is available, it becomes near impossible for anyone to log into your account (unless they also have your phone, at which point you’ve probably been kidnapped and have bigger things to worry about : ).

And this is more about securing your account against hackers than it is staying compliant. As an example, one of the client’s my partner’s been consulting with had their account taken over by some hackers in Southeast Asia.

After accessing the account, these hackers spent tens of thousands of dollars running ads to an offer they earned affiliate commissions on.

Now, if your account gets hacked, odds are you’ll get both your account back and your money back. But this process can take weeks (if not a month or more).

So even though you yourself didn’t do anything wrong, the shutdowns can take weeks to resolve. And remember, for every $10,000 per month your ad campaign is generating, every week your ads are down is $2,333 in lost revenue.

So, given setting up 2FA is both free and takes a matter of minutes, we cannot emphasize how important it is that you set this set up.

*As of this writing, Facebook (which owns Instagram), Google (which owns YouTube), Twitter and LinkedIn all offer 2FA.

#2 - Cleanse Your People and Partners List

In 2019, I had my ad account temporarily restricted. I found this pretty odd given I’d never run one single ad from that account.

After contacting Customer Support, I found out the shutdown happened because one of the accounts I had been added to (in the past) was banned.

So in their quest to punish anyone remotely related to the account that was banned, Facebook shut down my ad account as well. Given this, I highly recommend two things.

First, go to the People and Partners tab of your Business Manager and remove any People or Partners you may have granted access to in the past, but are no longer working with.

Second, if you’re a marketer and may have been added to other people’s accounts in the past, you’ll want to either:

Remove yourself from their account (which you can do yourself if their account has not been restricted). Or request that they remove your manually (which they’ll have to do if their account has been restricted)

You can view which Business Managers you’ve been added to via your Business Manager homepage. From there, select the Business you’d like to leave from the top left drop-down menu, then click through to the Business Info tab. Last, navigate down to the My Info section and click the “Leave {Business Name}” button to remove yourself.

#3 - Be Careful Who You Add to Your Account

Along the same lines as the point above, you’ll want to be careful about adding strangers to the People / Partner section of your Business Manager.

If they've on the Naughty List, their status could contaminate the health of your account.

#4 - Verify Your Domains

This applies to both people doing ads and organic, and the evidence is anecdotal. But either way, the more you show Facebook you’re serious about complying with their rules, the better.

Given this, we recommend verifying any domains you’re running ads to. The process for doing so is a bit technical, however. So if you’re not super web savvy, you may have to hire someone to do this for you.

#5 - Logo, Full Contact Info, and Privacy Policy

One of the biggest things ad platforms hate is when it’s near impossible to tell who’s paying for the ads people are clicking on.

Because of that, it’s recommended you put your company’s name, physical address, and phone number on your landing pages. In addition, it’s highly recommend you include your company’s logo at the top of the page. Further, linking to your company’s Privacy Policy is absolutely mandatory these days.

As for disclaimers, some advertisers put the entire disclaimer in their footer, while some just link out to the disclaimer on a separate URL. Given the disclaimers don’t contain any outbound links, we prefer including them right there at the bottom of the page (in size 8 or 10 font).

#6 - Language to Avoid

When it comes to whether or not your ad copy is compliant, there are two types of rules to pay attention to. Further, please note that while Meta is more lenient with organic captions (e.g. on IG Posts), following these rules is still a good idea.

First are the hard and fast rules you should never break in your ads. Examples here include:

• Using trademarks of other companies (e.g. Netflix®, Google, etc.)

• Swear words or synonyms (e.g. BS, GTFO, WTF, etc.)

• Names of illegal or pharmaceutical drugs (e.g. heroin, Viagra, etc.)

• Anything related to alcohol, tobacco, vape, CBD or marijuana

• Anything related to gambling, casinos, etc.

• Anything related to Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general

• Anything related to adult content or porn

Most advertisers know these already, so I won’t elaborate any further.

With that said, where most advertisers get in trouble is with the rules that are more open to interpretation. Examples include:

• Claims / Promises / Guarantees

• Violent language (including synonyms / slang)

• The use or misuse of personal attributes in your ad copy

• Anything that could make Facebook users feel bad about themselves while scrolling the feed

When an advertiser gets in trouble because of the copy in their funnel, the text in question almost always falls into one of these categories.

With that said, it would take an encyclopedia to break down the nuances of claims, attributes, adjectives and adverbs. So, if you’re at all worried about this stuff, we recommend starting with your ad platform’s policies / rules.

Which can be found by Googling {Platform Name} Advertising Rules.

💡 Takeaway: Social media account bans can ruin entire businesses. But by following the rules above, your odds of getting in trouble will be much lower.

🎁 Resources:

1. Having trouble with STRIPE or PAYPAL? Use our partner CopeCart for payment processing and financing clients. (white glove onboarding here)

2. FREE COURSE: Build a Faceless IG Page (from a guy with 10M+ followers)

3. Follow us on Instagram

Post Of The Day

Tweet Of The Day

What'd you think of today's edition?

Reply back with a rating between 1 and 10 to let us know