My Love & Hate Relationship with Facebook Business :)
A Fan of Facebook and of Facebook Fan Pages
I have been using Facebook since 2009 with a couple of personal accounts to stay connected with family and friends like most people do. I explored Facebook Fan pages for one of my e-learning projects back in 2014 but didn't do much with it. But I LOVED to see the potential.
Black Friday Ads ON and OFF ALL Weekend!
In preparation for the Wealthy Affiliate Black Friday promo, I decided to launch a campaign even if I don't have much of a tribe on my Fan Pages. This is one of my goals for the new year. I have a total of three Fan Pages for three different niches and I intend to use them to build my follow and also use Groups, live sessions and all that the platform has to offer to promote my products and services. Promoting Wealthy Affiliate was my TOP priority so I was so determined to make it happen, only to realize that my ads would get approved and then disabled. After a day or so approved again and then disabled. It was ON and OFF. And this was Black Friday weekend!!!
What a Nightmare!
I contacted Support and appealed the decision as I have a legitimate business and what I was promoting was also a legitimate affiliate program. I have my privacy policy also entered on the account Page Info tab. But it was useless, all I got was a series of automated responses: Thank you for appealing the decision, we have re-activated your account, but it was not true, my account continued to show restricted as in the screenshot shown above. I was not able to BOOST a post, CREATE an ad or LAUNCH a campaign. And it was Black Friday Weekend! And Monday was Cyber Monday, what a perfect day to promote an online business! :)
101 Invalid Reasons
After creating a post and linking it to my Bootcamp site, Facebook gave me the reason that my account was disabled because my ads were not compliant with FB advertising policies (which was not true), that the image contained too much text (which was not true, it was the beautiful graphic we all got for Black Friday, some of you even added more to it, I LOVED to see those cat's eyes!). I kept appealing the decision and TODAY, Needless to say I also experienced problems on Instagram. I was thinking: Could these guys just let me do this?
AND, twenty (YES! You are reading right, 20!) days later, that means TODAY, I got this message from Facebook Support (this is for us to be so grateful to our wonderful SiteSupport here!):
Today at 9:35 AM
Hi Paula,
We reviewed your Facebook account and determined that access to advertising features was incorrectly disabled. We've reinstated your access to advertising. Any ads that were affected will return to their previous status.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
Thanks,
The Facebook Business Team
Vincent
I Want You to Learn from My Mistakes...
Oh, boy! Yes, I accept the apology but it was a real incovenience. Just sharing this so you start advertising WAY ahead of Black Friday, at least a month before so your ads run without problems. As Kyle did here on the wealthyaffiliate.com website with a timer until we reached Black Friday. Then I won't end 20 days later with such few visits and clicks on my ads... Take a look:
I have learned my lesson and am determined to
1. Invite one friend at a time to LIKE my page so I can grow my tribe :)
2. Launch campaigns ahead of time to allow for debugging if need be.
I was so confident that by creating a business account on both Facebook and Instagram I was NOT going to run into any compliance problems, but I guess I took too much for granted and their tech support really sucks. When I got this message today I thought: Are you kidding me? :)
What has been your own experience with Facebook Ads so far? Would you like to share here?
Merry Christmas, everyone! :)
Paula
PS: Please read the reply that I posted below Curtis's comment as it might shed light on this issue...
Recent Comments
32
Facebook used to be good for small business but has gone downhill in the last couple of years or so. They openly admit to restricting small businesses.
Instagram belongs to FB, make the most of it because in as few years it will probably go the same way.
I have some automated posts that go to my business page but I rarely bother to make the effort to post or interact on their because it is very time consuming to interact, with very little return for the time wasted.
Thanks for your input, Linda, but I have to disagree on this one. I have a bunch of online mentors, guys who are doing great in their online businesses and that I learn from them and they are ALL on Facebook Business, they run ads, I find them all the time in my FB feed, they have Fan Pages, FB Groups, etc. because it clearly works and it is one of the most powerful platforms for sales and conversions. So I want to have this resolved for good!
I am determined and will go for it. I will keep you posted if/when I succeed. For sure I am not a quitter, so I will win this battle :)
Good evening Paula,
FB is a different world. I have not had any experience with FB ads. At the moment I only use it so I can publish my posts. I still do not really like it and try to navigate with care. Pros and Cons, My first month at Facebook Greetings from the south of Spain,
Taetske
Hi there! I LOVE Facebook, notice I first said LOVE and then hate :) I never encountered problems but one thing is to just post and another is to advertise. I am referring strictly to my FB Business Account and their advertising policies and how difficult I am finding to advertise Wealthy Affiliate through this platform.
They have disabled every ad so far, not just over Black Friday weekend but today when I launched a new campaign. Has anyone been able to run WA campaigns successfully and would like to share their tricks of the trade? I am clueless about how to resolve this except keeping the appeals and saying it is a valid platform and not an MLM. I told FB Support that I explain all of this in my WA Bootcamp site too, but I guess they have a zero-tolerance policy and don't even bother to review the company's website. I copied their disclaimer here on this blog, they compared it to a scam. I will keep contesting the decision... :)
Good afternoon Paula,
Yes, I did notice first big love and then hate. These 2 sentiments are close together after all.
I was rather shocked to see human extremes so visible. From so nice, caring full of empathy to then see the most base feelings out in the open.
How peaceful it is on my farm.
One should fight for what one thinks is right and I know that one should not trust FB.
Greetings from the south of Spain,
Taetske
Thank you for your empathy, Taetske! :) I keep fighting. I have appealed today too. I am not doing this just for me to be able to promote my Bootcamp site, but also for Wealthy Affiliate as Carson and Kyle don't deserve this treatment, and for all of you guys that will advertise at a certain point in time. I hope I can hear more people, esp the Super Affiliates here, what their trajectory with FB Ads has been... Thank you for sharing!!! :)
I love your cats! Did you see the Black Friday graphic with the wild cat eyes added to it? It looked SO cool... :)
I have to find them. Remember Kyle said we could adjust the graphic or create our own to promote WA. Well, someone added the wild cat's eyes and it looked so cool. I will have to trace it...
Paula, I do not have a website promoting WA so was this in the Bootcamp training, if, then I have not seen it.
No, it was made by one of the WA members. Since I visit several of the ambassador's pages to learn from them, it was one of the Super Affiliates who added the eyes and it looked GREAT! If he is reading me now, please share your graphic. Otherwise, I will ask him if I can borrow it from him to share here. You will LOVE it! :)
I have had bad experience too. I am trying to figure a way for me to best use the platform with all the changes and dislike for affiliate marketers. Some have outright gave up on FB.
Your experience will help others who are working on FB to avoid some of these pain, Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Stanley
Stanley, I am glad I initiated this conversation here as more of you are saying it also happened to many of you.
After enabling my advertising account today, Facebook Business showed me this pop-up (I guess as a consolation prize?:) But I will take it! They offered $20 in FB credit per $10 investment towards advertising through January 17... OK, I will forgive them this time around :)
I gave up on them going on a year ago. I have my own wing in the facebook jail system. Zuck does not like the ripples I make in his agenda driven pond.
Wow, Paula--that really stinks. I'm glad you shared this with us so that we might avoid your experience--what a way to turn a negative into a positive learning experience for all of us on your part. This was certainly NOT a case of better late than never for you!
Jeff
YES, absolutely. Timing is crucial... The reason why I really dislike their procedure is that they can't handle so much advertising during peak season.
Even though FB is a multi-billion dollar company, their tech support was late. Isn't it time for Zack to upgrade their customer service and their server so they can handle ads better?
It is my suspicion this was the culprit. Now everyone is getting their apologies... maybe we will get some more restrictions during Christmas and New Year's Eve season when sales start to peak again... Better take it with a sense of humor, Jeff :)
I'll certainly take all this under advisement--by then I might be ready for Facebook--then again...Happy Holidays, Paula--and all the best to you in the New Year!
Jeff
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Sorry to hear that. Thank you for sharing your problems. And the lesson to be learn here. Image the loss of businesses with this kind of support. And after 3 weeks they can send you this messages that is their fault. I can't imagine what that is happening and what you had going true. Ohh gus is so bad. But that was I admire you are still calm. And share it with us this problem and find solution to avoid or overcome it. Thanks Paula you are the true winner by sharing your experience letting millions of people know that is sucks and where is the trust, integrity and the credibility of it call its self a Facebook. 🤔
Thank you for your support and empathy, Henry! It has been so frustrating because I set up things the right way. I have a business, an LLC, I have a business bank account added to my FB business account, I have done everything according to their policies as it should be done, but they disable my WA ads. These are the only ads disabled as they believe WA is a scam... Too bad! Maybe my mission here is to show them it is NOT :)