Hey guys,
I've got some ads up on FB that have the users age within a range in the ad text. For example the user might be 22 and it may say 20-24 in the ad text.
So far there's been no problems... However I decided to check out the ad guidelines and I spotted this: (Look for the bold.)
Ad text may not assert or imply, directly or indirectly, within the ad content or by targeting, a user's personal characteristics within the following categories:
i. race or ethnic origin;
ii. religion or philosophical belief;
iii. age;
iv. sexual orientation or sexual life;
v. gender identity;
vi. disability or medical condition (including physical or mental health);
vii. financial status or information;
viii. membership in a trade union; and
ix. criminal record.
What exactly does this mean? That I'm not allowed to be doing what I'm doing right now? I'd like to know considering it would really suck to have my account banned or even have my ads disproved at this point.
What do you guys think?
You are unlikely to get your account banned for calling out age, maybe retros but that's about it. They don't want you to say "Are you 21 and looking for single women in your area?". They are probably not too concerned with calling out an age range since it's not singling out their age specifically. It depends on how you word it anyway. If you say we are looking for people 20-24 like you, or are you 20-24 and blah blah? Then it is a bit gray. On the other hand you could say "so and so site is most popular among users age 20-24, blah blah" which is relevant to their age but doesn't call them out. In any case, calling out age is probably the least of your worries on FB.
@zeno
Alright cool thanks, but hey I hear that term "retro" all the time, what the hell does that mean?
It's where they disapprove an advert that has already been approved. So they approve your ad, then later when you are running it they may review it again - either triggered by a) user complaints/hiding of the ads b) large volume/spend being done on the campaign - shows its making you money so they want to check you are still within their guidelines, c) your account is shady so they re-review more often.
Lots of people run dating and wake up to find a lot of their ads retro-disapproved, generally when they're the slightly more risque ads that managed to get through. Retro's are much worse for your account than a straight up disapproval. Also, FB has been know to do dick moves like approve all your ads then disapprove them minutes later, i.e. giving more damage to your account than disapproving them initially.
@zeno
Wow that's crazy Zeno I never knew any of that, thanks for the heads up.
Totally unrelated but what's the general consensus on CPC vs CPM now days for FB? I know now CPC takes priority over CPM and usually with CPM the traffics cheaper, but is it all shitty app traffic?
Is shitty app traffic better for promoting shitty apps? Haha.
By app traffic do you mean on the sidebar when people are using a canvas app? I don't know how the placements differ at all, but CPC ads generally outperform on a CTR basis. That being said, CTR is not the be all end all. I start all campaigns in CPC as I like to pay for actual data, i.e. clicks, and not impressions which Facebook delivers too many of these days. If something is working well, consider duping a CPM campaign and testing it at low budget to see if it works well. In some markets you can find sweet spots where a lower CTR @ CPM manages to get you cheaper clicks than with CPC. Just gotta hope the traffic quality/backend CVR doesn't dive.