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Controversial take: Sometimes the ad platform IS the problem, not your creative or targeting
Posted by on December 1, 2025 at 6:55 pmAlright, I'm gonna say what a lot of us are thinking but hesitant to admit publicly because it sounds like sour grapes. Sometimes it's not your campaign. It's the platform screwing you over. I've been running campaigns for 5+ years across Facebook, Google, TikTok – pretty much every major platform. Good creative, solid targeting, compliant with policies, legitimate businesses. And yet, in the past year especially, I've watched more campaigns get nuked by arbitrary platform decisions than I ever saw in the previous 4 years combined.
Recent examples that make zero sense:
- Supplement client (fully compliant, FDA-approved ingredients) – account banned. Appeal denied. No specific violation cited. Just "policy violation."
- Finance client running educational content about budgeting – flagged for "misleading financial claims." The ad literally said "learn to budget better." Appeal? Ignored for 3 weeks, then auto-rejected.
- E-commerce brand selling phone cases – restricted mid-campaign because their product images were "too promotional." They're product images. That's… the point?
Here's what kills me -we rebuilt each campaign from scratch, changed nothing substantial, got approved, and ran successfully. Same creative. Same targeting. Same landing pages. So what changed? Nothing. The algorithm just felt different that day, apparently.
The real issue! Platforms have so much automated enforcement with so little human oversight that legitimate businesses are getting caught in nets designed for scammers. And there's basically no recourse.
- Appeals are handled by bots or undertrained support who copy-paste non-answers
- Phone support? Doesn't exist unless you're spending $50K+/month
- The "review process" is a black box with zero transparency
And the kicker-while your legit business is banned, I can scroll through my feed right now and see obvious scam ads that have been running for weeks. Fake products, misleading claims, stolen creative – all approved and spending. The algorithm isn't catching bad actors. It's catching businesses trying to play by the rules. I've had to tell clients "your campaign is down because Facebook banned us, and no, they won't tell us why, and no, there's nothing we can do except start over and hope." That's not a sustainable way to run campaigns. That's gambling. Some of us have started looking into alternatives like agency-level accounts that supposedly offer more stability and higher thresholds before restrictions kick in. Skeptical if it's a real solution or just another workaround, but at this point, what's the alternative? Keep rebuilding accounts every time the algorithm has a bad day?
The platforms have gotten so big, so automated, and so risk-averse that they'd rather ban 100 legitimate businesses than let 1 scammer through. And they can afford to do this because where else are we gonna go? They have a monopoly on reach. Am I saying creative and targeting don't matter? Of course not. They're crucial. But am I saying that a significant percentage of account issues are caused by platform dysfunction rather than advertiser error? Absolutely. And I think more of us need to be honest about this instead of always assuming the advertiser must have done something wrong.
So… How many of you have been hit with bans/restrictions that made absolutely no sense? Have you found any actual solutions beyond "start over and pray"? At what point do we acknowledge that platforms have created an unsustainable environment for legitimate advertisers?
Bring on the downvotes, but I needed to say it.
TL;DR: Platform algorithms are increasingly punishing legitimate businesses while scammers run free, and we need to stop pretending every ban is justified or that "just follow the rules" is adequate advice in 2025.
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1 Reply
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Life’s unfair, not much you can do about it. It happens to every aspect of a business, not just marketing. You just have to roll with the punches as best as you can.
also, the agency account thing is a scam.
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I remember running ads for a bed company that was rejected for medical claims. The bed was called the orthopedic. A normal-ass bed name.
But people could advertise scams easily. It’s nuts.
Although I can get phone support. Just not for that stuff. They also don’t seem to know what’s going on half the time.
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Not controversial really but no use worrying about shit you can’t change. That’s why the inputs are the focus.
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> Here’s what kills me -we rebuilt each campaign from scratch, changed nothing substantial, got approved, and ran successfully. Same creative. Same targeting. Same landing pages. So what changed? Nothing. The algorithm just felt different that day, apparently.
Yup exactly. There are campaigns that I KNOW should work and I’ve had to copy and paste the same campaign over 10+ times before the algorithm finally hits. Stupid as shit sometimes and I just shake my head at the absurdity of it all but that’s the game we’re forced to play
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I don’t think many people disagree with you. The case with most ad platforms is usually “try to follow what you can while having the most control as possible to keep the ad platform performing in your favor”.
It’s no secret that Meta and Google are anti agency or freelancer management for their platforms, that’s why most people who run ads are bombarded by Google Reps or Meta Reps. They want to push automation and get money in their pockets.
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You guys are getting banned?
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