I want to share with you a reason my recent Facebook ad was “in review” for over 24 hours. My ads typically only take 2 hours or so in review. I have hardly ever been rejected and have spent thousands in ad spend.
This ad just kept sitting there. You know the frustration. Lots of time and effort to create the picture/video, write the text, set up the funnel etc. and …”in review”.
So, I go off to do other stuff in the business. Checking the ad manager every hour or so….argh. This went on for over a day. [ A little trick I learned in the past was to go into the ad text and just add a period (.) somewhere and republish. This seems to redo the que and voila “Active”. Not this time.]
After a good nights sleep (waking up thinking about this dang ad), I decided to tackle it that afternoon. When you mouse over the “in review” words, the system will tell you how long your ad has been in review. Pretty neat, a new feature I think? It also said that the ad was “in review” for over 24 hours. Maybe you would like to “chat” with person to find out why.
Being the determined, do it yourself, type A guy, I was determined to figure this out. So, I went through line by line of the ad text. It was rather long as I like to tell stories and relate to the people I am writing for. This ad was giving away a 60 page blueprint that provided businesses with an A-Z experience to grow their customer base.
After about 20 minutes here is what I found:
About 2/3 down the text was this wording (abbreviated for you) –
I decided to bring together 26 various proven ways to drive new customers into your business. A-Z (therefore 26 😂) Definitive Guide For New Customers Quickly & Easily. For a limited time, I am giving this away. Why? …….(more text kept going)
Here is the replacement text –
I decided to bring together 26 various proven ways to drive new customers. A-Z (therefore 26 😂) For a limited time, I am giving this away. Why? …(same text until the end).
Then it clicked. I remembered from years ago that Facebook and most other platforms are really not liking a “sales message” or work from home or MLM or >> calling out someone as an individual <<
So, I reworded the paragraph and removed “into your business” and also removed “Definitive Guide For New Customers Quickly & Easily” (not a big deal since the picture had those words in it anyway. The quickly and easily must have seemed salesy 🙁
I hit publish. BAM. Within 2 minutes my ad went from “In Review” to “Active” and is driving massive traffic to me now.
So many people have helped me out over the past decade, I felt I needed to share this. When you are running ads and trying to do 100 other tasks in a days work, don’t get lazy with your text. 24 Hours wasted due to simple words calling out “YOU” and “YOUR BUSINESS” or overly hyped words.
What to do with a Facebook ad in review?
Moral of the story, keep your text more generic to an audience and NOT to an individual or particular group. Your ads will go “Active” much faster.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions. Back to the other 99 items on the checklist 🙂
P.S. I forgot to mention, I messed up on that ad and didn’t have my link tracking software connected properly. I am glad I caught that because you can’t make decisions about your ads without proper data.
