Google, Meta, and TikTok each maintain their own advertising policies — detailed, platform-specific, and updated without warning. A violation doesn't just reject your ad: it can pause your campaign, flag your account, or trigger a review that stalls your experiment for days. Staying current with these rules is a full-time job. It's ours.
The categories below give a sense of where policies tend to be most complex. This is not exhaustive — it's an illustration of why compliance requires ongoing judgment, not a one-time checklist.
Google and Meta require explicit designation for ads in housing, employment, and credit — categories governed by fair lending and anti-discrimination law. Failing to flag them correctly gets the campaign rejected before it runs.
Within these categories, age, gender, and geographic radius targeting are removed or capped by the platform. Campaigns must be structured to comply from the first draft.
Words like 'cures', 'treats', or 'prevents' trigger automatic rejection across all major platforms. Even softer language — 'supports immunity', 'boosts energy' — is reviewed closely and frequently flagged.
Meta and TikTok explicitly prohibit before-and-after photos in health and weight-loss ads. Supplement and wellness advertisers must carefully word every claim and avoid comparative visuals.
Ads for prescription drugs are prohibited outright in most markets. Over-the-counter medication ads require pre-approval and are limited to specific approved geographies.
Google requires a Financial Products and Services certificate for ads in lending, insurance, investing, and crypto — a separate application with its own approval timeline, per market.
Cryptocurrency and trading platform ads are among the most tightly restricted. Many are banned outright on TikTok. Google and Meta require jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction authorization.
Even legitimate financial products are rejected if copy implies guaranteed returns or passive income. 'Make money from home' is a near-universal rejection trigger on every platform.
Claims like 'permanently removes' or 'eliminates' are rejected as unsubstantiated on Meta and TikTok. Copy must hedge appropriately even for well-studied ingredients.
'Clinically proven' and 'dermatologist-recommended' can be flagged if the ad doesn't substantiate the claim inline. The burden of proof sits with the advertiser, not the platform.
Gambling, alcohol, political advocacy, and dating products are permitted in some markets and banned in others — sometimes at the state or city level. A campaign that's legal in one country can be rejected in the next.
Platforms revise their policies on irregular schedules, sometimes with short notice. Advertisers who were previously approved can find themselves out of compliance mid-campaign after a quiet policy change.
We don't push campaigns through an API and hope the platform's rejection system catches problems after the fact.
Before any campaign goes live, a member of our team reads the strategy, the copy, and the targeting — and checks it against current platform policy. The review is manual and deliberate. Policy compliance requires judgment that automation can't reliably provide, especially as rules shift.
The review adds time. That's the point. A campaign that violates policy doesn't just fail — it can damage your account standing and delay every subsequent experiment. We'd rather spend an extra hour on review than hand you a week-long disruption.