Common ad policy violations and how to fix them

Misrepresentation

This is the broadest category and the one most often misread. It covers claims the advertiser cannot substantiate, unclear pricing, undisclosed costs, exaggerated results and fake urgency.

The reviewer’s test is straightforward: could a reasonable user, reading the ad and the landing page, be misled about what they get and what it costs? A countdown timer that resets, a discount that was never a real price, or a results claim with no evidence all fail this test.

The fix is on the page, not in the ad. Removing the claim and the mechanism that produces it resolves the violation; rewording the same claim under a new headline generally does not.

Unacceptable business practices

This category covers the structure of the offer rather than its description: unclear billing terms, difficult cancellation, hidden subscriptions, undisclosed recurring charges, and offers that make a free item conditional on something not stated up front.

It is treated more seriously than misrepresentation because it concerns the business model rather than a single claim, and it typically affects the whole account rather than one ad group.

Restricted-content verticals

Financial services, healthcare and supplements, dating, gambling-adjacent products, weight loss and parts of crypto are not prohibited but gated. Each carries its own requirements, ranging from disclaimers to licences to geography restrictions.

Violations here usually come from omission rather than intent. An advertiser who declares the vertical correctly and supplies the required documentation rarely has a problem. One who declares a supplement as general retail passes initial review and then gets restricted at first spend.

Trademark and IP complaints

Trademark issues arrive as complaints rather than as automated review. Using a competitor’s brand name in ad text, in a way likely to confuse, is the usual trigger.

Resale, compatibility and informational use are generally permitted, but the burden of demonstrating that use falls on the advertiser. Documentation showing you are an authorised reseller, or that your use is descriptive rather than confusing, is what resolves these cases.

Landing page and destination mismatch

The destination page must deliver on the ad. A mismatch in the offer, the price, the product or the language is treated as a policy problem even when nothing in the ad itself is untrue.

Two patterns trigger this most: ads pointing to a general homepage rather than the specific offer, and ads in one language pointing to a page in another. Both are easy to fix and expensive to ignore, because repeated mismatches read as a pattern.

Editorial and quality

Excessive capitalisation, gimmicky punctuation, unclear grammar, and image text that covers most of the creative are quality failures rather than honesty failures. They suppress delivery and, repeated, restrict the account.

These are the easiest violations to fix and the easiest to accumulate. Quality issues rarely get appealed because there is nothing to argue — the answer is to change the creative.

How to appeal so the appeal is read

An appeal should do three things: identify the specific policy, supply the evidence the automated review could not see, and state what changed. Appeals that restate the ad copy in different words, or assert that the business is legitimate without evidence, do not give a reviewer anything to act on.

Where the violation is substantive — a business practice or a vertical — fix the underlying issue before appealing. An appeal submitted while the offending page is still live will be rejected, and the rejection is then on the record.

One well-constructed appeal is worth more than several rapid ones. Where the first appeal fails and the reason is genuinely unclear, the useful next step is escalation through a partner support channel rather than another identical submission.

Frequently asked questions