Confessions of a performance marketing ad buyer on ‘uptick’ in platforms’ ad rejections amid election advertising

With that perspective has come a year where some of the platforms have detailed more safeguards put in place to manage the upcoming election spelling out content moderation as well as guidelines for what’s permitted and not for political advertisers.

That’s led to more ad rejections, according to the buyer, who spoke to Digiday for our latest Confessions series, in which we exchange anonymity for candor, to hear about the rejections as well as election advertising prep for clients. 

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

You’re having some issues with ads rejections on platforms. Tell us what’s going on.  

We’re seeing more rejections on ads. Meta is being much more sensitive. Obviously they have their policies and we believe that we are within policies [but we’re seeing more rejections]. They definitely do seem to be taking a much harsher stance on anything that I would consider to be a little bit more sensitive. We’re seeing it across several brands that have sensitive products. So the categories where this, we’re seeing an increase in rejections has been like anything like weight-loss oriented, sustainability oriented. We have a client [where their product] is actually helping people stop [doing something] but their system thinks it’s [a problem]. So things which are a little bit more sensitive, we’re just seeing an increase in rejections.

How long has this been going on? What happens when there’s a rejection?

There’s definitely been an uptick in the last I would say month, month and a half. So that is top of mind. We’ve actually had some accounts get suspended. [What we’ve seen is that] they reject some ads that have been running for quite a long time. Then, next thing we know, the entire account is rejected or suspended. Getting an account unsuspended is actually quite a painful process. So that’s been a bit tough.

Do you have any idea of why this might be happening? 

[It’s speculation but] I know topics like sustainability can be perceived as a political topic. We’ve seen that in the previous years, especially during election season. It gets a harsher review and then like post-election, it becomes a little bit easier again. It seems that like as we get closer to election, anything that could be something that is more sensitive, just it has the system just seems to be harsher on.

As you’re dealing with rejections, what impact does that have on clients? Are you shifting ad spend elsewhere?

Yeah, we basically shift the ad spend to other channels. And then, unfortunately, it is a painful process to get [ad accounts] reinstated or fixed [on Meta]. It’s unpredictable and how long it takes. So as a result, we tend to hedge our bets and invest the dollars in other platforms while we are dealing with the challenging times. Sometimes it’s shifting more into [paid search on] Google. Sometimes it’s shifting more into, it’s shifting more into TikTok. It’s an account by account evaluation. 

Are there other shifts you’re making for clients to deal with the political advertising environment that’s getting more prominent on platforms as we get closer to the election?

We have provided guidance to our clients to do some media buying shifts. We do believe that there will be a performance decline as we get much closer to the election dates. So we’re shifting the media dollars around a little bit to help get ready for that. It’s basically [planning to shift at the] end of October, beginning of November, going a little bit lighter on [the ad spend] and then scaling back up in November. We’re going to basically hedge [our bets] a little bit on the dollars in the last week of October, first week of November and then the first few days post election.

That sounds like a normal course of business for an election. Is there anything different this year? 

The one thing that makes us the year a little bit different is Black Friday is much later [occuring on November 29th this year with Cyber Monday taking place December 2nd]. So we have the opportunity to do that fluctuation a little bit versus like for example, last year we started scaling up pretty early for Black Friday, Cyber Monday. So I would say that that is the big difference compared to previous years. It’s a very weird holiday season from that perspective. And then Hanukkah is actually after Christmas this year. As a result, it changed a bit of our buying pattern. What we’ve done is we’ve advised clients to basically start scaling post-election versus getting in [early] November. That way you can have a little bit of a buffer and that’s a little bit different from what we’ve done in previous years.