Meta Advertising Standards are the rules Meta applies to every ad on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and its partner network, covering what may be promoted, what ads may say and show, and how landing pages must behave. They are Meta’s private rules, separate from UK advertising law and from the UK’s self-regulatory code.
How Meta Advertising Standards work
The standards sit on top of Meta’s Community Standards, which apply to all content. They fall into three broad groups. Prohibited content can never be advertised: illegal products, weapons, tobacco and vapes, fraudulent schemes and similar. Restricted content can be advertised only with conditions, such as age targeting, prior written permission or a recognised licence: alcohol, dating, gambling, prescription drugs, cryptocurrency and many financial products fall here. The third group covers how ads are made, including the personal attributes policy, which stops ads implying knowledge of someone’s health, finances or other traits, and the health and body policy, which limits before-and-after images and body-shaming.
Every new ad, and every ad you edit, goes through review. Most checks are automated, with human reviewers for some cases. A rejected ad shows the policy it broke, and you can edit it or request another review. Repeated rejections count against the account and can lead to account restrictions that stop all advertising.
Why it matters
In the UK, an ad on Facebook has two sets of rules to satisfy. Meta’s standards decide whether the ad runs at all. The CAP Code, enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority, decides whether it is legal, decent, honest and truthful for UK audiences. The two do not check each other. Meta can approve an ad that the ASA later rules misleading, and the ASA publishes its rulings with the advertiser’s name. Meta can also reject an ad the CAP Code would allow, simply because its own rules are stricter.
Sector rules add a third layer. Financial promotions must comply with FCA rules, gambling operators need a Gambling Commission licence as well as Meta’s permission, and health claims must be supported by evidence. A clinic, broker or online retailer that ignores this can lose an ad account and face a regulator in the same month.
Common mistakes
- Writing “Are you struggling with debt?” or “Tired of your acne?”, which implies personal knowledge and breaks the personal attributes policy.
- Assuming that because an ad was approved, its claims are allowed under UK law.
- Sending people to a landing page that does not match the ad, or that makes claims the ad avoided.
- Resubmitting the same rejected ad repeatedly, building up policy strikes.
- Using a personal profile with weak security to run ads, which leaves the account open to takeover and policy breaches by someone else.
How to act on it
Before you write ads for a regulated product, read the relevant restricted content section in Meta’s Transparency Centre and the matching CAP Code section, and note anything that needs a licence or permission. Write claims you can prove, talk about your product rather than the reader’s problems, and keep the landing page consistent with the ad.
When an ad is rejected, read the stated policy, fix the cause and only then resubmit; if you believe the decision is wrong, request a review through Account Quality. Checking ads against both rule books before launch is part of my Facebook ads management work, because a suspended account costs far more than a slower approval.