The Coronavirus pandemic has changed everything in every aspect of our lives. People are advised (or ordered) by authorities to stay at home. Thus, they spend more time online, in larger numbers than ever. This causes a huge burden on the global internet network and on all digital services and platforms, including Facebook.
Although it is an essentially online business, Facebook has desk-bound contractors and employees who cannot work from home. Thus, the social media platform has a reduced capacity to respond to the many applications and requests from both personal and business accounts.
Two key areas where business owners and marketers will not this reduced capacity of response are the ad approval time and monetisation. The Facebook Team also enforced new bans on ads for specific products.
Facebook Ad Approval Delays – Who Will Be Impacted?
According to Facebook, the COVID-19 outbreak means that the social media platform relies more on automated systems and less on people during this difficult period. However, as we all know, machines are far from perfect and do not have the same capacity of judging and discriminating of humans.
Thus, in the coming weeks, all companies using Facebook ads and other promotional tools may experience the following:
- Delays in getting their Facebook ads and Marketplace listings reviewed;
- Erroneous rejection of ads in a higher proportion;
- Longer time and reduced availability for the appeal process;
- Reduced availability and delivery for in-stream ads.
Of course, this will impact both your ads budget and your traffic and sales funnel. The question is: should you stop running Facebook ads in the coming weeks?
How to Mitigate the Facebook Ad Approval Delays
Although it feels tempting to stop all your Facebook ad campaigns, you should not do it. It will leave you vulnerable to the forecasted economic crisis following the pandemic, as your clients will turn to other businesses to find the products and services they need.
Instead, you should follow the guidance offered by Facebook to avoid triggering new ad reviews:
- Refrain from making changes to your existing ads, except for the budget, start and end dates;
- Extend the delivery periods of your best performing ads.
Beware Posting Ads for Coronavirus Related Items
One consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak was a wave of panic buying of surgical masks, hand sanitisers, rubbing alcohol and surface sanitising wipes. There were infamous instances of hoarders who purchased large quantities of such products with the intention of reselling them at a higher price on Amazon or other marketplaces.
To prevent such situations of price gouging taking place on their platform, Facebook has enforced a ban on ads for Coronavirus related products, such as hand and surface sanitisers, including COVID-19 test kits. This ban has been in force since the 19th of March and there is no information as to how long it will last.
At the same time, organic posts promoting sales for these products on Facebook and Instagram will be deleted. So far, there are no detailed whether the users will be penalised in any other way.
Changes in the Monetisation Procedure
If your Facebook page is eligible, you may monetise video content by inserting in-stream ads in them. Due to staff shortages in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak, Facebook announces some changes to this process, as well.
Thus, for the time being, only videos in the English language will be eligible for monetisation. Secondly, when you submit a new video for monetisation, it will undergo a brand safety review process. This process may take longer than usual. Also, there may be errors in the review process and the capacities for appealing these mistakes are reduced.