The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

How The Commandment of Control Cost Me & My Client Thousands of Dollars in 2 Days

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

The-J

Dog Dad
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
264%
Aug 28, 2011
4,199
11,079
Ontario
Had to tell this story because it literally just happened.

I'm running Facebook Ads for a long time client of mine. We started a brand new campaign, generating leads for a product not yet released.

But, out of nowhere, I woke up this morning to a message that the ad account had been deactivated, and that the Business Manager had been banned from advertising.

What in the world? I know that nothing I did caused it, as the ads I created were within TOS, did not get any disapprovals, and all went through what seemed to be a manual review process.

So now, as a professional courtesy to protect my reputation (and to keep him close, since I've known him for years), I have a moral obligation to waive the management fee for that period, because that's time that I can't advertise.

Did I do anything wrong? The ban was almost certainly false, at least on my end. I was running 100% white hat within FB's guidelines (and I know them well). So no, I did nothing wrong... except one thing.

I put all my trust in one platform: Facebook, which has proven itself time and time again to be untrustworthy.

This isn't even the first time Facebook did this to me or people I know, and yet we keep running back every time because Facebook makes us money.

Facebook is a platform that banned me personally from being able to run advertisements... then retracted the ban two days later after a quick look.

Facebook is a platform where costs can be unpredictable and the traffic you get can vary drastically in quality. Even if you know what you're doing, you can't guarantee that your campaigns will always run the way you want them to.

Facebook is a platform that will happily destroy your business after it decides to change the Terms of Service under your nose. If you ran Crypto back in 2016, you know what I'm talking about.

So what in the world can you do? Well, you can either accept it as a part of the game, or you can diversify. Open up your business to different traffic or revenue sources. Move offline: you're not stuck online.

On a serious note, I'm really beginning to dislike Facebook on a moral level. Now they're outright allowing politicians to lie in political ads. What the actual F*ck, Zuckerberg?

I don't need Facebook to be successful. My business might, but I don't. Do you?

And yes, I'm opening myself up to agency owners and Facebook advertisers criticizing me, but I've been down the Facebook road for years. This shit's the reality and you can't tell me any different, because this is my real experience.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

RazorCut

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
358%
May 3, 2014
2,032
7,269
Marbella, Spain
I feel for you. It’s mighty frustrating.

That’s the issue with every vessel that carries your cargo. Google SEO, Youtube, Amazon, Ebay, Facebook, Instagram etc.. Even platforms like shopiify to an extent.

They all have the ability to shut you down overnight on a whim. If that happens, and you haven’t learnt to spread your cargo evenly, then you’re in for a rough ride.

it’s a difficult one though as Pareto’s Law means you will always have the bulk of your load on one ship but you still have to have alternatives.

When I used to do SEO many moons ago there where around 10 major search engines. But even then the bulk of traffic came from one (Alta Vista in those days).

Sometimes it’s very difficult to come up with viable options, where in lies the frustration in my experience.
 

The-J

Dog Dad
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
264%
Aug 28, 2011
4,199
11,079
Ontario
Sometimes it’s very difficult to come up with viable options, where in lies the frustration in my experience.

On some level, you're forced to lose some control in the beginning. You want to put as many of your chips into the best option at the beginning, after all. Like, if your business fails in the first year due to a control violation and you made $30,000 or something, then that sucks but it's certainly not a game over. However, if you are running a multi million dollar business with employees, and your ship gets sunk from one single point of failure, then you have a lot more to deal with.

These are not easy decisions.
 

100k

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
149%
Oct 20, 2012
1,529
2,284
Yep, welcome to the club.

Everyone is getting banned left, right and center.

Part of the game.

My solution is to build a funnel - capture mobile leads, pay for them once, then nurture, educate, qualify and convert them over time via sms.

With this solution I can buy traffic from FB ads, OR any other native platform with decent traffic like Google Adwords, Yahoo Gemini and the rest. Or I can go to a CPA network and pay them $5 for each lead their affiliates generate me, then I don't need to worry about traffic at all.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

The-J

Dog Dad
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
264%
Aug 28, 2011
4,199
11,079
Ontario
Yep, welcome to the club.

Everyone is getting banned left, right and center.

Part of the game.

My solution is to build a funnel - capture mobile leads, pay for them once, then nurture, educate, qualify and convert them over time via sms.

With this solution I can buy traffic from FB ads, OR any other native platform with decent traffic like Google Adwords, Yahoo Gemini and the rest. Or I can go to a CPA network and pay them $5 for each lead their affiliates generate me, then I don't need to worry about traffic at all.

Once you have them, they're yours. Where they come from DOES matter but what matters more is where they've been, if that makes sense.
 

Kid

Gold Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
98%
Mar 1, 2016
1,736
1,707
Reminds me of California Update
 

Ing

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
102%
Jun 8, 2019
1,621
1,651
58
Bavaria
I had tried some FB ad recently. They were rejected of no special reason.
I deleted this FB page, because of my nerves!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
445%
Jul 23, 2007
38,083
169,524
Utah
My experience with FB ads in a nutshell...

The Millionaire Fastlane : How One Book Can Make You Rich With the Power of Entrepreneurship
DISAPPROVED. SCAM.

The Millionaire Fastlane : How One Book Can Make You Rich With the Power of Indexed-Funds While Depriving Yourself of Starbucks.
APPROVED, can we assign you an account manager to help you manage your campaign?
 

Galacticum

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
142%
Nov 3, 2019
24
34
The ones that are going to win going onwards are the ones who are able to say compliant on a scale!

Gone are the days with unsubstantiated claims, negative words and calling out users. FB has been making a big sweep for quite some time now.
The classic model of "problem-agitate-solve" copywriting will only cause more issues with FB as it causes a negative user experience.

The ones that are killing it at the moment have this exact part figured out... Compliance.
Does it put a dent into the CR with all the necessary changes that have to be made?
Yup, it does. But I would much rather have a 1.6% CR and be able to scale on FB than a 3% CR and constantly fight with account bans and disapprovals.
 

reedracer

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
172%
Jun 2, 2019
371
638
63
Kansas City
On a serious note, I'm really beginning to dislike Facebook on a moral level. Now they're outright allowing politicians to lie in political ads. What the actual F*ck, Zuckerberg?

It has been my understanding political ads and other political speech is very highly protected speech. This can be a TV ad, Facebook, rally, or newspaper ad.

We had an ad last go around for Governor that took the opponents words and did a terrible job of cutting out parts and splicing it all back together too 'prove' she said unpopular things on an issue. The ad ran for months.

 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

The-J

Dog Dad
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
264%
Aug 28, 2011
4,199
11,079
Ontario
My experience with FB ads in a nutshell...

The Millionaire Fastlane : How One Book Can Make You Rich With the Power of Entrepreneurship
DISAPPROVED. SCAM.

The Millionaire Fastlane : How One Book Can Make You Rich With the Power of Indexed-Funds While Depriving Yourself of Starbucks.
APPROVED, can we assign you an account manager to help you manage your campaign?

Wow no way LOL

Although they have a very, VERY loosely defined rule against 'work from home' and business opportunities. The clients that I've worked with who have been affected by constant disapprovals and even bans range from all sorts of industries, from teaching equities trading to teaching personal trainers how to grow their business.
 

GoodluckChuck

Platinum Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
419%
Feb 2, 2017
667
2,792
my house
That blows. I wonder if it's because a competitor flagged you for some reason.

I've had ads approved for months only to become disapproved when I change the budget.

One Google Ads campaign took me like 30+ ads to get approved. I ended up talking to an employee and he gave me the scoop about what I needed to change on the landing page to be compliant. The language I used was very critical. All claims, no matter how slight, had to be backed up with a credible source.

I eventually got it to work.

My strategy is to have a lot of sources of income from various sources I can't really control. FB, Google Ads, Google search, medium, etc. Get their emails and market that way.

If any one thing goes down, I have 19 more to fall back on. Probably not the best as any of them but that's ok.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top