I have seen this concern going around and if you are advertising for certain industries on Facebook, you may have experienced this as well. The understanding of many is that according to Facebook’s Advertising Policies, ads are not allowed to have the word “you” on them.
That’s not completely true.
Let’s say you have a weight loss product or service. You can say “Watch this video” but you can’t say “You have to watch this video if you want to lose that extra weight.” What’s the difference? The latter basically called the user fat and that my friends is a very sensitive subject.
I am on the heavier side and I do get ads for weight loss products and services but none of them directly tell me that I’m fat – though, deep down, I know Facebook thinks that I am… and that’s basically the rule. You can’t call people out based on sensitive details about them such as race, religion, weight, physical wellness, gender identity, etc. but there are always workarounds.
See some below:
- Instead of “Meet other men!”, you can say that you’re product is a “same-sex dating app”
- Instead of “Do you have back pain?”, you can say “Check out this quick solution for back pain”
Remember that Facebook is a social platform and the last thing Facebook wants is to offend its users.
