Facebook Ad Services Review: What a horrible mess you have become.

About 10 years ago, I deleted my personal Facebook account. Why? An endless stream of Mafia Wars and Farmville spam. The toxic nature of humans new-found sense of anonymity became way too much for me. I deleted it and didn’t think twice about it.

Until recently.

Since I started realtechreviews.com, I thought it would be good to start a Facebook account for the site and what soon followed was a comical reminder why I deleted it in the first place.

I first created the https://www.facebook.com/Real-Tech-Reviews-104545554696218/ site on Facebook. Everything went well and in no time we had an FB page!

I started uploading content and tried to run a quick Ad campaign to test the effectiveness of advertising on FB. What a ridiculous mess this quickly became.

I started a “traffic” ad, with the goal of driving traffic to RTR. It was approved by Facebook and it ran for a day or so.

So far so good.

On the second day BAM!!! My ad account was disabled for failing to meet community standards. What does that mean? Seriously, what does that mean? I read everything available to see where I went wrong and found nodda wrong with my test ad.

They also required me to link a phone number for verification.

I uploaded a (legit) phone number and requested a review of the ad ban. Someone apparently reviewed it and sent a message apologizing saying that it was identified incorrectly. Well,, damn. But OK. So I re-initiated that same ad.

Backing up a bit:

Before I started realtechreviews.com, I created a website that distributes PPE to my local community here in Prince William County VA. I manufacture -via 3D printing- COVID shields, comfort straps, and touch-less door handles etc. I provide these FREE for local pick-up and only recently started accepting donations since I started developing a twitch in my left eye whenever I review my credit card statements.. I put thousands of dollars of my own money in to this initiative and have only received $80, which in and of itself I’m very grateful for, but this is by-and-far an initiative that I pay for with my 9-5 teaching job.

The ad was approved and ran for a few days. It drew the ire of some toxic individuals that called me all manner of names, saying I was taking advantage of people during COVID and this immediately reminded me why I ditched social media.

I then got a message that my account was disabled and I had to upload a clear photograph of myself. Facebook, what the fuck?

I wrote the following statement and uploaded it in a .jpeg since there was no way to communicate with them:

Well they apparently obliged. When I log in to the RTR FB account, I now get the following message:

I have to admit, I don’t appreciate this at all. That may be obvious. What may not be obvious is that the ad I ran had almost no effect when compared to Google Ads. I ran a Google Ad campaign and received hundreds of more visitors per day than the four visitors in total that I received from Facebook.

In summation: Facebook still sucks.

What business would you walk in only to have them kick you out, force you to verify a phone number, invite you back in, ban you, and force you to give them a “clear photo” for their records? Would you continue to do business with them? I wouldn’t blame you if you filed a BBB complaint against them.

Facebook has a D- rating at BBB

https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/menlo-park/profile/social-media-marketing/facebook-1116-385674/overview-of-bbb-ratings

But what do you expect from a company with a registered address of: 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025-1456

I’m going to leave the Facebook Social Contact link at the bottom of the page that forwards here. This is a technology review site after-all and this article may or may not help people make informed decisions before they start an ad campaign on FB.

Would I recommend anyone to do business with Facebook? Negative. No way, nuh-uhh, not a chance, negateevo, niet, no no no!

However:

What are your thoughts regarding Facebook and their ad services?