Some businesses and companies that promote properties or housing through Meta Ads see a message in their admin panel indicating that their ad was rejected due to housing ad rules. This article will explain what this Meta Ads rule entails.
Purpose of the Rule
The purpose of this rule is to prevent any form of discrimination in housing promotion. It’s important to note that housing is included in the “special category” of ads, which covers ads related to housing, employment, and financial products/services.
What Does the Special Ad Category Mean?
When an individual or company submits a housing ad, they must select it from the Meta special ad category. Once this category is selected, many demographic targeting options will be disabled. For example, filters such as age and gender will not be available. This limitation aims to prevent the Meta Ads platform’s demographic filters from being used to discriminate against people (in this case, to prevent them from accessing housing).
What does the rule say?
The rule states that ads promoting housing opportunities or related services must use the “special ad category.”
Examples that fall “within” the rule
Below are some examples that fall “within” the rule and must be selected as the “special category” when creating an ad in Meta Ads:
- Listings for homes for sale and rent (whether permanent or short-term).
- Homeowners insurance offers, including as part of insurance packages.
- Renters insurance offers, including as part of insurance packages.
- Mortgage insurance offers, including as part of insurance packages.
- Mortgage loans and other home finance services. Services related to real estate capital or appraisal.
- Real estate and home search services.
- Aggregator services.
Is Airbnb included in the rule?
The answer is yes, as this service falls under the short-term rental category.
Exceptions to the rule
It is important to note that some business sectors are not affected by this rule and have no restrictions (they can advertise freely). These businesses are:
- Hotels.
- Resorts.
- Retreats.
- Advice related to home ownership or purchase.
- Information for consumers or housing providers about their rights and responsibilities under fair housing laws.
What should be done in these cases?
If we are promoting a home (for sale or rent), the best course of action in these cases is to mark our listing as a “special category”. While our demographic targeting will be limited (since we won’t be able to apply filters for age, gender, etc.), we will avoid penalties from Meta. As mentioned previously, the only exceptions to this rule are hotels, resorts, retirement services, information on housing laws/rights, and advice on buying/selling homes.
Words that may trigger ad rejection for real estate listings
Simply marking an ad as a “special category” is not enough; other anti-discrimination rules apply to the text, images, and videos used in the ad. For instance, when advertising VIP, luxury, or premium properties, avoid using the word “exclusive” (or similar terms), as this violates Meta’s policies on access to essential services and may be perceived as discriminatory. Another recommendation is to avoid using words that refer to demographic characteristics; listed below are examples of ad copy that could be rejected under this criterion:
-Properties for women.
-Are you a woman looking for a property?
-Housing for millennials.
-Are you African American and looking for a home?
-Housing for Latinos.
-Live with other Catholics.
-Housing for Catholics.
-Are you Catholic and looking for a property?
-Housing for older adults.
-Are you young and looking for affordable housing?
-Are you over 25 and looking for a home?
-If you are between 18 and 70 years old, you can access a mortgage loan.
Personal and Professional Experiences on the Subject
Based on my professional experience in this area, I’ve observed that many “serious” real estate businesses fail to declare their listings (within the special category) and receive unnecessary penalties. This generally occurs when employees (unqualified) of the company place ads on Meta without familiarizing themselves with the platform’s advertising rules. This problem is usually exacerbated when they “insist” on resubmitting the same rejected ad, which often results in the closure of the advertising account. Therefore, it’s important to pause our advertising campaigns when we have a rejected ad and submit a new one only after we know the reason for the rejection (we need to investigate exactly which rule we violated). This is especially important to ensure that our ads comply with Meta Ads rules and don’t jeopardize the company’s advertising account.
What are your thoughts on this? Have you had any issues with housing promotion rules?
If you’d like to learn more about Meta Ads rules, I have a video course titled “Meta Ads (Complying with the Rules).” For more information about this course, you can visit the following link.
Image by Todd Kent via Unsplash.com under a Creative Commons license.