Beginner’s Guide to Instagram Ads: How to Avoid Rejections?

Many cross-border sellers and independent website operators encounter a frustrating problem when they first start running Instagram ads: repeated ad rejections. This not only wastes time but can also lead to account restrictions and, in serious cases, disrupt the overall marketing process. In reality, most ad rejections aren't due to platform issues, but rather to violations of Instagram's ad review guidelines.

This article will help you systematically analyze the reasons for rejection and provide a full-link guide to avoid pitfalls, helping you avoid detours and increase your advertising approval rate.

I. A complete analysis of the reasons why Instagram ads were rejected

1. Advertising content is illegal

Involving sensitive categories (medicine, health care, finance, virtual currency, weight loss products, etc.)

Exaggerated copywriting (e.g., "100% risk-free," "Instant weight loss")

Pictures or videos contain misleading, bloody, or vulgar images

2. The landing page is not compliant

Abnormal page jump (404 error, slow loading)

The page doesn’t match the ad’s content (e.g. the ad promotes slimming tea, but the landing page sells something else)

No clear privacy policy or return policy

3. Account and advertising environment issues

Direct large-scale investment into new accounts triggers risk control

There are anomalies in the advertising account or payment method (multiple failed payments/high refund rate)

Using an unstable network or suspicious IP address will result in account association and trigger automatic review.

4. Lack of understanding of advertising policies

Instagram and Facebook share a common advertising policy, but the rules are very detailed and often overlooked by newbies.

No ad library or official policy documentation used for comparison

II. Full-link guide to avoiding pitfalls

1. Preparation before launch

Industry policy research

• Enter the Meta Advertising Policy Center and search for keywords in the target category to confirm whether there are any gray areas.
• Common pitfalls for cross-border sellers: health foods, purchasing products on behalf of others, and counterfeit goods. Newbies must avoid them.

Small budget test

• Don’t start with a minimum investment of $100/day, as this can easily trigger risk control.
• It is recommended that new accounts start running interactive ads or traffic ads at $10-20/day to build up a “trust score”.

Advertising structure construction

• Don't put more than a dozen ads in one ad group, as this will cause the system to misjudge it as "speculative behavior."
• It is recommended to maintain 1-2 ad groups in the early stage, with 2-3 ads in each group , and expand steadily.

2. Materials and copywriting

Avoid pitfalls in copywriting

• Mistake: Using absolutes (“lose 10 pounds instantly,” “100% refund”).
• Correct: Use neutral terms (“may help improve metabolism,” “most users report it’s effective”).

Creative Materials

• Avoid excessive photo editing, gory violence, or suggestive elements in images;
• Videos should highlight the product's real-world usage scenarios and avoid over-delivering on "magical effects."
• Subtitles and fonts should not be too fancy, it is best to keep consistent with the official style.

A/B testing

• Prepare at least two sets of materials + copywriting to avoid complete stagnation after one version is rejected.
• Testing points can be titles, image styles, and CTA buttons.

3. Landing Page Optimization

Page Speed

• Ensure loading speed
• Mobile adaptation must be in place because 90% of Instagram traffic comes from mobile phones.

Policy compliance

• Required: Privacy policy, refund instructions, contact information.
• For cross-border sellers: It is best to provide a supported local contact email address instead of just leaving WhatsApp.

Principle of consistency

• The advertising product and the landing page must correspond, and do not jump to other pages midway.
• Facebook's advertising review system will use AI crawlers to compare the ad content with the landing page, and will directly reject it if the difference is too great.

Jump and Track

• Avoid multi-layer jumps (such as advertisement → intermediate page → target page), which can easily trigger risk control.
• Use a clean domain name (an independent domain name for your own website) and do not use free second-level domain names for a long time.

4. Account and Delivery Environment

Account maintenance strategy

• New accounts are likely to be blocked if they directly post advertisements. It is recommended to spend 1-2 weeks to engage in natural interactions: follow accounts, like, and post.
• The advertising account should be gradually developed, and the budget can be increased after the advertising history is stable.

Payment Methods

• It is recommended to use a long-term and stable credit card or PayPal and avoid frequent changes.
• It is recommended to manage multiple advertising accounts separately to avoid all losses due to one card.

Isolation of accounts and environments

Multiple advertising accounts share the same IP account and the same account environment, which can easily trigger "account association" and be identified as batch operations by the system.

Solution :

Using professional residential-grade IP proxy services with fingerprint browsers is closer to real user behavior, generating independent browser fingerprints for each account to achieve operating environment isolation;

We recommend using the residential-grade IP proxy service provided by IPFoxy to ensure that each ad account is bound to a clean, pure IP address. You can switch to a local IP address based on the target country, improving conversion accuracy. It's also easy to access and compatible with browsers, mobile devices, and automated tools, making it especially important for beginners running multiple ad campaigns . Without a properly configured ad environment, even the best creatives will be rejected.

5. Audit and appeal skills

If your ad is rejected, do not resubmit it immediately. Modify the material/copy or landing page issues first and try again.

By filing an appeal through “Request Review”, many misjudged ads can be manually reviewed and released.

Even if rejected, it is recommended to record the materials/copywriting and summarize which types are most likely to trigger risk control.

Summarize

Instagram's ad review process is rigorous, but not insurmountable. New advertisers can significantly improve their ad approval rates by understanding the common reasons for rejection and following the comprehensive process of "ad content compliance → landing page optimization → stable delivery environment → effective use of the appeals mechanism."