Meta will be prohibiting any new political ads from appearing on Facebook and Instagram for the week before Election Day. The company has had this policy in place since 2020 in order to allow them to properly review any political ads for compliance with requirements about identity and ownership verification, disclaimers, and content restrictions.
Here’s everything you need to know about the pre-election ad freeze.
The Policy
The restriction period will run from 12:01 AM PT on Tuesday, October 29, 2024 through 11:59 PM PT on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. Any ads about social issues, elections, or politics must serve at least one impression before the freeze begins in order to be eligible to run during the week before Election Day.
Remember, this policy applies to the content of the ad – not the entity paying for it – so even if you are a non-profit or corporation not required normally to put disclaimers on your ads, you will be impacted by the restrictions.
During the Freeze
Once the freeze is underway, advertisers may not edit any of their ads’ creatives, including text, images, videos or links. Additionally, they may not alter the targeting, placement, optimization, or objectives of their ads.
Ads may not be copied or duplicated and paying to boost new organic posts will be prohibited.
However, you may edit the bid amount, budget, and schedules for your campaigns. Ads may be paused or unpaused.
How To Prepare
These restrictions mean a campaign must have a clear plan for which ads it wants to run. To allow additional flexibility within these limitations, a campaign should have ads and audiences on standby if needed.
Prioritize your “must-run” ads and get the creatives completed and through internal approvals immediately. You should submit them for approval via Facebook and have them running ASAP – you can pause them as soon as impressions are recorded.
The standby ads should follow and also get trial impressions.
Communicating the ad freeze period internally is critical so your team knows what can and cannot be done – and prepare accordingly. For example, if you are having GOTV rallies and want to boost turnout with paid ads, they’ll need to be live before November 1.
Your GOTV ad creatives should be generic and without references to days or times for maximum flexibility.
While you won’t be able to edit your creatives or targeting, you will be able to make changes to your landing pages (as long as the URL remains the same) so you can provide updates there. For example, have a general set of ad creatives related to endorsements and if there are relevant, late-breaking endorsements, update your landing page.
Remember that audiences are also part of the freeze period, so have your audiences uploaded and assigned to ads before November 1. Have broad audiences, like persuasion and GOTV, as well as more narrow audiences limited to counties or certain demographics.
Conclusion
Advertising via Facebook and Instagram is an important tool for reaching voters. Make sure you’re prepared for the political ad freeze to avoid missed opportunities in the final days of the campaign.
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