Meta Ad Compliance Glossary
The enforcement terms Meta applies to your ads. That it never defines for you. Built from Meta's Graph and Marketing API enforcement surface, 5,000+ ad accounts, and 3+ years of proprietary enforcement data (since December 2022).
The full glossary.
BM-Level Restriction
A Meta enforcement action applied to the Business Manager rather than a single ad account. Triggers when the BM's disabled-account ratio approaches roughly 10 percent. Effects include blocked new-account creation, scrutinized existing accounts, and elevated risk for every Page under the BM. Recovery takes weeks, not days.
Business Manager (BM)
Meta's container for ad accounts, Pages, pixels, and advertiser identity. A BM has its own compliance posture distinct from any single account under it. BM-level restrictions affect every account and Page inside the BM. Enforcement waves and cascades are measured at BM level as often as at account level.
Compliance Signal
A measurable indicator that identifies whether a Meta ad account is likely to face restriction or suspension, ahead of Meta acting. Read continuously across Meta's Graph and Marketing API enforcement surface per connected account.
Dual Data Flywheel
The calibration between ComplyAi’s private subscriber enforcement data and public Ad Library signals. The reason patterns visible in one account improve prediction accuracy across all accounts.
Enforcement Behavior
How Meta's enforcement system actually flags and restricts ads in practice, often different from its written policies, and different across accounts running identical creative.
Enforcement Cascade
The mechanism by which a single ad-level enforcement behavior propagates upward through Meta's enforcement hierarchy. When rejection rate crosses roughly 12 to 15 percent on an ad account, the Business Manager gets flagged. When the BM is flagged, its Pages get scrutinized. Page-disallowance is the phase-transition trigger that converts content-level risk into account-integrity risk.
Enforcement Signal Layer
The substrate layer. Meta's Graph and Marketing API enforcement surface that carries the underlying enforcement signal Ads Manager never renders. The signal underneath every enforcement action.
Enforcement Wave
A cross-account temporal pattern where Meta enforces the same rule against many advertisers in a vertical simultaneously. Waves are usually detectable in the Intelligence Graph 48 to 72 hours before they hit any given account, because they touch cohort accounts first. Advertisers who see the wave early can revise creative or pause spend before the wave reaches them.
Intelligence Graph
ComplyAi's cross-account enforcement database: 5,000+ ad accounts, 2M+ ads monitored across 3+ years of rejection-to-resolution journeys (since December 2022). The source of vertical-level and pattern-level enforcement intelligence.
LegitScript Certification
A third-party compliance certification required by Meta for advertisers running CBD, some supplements, and certain regulated products. Certification requires both product-level and website-level review. Without LegitScript, Meta will not accept CBD ads regardless of creative compliance. Paired with Meta Authorization to form the CBD two-gate framework.
Meta Authorization
Meta's account-level approval to run ads in regulated verticals like CBD. Distinct from platform-wide policy compliance because it is granted to specific ad accounts, not to the advertiser globally. For CBD advertisers, Meta Authorization is the second gate in the two-gate framework after LegitScript Certification. Losing it requires re-applying at the account level, not just resubmitting the creative.
Policy-Enforcement Gap
The measurable difference between what Meta's written policies permit and what Meta's enforcement systems actually flag in practice. The gap is where most surprise disapprovals live. ComplyAi measures it across thousands of accounts to make it predictable rather than random.
Special Ad Categories
Meta's declaration framework for four regulated verticals: Credit, Employment, Housing, and Social Issues, Elections, or Politics. Introduced in 2019 following a US federal legal settlement over Fair Housing Act violations, later extended under Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Title VII exposure. Declaration is required at the campaign level before launch. Once declared, campaigns lose access to age, gender, ZIP, and detailed-demographic targeting; Custom Audiences are routed through the Special Ad Audience pipeline; standard Lookalike Audiences are unavailable. The Social Issues category requires an additional advertiser authorization on top of the declaration.
Unwritten Rule
An enforcement pattern Meta applies in practice that has no corresponding written policy, and therefore no official explanation when it triggers a rejection.
Definitions are useful.
Detection is the fix.
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