Meta rejected our clinic ad for implying personal attributes

What Meta counts as a personal attribute

Meta's Privacy Violations and Personal Attributes standard covers "direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person's race, ethnicity, religion, beliefs, age, sexual orientation or practices, gender identity, disability, physical or mental health (including medical conditions), vulnerable financial status, voting status, membership in a trade union, criminal record, or name." For clinics, health, disability and age cause most rejections. The standard also says ads can't "Imply knowledge of Medical information of a user or user's family."

Meta's reason: "Ads that make assumptions about people could be perceived as intrusive, unsettling or inaccurate." The same standard bars ads that share or ask for private information, and the Business Help Center lists medical information among the examples, so check the questions in any instant form too.

The line is "you" plus a condition

Second person is allowed. Meta says ads can "Use 'you/your' language without a personal attribute", and its help center adds that "you can use the words 'you' or 'your' as long as your ad doesn't mention any prohibited personal attributes." What fails is pairing "you", "your" or "other" with a condition, or asking the reader about one. Meta's own health examples:

• Allowed: "Bulimia counseling available", "Depression counseling", "New diabetes treatment available" and "Our new lotion and creams fight wrinkles like never before!"
• Rejected: "Do you have diabetes?", "Depression getting you down? Get help now." and "Ready to upgrade your skin to look younger?"
• Rejected in the help center: "Have you been diagnosed with cancer? Come to our clinic for treatment." Meta's suggested alternative: "Try providing information about the benefits of cancer treatments."
• Allowed: a "passing reference to a personal attribute", which "includes gender, age groups or age ranges", and public service announcements, "as long as they don't assert someone or their family has a health condition."

A rewrite check for clinic ads

1. Find every "you", "your", "other" and question mark in the text, headline, on-image text and captions, including "people like you" lines.
2. For each one, ask whether the sentence tells the reader they have a condition, a diagnosis, a disability or a particular age. If it does, rewrite it.
3. Turn questions about the reader into statements about the service. "Is anxiety running your life?" becomes "Anxiety therapy with licensed clinicians, in person or online."
4. Name the condition you treat as a service, not as something the reader has. "Knee pain treatment from sports medicine physicians" names the condition without assigning it to anyone.
5. Check the instant form. Questions that ask for a diagnosis or symptoms ask for private information.
6. Then check the separate Health and wellness rules for appearance, outcome and cure claims, which this standard doesn't cover.

Edit the ad or request a review

• Edit when the copy matches a rejected pattern. Meta says an edited ad "will automatically be submitted for another review."
• Request a review in Business Support Home when you are confident no line assigns a condition to the reader. Meta says "We aim to review and provide a decision within 48 hours", and "If your ad rejection is successfully overturned, this will not count as an ad violation."
• Keep the rejected ad while you decide. Meta warns that "you may lose your ability to request another review if the ad is deleted."

How rejections build to a restriction

One rejection is routine; a pattern is not. Meta says "Editing or deleting an ad that was rejected for violating Advertising Standards will not remove the violation from your account and you can be restricted from advertising for severe or repeat ad violations." When ads "severely or repeatedly violate our policies", Meta can restrict the "Business account, Ad account, Page and/or user account."

In clinics this adds up quickly because the same hook often runs across every service line, a "Struggling with..." opener for weight, sleep, pain and mood, each in its own ad. Rewrite the hook everywhere at once. If it has already gone further, see a disabled ad account, a restricted business portfolio or a restricted personal profile.

Talk to Curve

Rewriting the copy deals with the rejection, and the data behind the ad deserves the same care. Curve's team reviews what your website sends to Meta, Google and TikTok with you, rebuilds your conversion tracking so it's HIPAA-compliant and keeps campaigns optimizing, and detects PHI-like patterns before data reaches an ad platform. Setup is done for you and is typically live in about a week, so book a call with Curve.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Meta Transparency Center: Privacy Violations and Personal Attributes (Advertising Standards)
• Meta Business Help Center: About Meta's Privacy Violations and Personal Attributes advertising policy
• Meta Business Help Center: How to troubleshoot a rejected ad

Last verified September 29, 2026

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