Big Facebook Change for Political Ads- Here’s What You Need to Know and Do (w/Update)

12/11: Big update from Facebook…they will be periodically requiring folks to renew their authorization for political advertising. Here’s the text of the announcement that got sent out:

as part of our efforts to protect the US 2020 elections, we are introducing reauthorization requirements for advertisers running social issues, electoral or political ads in the US to help strengthen the integrity of our authorization requirements.

Most notably, we will begin periodically asking authorized advertisers to reconfirm their identification within 60 days of being notified. Similar to how drivers licenses expire and need to be renewed, this will make it clearer, and more current, about who is behind ads and provide greater transparency for people.

We will let advertisers know their deadline through in-product notifications and ask that they reconfirm their identification within 60 days. If advertisers do not complete the required steps, their “Paid for by” disclaimers will be disabled and ads using them will be paused. They will be immediately restored once advertisers reconfirm their organization — no need to resubmit disclaimers for review. We will also continue requiring advertisers to keep two-factor authentication (2FAC) turned on and may ask some advertisers to reconfirm their location within 30 days.

By February 8, 2020, the first set of advertisers will need to complete the steps to reconfirm their identity. It will be an ongoing requirement of the authorization process so advertisers will need to look out for alerts which will include the expiration date.

If you receive an email/notification, you can check for your potential expiration date and complete the required steps at (http://facebook.com/ID) — please take action, if needed, to avoid campaign disruptions.

11/6: Even more info you need to know:

• Even if you have gone through the process and gotten your new disclaimer approved at the Page level, you need to pause ads, duplicate them, re-check the box and then re-start your ads.
• Also, please remember that the disclaimer is tied to the Page admin who created it, so if there are any transitions, you will need to go through the process again with another Page admin who is authorized.
• For agencies working with clients, we recommend that at some point the client go through the individual authorization process so they can pursue the disclaimer process as needed. We also recommend that all clients have their own Business Manager. If you are using the EIN/Tax ID flow — do not choose your agency business manager. Helpful tips on why all end clients need a Business Manager generally here.
• For phone number issues, we have now published the number the call should come from, in case you have issues with your phone provider.

10/16: BIG Update: Enforcement was supposed to start this week…enforcement is now delayed and the enforcement begins dates is now Thursday, November 7

10/10 Updates:

Have gotten lots of questions so just a few of the most common and answers as best as I know them:

1. When you use the EIN version of verifying you can’t change the phone number as it pulls that in from the IRS data base. Solution: Just because you have an EIN doesn’t mean you MUST use the EIN. Go with option 4 and you can input a phone number that will take the call. I don’t recommend using a cell #..it should be some kind of publicly known number for several reasons including data breaches happen but if it’s already out there less damage done.
2. Some orgs use their main phone number which when you call it is an automated call routing system. This is happening most commonly when said org is doing the EIN version of verification. The answer here is the same as in #1 above: use the “For everyone else option
3. Downticket candidates often don’t have websites and frankly for years many of us digital folks have told them they don’t need a website, just use a Facebookpage (insert all the gifs here). Solution: I’ve been having candidates buy their domain name (which even if they don’t do an actual website they should do anyway to protect their own brand btw), set up a one page website on squarespace or wordpress- should be nice but doesn’t have to be fancy. Then use the built in email for your domain or set up Google Suite (which if they’re gonna keep running for office is a small expense worth doing imho) and then they’ll have the email matching the domain on website issue solved.

Keep the questions coming y’all

By now many of you are likely aware that a few weeks ago Facebook announced that in addition to the already in place Facebook Ad Authorization for individuals running Facebook Ads, they are now implementing Page Verification for Page Ads Disclaimers.

The mechanism to do this is now live and below we are sharing with you the steps you will need to take to complete this. Please read this carefully and if you have further questions feel free to email us at training@beckerdigitalstrategies.com and if we don’t have an answer we’ll try to get one for you.

First read this announcement they made carefully.

Very Very Very Important Note: This is 100% separate from the Ad Authorization process you did starting in late Spring of 2018 that is still a required process for individuals who will be running ads for your campaign or organization. That authorization is still valid, you do not need to go through that part of the process again and that authorization still lives with the individual who has been authorized.

Another Important Note: This new process for Disclaimers must be done for every page that you run Facebook Political Ads for- one page at a time. This verification lives with the page, not the admin running the ads.

This new process is verifying the actual existence of the organization named in the Political Ad Disclaimer.

To reiterate: This is separate from Ad Authorization and going forward you will need to have completed both processes in order to run Political Ads on Facebook.

If you are already authorized you can skip ahead to the section of this post called “New Disclaimer Process”

To recap for those who didn’t already get authorized.

To get authorized for the Ad Authorization that is about the individual follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are a full Admin- not editor or moderator- Full Admin- on the Facebook Page. If that page is managed in Business Manager you’ll do this process by going to the Business Manager and clicking on Settings in the top right corner and then Authorizations. If no business manager is in use go to the page and at the top click on Settings and Authorizations.
2. First up: Where do you live Section: Use the drop down menu to select your country of residence. Then under Confirm Your Identity click Get Started. You’ll now need to set up two factor authorization if you don’t already have it.
3. Enter your mailing address. This must be an actual address- not a PO Box.
4. You will then be mailed an actual piece of snail mail with an authorization code in it and it will tell you the link to go to in order to enter said code. Note: This letter comes in a plain white envelope so until you get this envelope don’t just throw away what you may think is junk mail! If you don’t get the snail mail within 7 days you can go to facebook.com/id to request a new letter be sent.
5. While you wait for the envelope you can proceed with the next steps.
6. Select type of ID you will be uploading in order to verify your identity. The choices are: US State Driver’s License, US State ID Card or US Passport. Take a picture of it and then have it ready to go as a JPG or PNG file. (Note: The address on your ID does NOT need to match your mailing address) and then upload the ID. If it doesn’t go thru you

After you receive the letter in the mail and submit the verification code, proceed to the next set of steps.

Go to the Facebook Page and click on Settings then click on Authorizations.

New Disclaimer Process.

Go to the Facebook page to be verified and click on Settings then Authorizations.

Scroll to where it says Create and Manage Disclaimers.

Note: If you have already created disclaimers in the past YOU WILL NEED TO CREATE NEW ONES. THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL.

Click the box that says Create next to “Create New Disclaimer”

You will get a screen that looks like this:

Make sure you have all of the information the correct type requires.

For Tax Registered click Next and then Next again and you will see a screen that looks like this.

Note: That Identification Number MUST be an EIN not Social Security Number.

Fill out all of the information then skip ahead to the section of this post called “After You Fill In the Information:

If you choose Government Organization you will see a page that looks like this:

Fill out the information then skip ahead to the section of this post called “After You Fill In the Information:

If you choose FEC Registered you will get a screen that looks like this:

Fill out the information then skip ahead to the section of this post called “After You Fill In the Information:

Finally if you choose Other- Provide self declared information you will see a screen that looks like this:

Fill out the information then skip ahead to the section of this post called “After You Fill In the Information:

After You Fill in the Information:

Note: The author of this post has not completed this process for a government organization or FEC registered organization but we understand the following to apply regardless.

The next screen will reiterate the phone number you have entered and as soon as you click the blue “Place Call” button you will get an automated phone call that will give you a 4 digit authorization code to enter in the screen you should now see. When we did this process the call came in within 3 or 4 minutes of hitting the blue button.

Next you will see a screen verifying your email address (reminder: the domain name on the email address must match the website domain name — no generic gmail domain can be used for this)

After you click the send email button you will get an email at the provided email address with a 6 digit authorization code. Enter that code into the screen. When we did this process the email came thru in less than 5 minutes.

The next step will ask you to either link an already existing disclaimer to this verification or to create a new one if you don’t already have an existing disclaimer you’ve been using. You will then be shown a screen saying your new disclaimer is in review and should be reviewed within 24 hours- and in fact both of the verifications we processed through Tuesday night were approved by the time we woke up Wednesday morning.

Once that approval goes through you will be able to run ads as you have been for the last year.

Reminder: when you create your ads be sure to click the Political Content check box on the Creative screen within the ad creation process.

This process is now live and enforcement is expected to begin mid October. When they announce a final enforcement begins date we will post it on our Facebook page as always.