Facebook have stopped many dating sites from advertising on the social network, asking them to reapply on February 15th.
Sites started noticing that their ads were being rejected as early as last December, receiving a message saying their ad no longer fit with Facebook guidelines.
Now when an ad is submitted, the following message is received:
“Unfortunately, ads for dating sites and apps are only allowed from approved advertisers at this time.
“If you’ve read the guidelines in the Help Center and think your ad follows the rules and should have been approved, please let us know.”
Facebook are now requiring a human team to assess each advert before it is processed.
This move would seem to be a reaction to user complaints about dating ads, specifically those towards the adult side.
In addition, the company got bad press last year by way of dating adverts – with photos of a dead soldier and young girl appearing on dating ads on the social networking site.
However the decision to make sites reapply in order to advertise, and the way in which it has been handled, has come as an unwelcome shock to many.
Jay Neves, COO of First Beat Media, whose brands like SinglesCash benefitted from Facebook’s tailored advertising service, said to Global Dating Insights:
“We had been pretty successful with Facebook’s advertising platform over the last year, so it was very unfortunate when our previously winning ads started getting disapproved suddenly.
“We spent a lot of time and money to build our brand on Facebook, with some of our sites’ fan pages reaching hundreds of thousands of active and engaged followers, so we sincerely hope that Facebook starts giving all of their advertisers a fair shake and allows relevant dating ads back into the system as quickly as possible.”
Business Insider received an email from Facebook, which said: “We got a lot of negative feedback from people about many of these ads, and in some cases they violated various policies. To keep the quality of ads on Facebook high, we are not currently accepting new online dating advertisers.”
HiDine, the foodie dating site, was also victim to the new regulations, and said in a press release:
“By giving preference to bigger dating sites that can pay more for ad space, Facebook is edging out smaller competitors.”
Facebook’s move will certainly benefit the largest white-listed dating affiliates, whose ads are still approved.
Plenty of Fish, who run an affiliate program for other dating sites, will also benefit – with many of Facebook’s previous customers flocking to them.
As to how stringent the new application rules will be, we will have to wait until February 15th to see.
We’re trying to get in contact with Facebook and will keep you posted with any new developments.