US: An Update on Some Technical Issues Impacting Political and Issue Ads

Update Nov 1, 2:00PM PT: While we have been able to resolve other problems affecting ads about social issues, elections, and politics during the restriction period for many advertisers, we have not been able to fully address issues affecting ads that use placement asset customization and/or other dynamic creative mechanisms. We do not expect to be able to resolve the technical issues affecting those ad types during the restriction period. We're informing the small group of advertisers affected by this so they can reallocate budget and impressions to other ad types should they wish to do so.

Update Oct 30, 10:30PM PT: As we shared earlier, we know that some advertisers are experiencing issues with the import/export feature in Ads Manager.

In Ads Manager, you can bulk import ads by uploading an Excel spreadsheet with campaign, ad set and ad information, or you can export ad and campaign information, so that you can edit your ads directly in Excel. We recently experienced an issue that may have prevented some advertisers from using the import/export feature in Ads Manager. We have now developed a solution that will allow advertisers to continue using the import/export functionality.

When exporting data you will need to follow these slightly modified steps:

1. Select the ad object(s) you want to export
2. Click on the "Export & Import" dropdown
3. Choose "Customize Export" > "Customize Columns"
4. In the popup, click on the "Ad Set" option on the left hand column, and click on the checkbox next to "Ad Set" on the list of columns to select all Ad Set columns
5. Repeat step 4 for "Campaign". Make sure to leave the “Ad” columns unchecked
6. Click "Apply" to finish Export

Note: You can save your Column Customizations, and they will appear in the export menu for you to re-use in the future once the page is refreshed.

When importing data, you can follow the steps in our Help Center. You can also watch this short video that walks you through both the export and import steps:

And as always, you can reach out to your Facebook account manager for help, or reach us here.

Update Oct 30, 6:35PM PT: We know that some advertisers are experiencing issues with the import/export feature in Ads Manager.

We're actively working to resolve this and expect to have a solution that will launch tonight, October 30 (Pacific Time). This will allow advertisers to import/export ads and other campaign data. It may require some small changes to the way advertisers export this information from Ads Manager (we will be sharing further documentation here when it is live). This solution will continue to support changes like edits to budget amounts.

Original Post from October 29:

As part of our efforts to ensure maximum transparency of political advertising, we began restricting new political and issue ads ahead of next week’s election. We took this step so all political ads would be searchable in our public ad library in advance of Election Day. Our restriction took effect at 12:01 AM PT on October 27th.

Even though the majority of political and issue ads have been unaffected, since the restriction took effect, we have identified a number of unanticipated issues affecting campaigns of both political parties. Some were technical problems. Others were because advertisers did not understand the instructions we provided about when and how to make changes to ad targeting. We have implemented changes to fix these issues, and most political ads are now running without any problems. We are continuing to monitor closely to make sure all of our fixes work and ads are running as intended well in advance of the election.

Here’s what happened. After the restriction went into effect on October 27 at 12:01am PT, technical flaws in our systems’ ability to detect that an ad has been properly recorded in the Ad Library caused a number of ads from a wide range of advertisers to be paused improperly, and prevented advertisers from making permissible changes to their ads. While this impacted a small proportion of the ads about politics and social issues in our system, we regret any disruption in the delivery of these ads during this period. In the course of investigating these technical issues, we also discovered that a number of ads were paused because advertisers had made changes to the targeting shortly before the deadline, which had created new ads that needed to go through approval and delivery before the deadline passed. In speaking with advertisers and reviewing our instructions to them, we realized that we could have been clearer that while advertisers would be able to edit targeting during the restricted period, any edits to targeting before the restricted period would need to be made with ample time to allow the ad to go through our ad review process again. And because these advertisers did ensure that the creative in their ads was publicly accessible prior to the deadline, we have made updates to enable these ads to run. We are also working with advertisers to understand and address any still-outstanding concerns to make sure that ads delivered before the restriction period can continue running.

Here’s what did not happen. No ad was paused or rejected by a person, or because of any partisan consideration. The technical problems were automated and impacted ads from across the political spectrum and both Presidential campaigns. Likewise, with respect to our communication about how to make targeting changes, we provided the same instructions to everyone, and found advertisers across the political spectrum and both Presidential campaigns were confused by our guidance and had ads paused as a result. We have worked throughout this election to maintain a neutral playing field and that remains true in the face of these problems.

We understand that time is of the essence at this stage of the campaign season. Most of the issues have been fully addressed but for any advertisers still facing issues, there are several steps they can take to help their ads reach people. They can also pause ads and resume them as long as those ads delivered an impression before the restriction took effect.

Our teams are 100-percent dedicated to resolving any problems that may come up as quickly as possible. If they do, we will communicate more frequently about the steps we’re taking to resolve them. And if we discover any additional problems, we will include them here over the coming days.