Control the areas where your ads appear on our platform.
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This guide will inform operators about these controls and tools, helping them to implement campaigns responsibly, while helping to protect people who use our services.
Published: 1 April 2021
Last updated: 26 July 2023
This version was printed or saved on: 28 April 2024
Online version: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/licensees-and-businesses/guide/facebook-operator-guide
Overview: ## Responsible Gambling Advertising with Facebook.
What’s good for people is good for business.
Supporting and protecting at-risk and vulnerable people across Facebook’s apps and technologies is important to us. As such, we’ve made significant progress to expand our advertising controls.
Before advertising real money gaming on our platforms, operators must apply for written permission.
Our strict approval process includes:
Legal review
Operators are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
License Submission
Operators must submit copies of relevant, government approved licenses.
Addendum
Operators must sign up to additional commitments, over and above our standard terms.
Targeting
Operators may only target people over 18. If age restrictions are higher in targeted territories, advertisers must comply. Approved operators must only target territories they are approved to target.
Please review our gambling ads policy (opens in new tab) for more information.
Please note that in the UK, the operator is considered to be the license holder.
These are the controls and tools your media teams can utilise across Facebook apps and technologies, to manage activity in a responsible manner.
Custom audiences enable you to connect with your most valuable audiences.
Inclusion target list
Speak to your existing customers while they are on the Facebook platform. When you upload your customer list in Ads Manager to create a Custom Audience, the information in your list is hashed before it’s sent to Facebook. This is done by using a cryptographic security method which turns the information in your customer list into randomized code. The process cannot be reversed. After your Custom Audience is created, the matched and unmatched hashed information is deleted.
Exclusion target list
Exclude known vulnerable users from seeing your advertising by uploading their identifiers and excluding them from targeting (as long as the platform can match a profile to them). We advise that clear and specific nomenclature is used to avoid any confusion between inclusion and exclusion lists by client advertising teams.
Read more about custom lookalike audiences (opens in a new tab).
Facebook pages:
have age targeting and GEO targeting
Instagram accounts:
have age targeting and GEO targeting
Audience Network:
has age targeting and GEO targeting
Facebook posts:
have age targeting and GEO targeting
Instagram posts:
have neither age targeting or GEO targeting
We offer several tools that allow advertisers to prevent their ads from appearing next to content which is not conducive to their brand, within Audience Network, Instant Articles, and in-stream video:
Control the areas where your ads appear on our platform.
Stop your ads from appearing alongside sensitive content
A complete list of publishers and places where your ads could run
Stop your ads from appearing on specific websites, apps or pages
Control the areas where your ads appear on our platforms
Manage your brand safety preferences with partners you know and trust
Read more about implementing advertiser controls (opens in new tab).
In addition, a complex system of both manual and automated reviews is employed to try to identify violations of our ads policies before they go live. Read more here (opens in new tab).
To help ensure any commercial message you co-sponsor or are associated with on our platform is age-gated and geo-gated correctly, there are specific steps you can take with your partner.
Affiliates and agencies can only promote a gambling brand if they co-sign an addendum with the gambling client they are promoting.
Affiliates and influencers must appropriately age-gate and geo-gate any content promoting online gambling.
Partner brands, influencers and affiliate advertising must use our Branded content tool (opens in new tab) to share assets and ensure accurate age and geo targeting is applied. This is our preferred recommendation as it affords the brand the greatest control and transparency.
Advertisers are responsible for ensuring that gambling ads adhere to local legal or regulatory requirements around offers and messaging.
When Facebook develops any new ad formats, particularly those focused around interactivity, there is special consideration given to sensitive categories such as gambling.
Platform integrations must be approved by both our policy and legal teams. A clear use case for the product must be outlined and a platform addendum must be signed by the relevant party for approval before submission in the App Dashboard.
Facebook Login and other plugin applications must be submitted via account management for approval with a signed platform addendum.
Messenger Integration must be submitted via account management for approval with a signed platform addendum.
A lot of Facebook apps and technologies include content created by people through their curated feeds. These are also monitored through AI and manual reviews.
Ads that are independent of publishers, appear in your target user audience’s Feed, Stories or Messenger alongside content from the people and pages they follow.
Strict Community Guidelines are enforced through manual and automated systems.
Brand safety is a challenge for the entire advertising industry, which is why we collaborate with industry partners to share knowledge, build consensus, and work towards making all online platforms safe for businesses.
Facebook collaborates with partners across the industry, and are partners with the World Federation of Advertisers Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), to establish shared definitions, develop common tools and systems, and ensure independent oversight.
Facebook continues to establish alignment with industry- leading third party brand safety partners.