Microsoft updates notification process for ad disapprovals

Microsoft has updated its email notification process to promptly inform marketers about disapprovals in their ads, keywords, and product offers.

These changes include:

• More frequent alerts.
• Enhanced insights.
• Technical error notifications.

Why we care. The enhanced notification process is designed to give marketers quicker and more detailed information about ad disapprovals. This grants you additional time to address the issues quicker, minimizing any potential disruption to your campaign and preventing potential unnecessary costs for your client.

New process. The updated email notifications have a new header that looks like this:

The aim of the notification update is to keep advertisers informed about recently disapproved ads or ad components. The email will give details about the account or accounts within a Manager Customer Account that have new rejections within the last 24 hours.

For Product Ad Offers, it will also now highlight technical errors that could be affecting the offer’s visibility.

How it works. To see the rejected content, click the link in the email to go to the Microsoft Advertising Campaign UI. Once logged in, the link will lead you to the Manager Customer Account view. From there, you can go to the specific account(s) and view the rejected content.

Responding to disapprovals. If you choose not to make any changes to content Microsoft has flagged as a possible policy violation, and prefer to keep the disallowed content as it is, you don’t need to take any additional steps

However, if you would like your content to be considered for approval, make the required changes to bring the content into policy compliance and submit an appeal.

How to appeal. There are two options available if you wish to request an appeal:

• Request an Exception (quickest): You can start this process in the Microsoft Advertising UI by choosing the rejected content, clicking on “Edit,” and then selecting “Request Exception.” Here, you can provide a summary of the disapprovals along with any justification.
• Contact Microsoft Advertising Customer Support: You can also contact Microsoft’s Customer Support team by phone, chat, or by visiting its support page.

What Microsoft is saying. A spokesperson from the Microsoft Advertising Policy team said in a statement:

• “At all times during your use of the Microsoft Advertising services, you must comply with the Microsoft Advertising policies and the applicable laws and regulations in each of the markets where your ads serve. These policies ensure the safety and security of our services.”
• “These policies ensure the safety and security of our services. We employ a combination of human and automated review processes to enforce our policies.”
• “When we determine that an ad or ad component may violate policy, we will disapprove the applicable ad or ad component, and the associated disapproval message will state the policy that you might have violated, and how to redress the violation through our appeal process.”

Deep dive. Read Microsoft’s updates to the editorial disapproval messaging in full for more information.