With Facebook’s Political Restriction Period, also known as the Facebook Political Ad Ban, campaigns know they must be more creative, adapting their strategy to compete in the critical week before the election. However, the most important thing campaigns should keep in mind is this; if we learned anything from the last time this restriction period was put in place during the 2020 elections, it’s to expect the unexpected.  

Facebook is bringing back its weeklong restriction period on political ads leading up to the 2022 election. The restrictions outlined during this period should be pretty familiar to anyone who ran political ads on Facebook during the 2020 election. In short, Meta has said that they will implement a “restriction period” for ads about “social issues, elections, or politics” in the US for the week leading up to election day, essentially banning the publishing of new ads from November 1 through November 8. Additionally, most edits to ads already running will be prohibited during this period. (Source) 

Advertisers will still be able to pause or unpause ads as long as those ads served at least one impression before 12:01 AM PT on Tuesday, November 1, 2022. However, any edits related to creative, placement, targeting, and optimization won’t be allowed. While the one impression/ pause method has been gaining traction online, don’t rely on it as your only method to engage voters during this window.

As we get down to the wire, candidates are undoubtedly asking how to spend money when it’s too late for mail and too little for TV. And with Facebook prohibiting campaigns from adapting their creative or adjusting their budget in the week before the election, how do you engage your voter base in this crucial time

Now is the time to adapt your ad strategy to leverage channels where you can still reach voters with up-to-date creative like programmatic. Supplementing your Facebook ads with programmatic channels allows you to run customizable creative through election day and leverage your custom lists to achieve scale.  At DSPolitical, we’ve built our platforms to ensure campaigns all over the country and up and down the ballot can get digital ads up and running, swap creative, and edit budgets up through and past Election day, which is crucial if your race goes into a runoff.

Regardless of your budget, you can run persuasion or GOTV campaigns to targeted audiences with our extensive access to voter data or with your own custom lists. With digital, video, and native advertising, now is the time to flood your voters with your message. There’s too much at stake not to utilize every digital tool available to you, and DSPolitical ensures your message reaches your voters. Start running your digital ads now!