Advertising Compliance Checklist: 6 Pre-Launch Layers (2026)

An advertising compliance checklist is a pre-launch review that walks a campaign through six layers before it goes live: account and business verification, the product or vertical's policy status, creative claims and formats, the landing page and destination, targeting and special categories, and required disclosures. Meta's Advertising Standards, Google Ads policies and TikTok's advertising policies all check these same layers in review, so a checklist organised this way catches most disapprovals before a reviewer does. Below is a working version you can copy into your own launch process.

Why an advertising compliance checklist beats reacting to disapprovals

Ad review on Meta, Google and TikTok is mostly automated and mostly fast. That sounds like good news until you notice the second-order effect: a disapproved ad is not just a delay, it is a signal attached to the account. Accounts with repeated disapprovals attract more scrutiny, and account-level restrictions are far harder to reverse than a single rejected creative.

A checklist changes the economics. It moves the review from the platform's side to yours, where the cost of catching a problem is one edit rather than a re-submission, a paused campaign, or an appeal. It also standardises what "compliant" means across a team, which matters as soon as more than one person can hit publish.

The structure below follows how the platforms themselves organise policy. Google Ads groups its rules into prohibited content, prohibited practices, restricted content and features, and editorial and technical requirements. Meta's Advertising Standards separate unacceptable content, prohibited commercial practices, restricted goods and services, objectionable content, intellectual property, political and social-issue advertising, format-specific policies and data use. TikTok splits its policies into ad format and functionality, prohibited content and restricted content. The checklist maps to all three.

Layer 1: account and business readiness

Before any creative is reviewed, the platform decides whether the account itself is in good standing.

[ ] Business verification is complete where the platform requires it for your vertical or region.
[ ] Payment method is valid and, on postpaid accounts, the billing threshold has not been hit by a failed charge.
[ ] Account roles are current: nobody who has left the company still has admin access.
[ ] Domain is verified in the platform (Meta business portfolio, Google Ads, TikTok Business Center) and matches the landing page you will use.
[ ] Any previous restriction has been resolved, not just appealed.

If the account is restricted at the business level rather than the ad account level, no creative fix will help. Which layer is actually restricted is covered in Facebook Business Account Restricted From Advertising: Which Layer Is Actually Restricted.

Layer 2: product, vertical and policy category

Every platform maintains a list of categories that are either prohibited outright or restricted, meaning allowed only with certification, regional limits, or age gating.

[ ] Identify which policy category the product falls under on each platform. Google Ads lists restricted categories such as alcohol, healthcare and medicines, financial products and services, and political content. Meta's restricted goods and services cover similar ground. TikTok publishes its own restricted list by region.
[ ] Confirm the category is allowed in every country you plan to target, not just your home market.
[ ] Obtain any required certification or pre-approval before building the campaign, not after disapproval.
[ ] Check whether the vertical requires age targeting minimums and set them at the ad set or ad group level.

For regulated or high-scrutiny verticals, treat this layer as a hard gate. A campaign for a restricted category without the certification will be disapproved on every submission and each attempt is a mark against the account.

Layer 3: creative claims, formats and intellectual property

This is where most disapprovals originate for mainstream products. Reviewers look at what the ad says, what it shows and what it implies.

[ ] No unsubstantiated claims. Results, timelines, earnings, health outcomes or guarantees must either be provable or absent. "Best," "number one" and "guaranteed" are the classic triggers.
[ ] No misrepresentation. Google's prohibited practices include misrepresentation; Meta lists prohibited commercial practices. In practice: the ad describes what the landing page actually offers, in the same terms, at the same price.
[ ] No personal attributes implied. Meta prohibits ads that assert or imply a person's characteristics (health condition, financial status, and others). "Struggling with X?" copy is the usual offender.
[ ] Before-and-after imagery is restricted or prohibited in many categories on all three platforms.
[ ] Platform-specific format rules. TikTok, for example, states that video ads must be between 5 seconds and 10 minutes and that ad content must not contain QR codes.
[ ] Intellectual property. No third-party logos, characters, music or brand names without rights. Meta and Google both treat trademark and copyright as separate policy areas.
[ ] Language and quality. Text is in a language supported for the targeted region, free of excessive capitalisation, symbols or spelling errors that editorial policies flag.
[ ] Text and safe zones meet the placement's specification so nothing is cropped or overlaid.

Layer 4: landing page and destination

Reviewers follow the click. Google's editorial and technical requirements state that destinations must offer unique value and be functional, useful and easy to navigate. TikTok requires landing pages to be functional in the targeted market and to use HTTPS. Meta reviews the destination as part of the ad.

[ ] Page loads over HTTPS, on mobile, in the targeted country, without errors.
[ ] Display URL matches the final URL's domain. Google explicitly flags display URLs that do not reflect the actual destination.
[ ] No unexpected redirects. A single redirect to a tracking layer is normal; a chain that lands somewhere the reviewer did not expect is not.
[ ] Content matches the ad: same product, same offer, same price, same language.
[ ] Privacy policy, terms and a working contact method are reachable from the page.
[ ] No auto-downloads, undismissable interstitials, fake system messages or disabled browser navigation.
[ ] The page does not request sensitive data (identity documents, financial details, health information) before it is necessary. TikTok specifically prohibits landing pages that request this kind of information.
[ ] The page is not "under construction" and has no placeholder content.

Teams that run a compliance-first routing layer between the ad click and the destination should confirm that reviewers and real users both reach a compliant page. The broader pre-submission checks for landing pages are in Ad Account Under Review in 2026: A Compliance Playbook to Get Approved Faster.

Layer 5: targeting and special categories

Targeting rules are the layer people forget because they live in a different screen from the creative.

[ ] Special ad categories declared. On Meta, ads about credit, employment, housing, or social issues, elections and politics must be declared as such, which restricts the available targeting options. Failing to declare is a policy violation even if the creative is clean.
[ ] Age minimums match the product category and local law.
[ ] Geographic targeting excludes countries where the product is prohibited or unlicensed.
[ ] Custom and lookalike audiences were built from data collected with appropriate consent. Meta's data use restrictions and Google's data collection policies both apply here.
[ ] Sensitive interest targeting is not used to imply personal attributes.

Layer 6: disclosures and legal requirements

[ ] Political and social-issue ads carry the required "paid for by" disclaimer and run from an authorised advertiser where the platform requires authorisation.
[ ] Financial products show the disclosures required in the target jurisdiction (fees, risk statements, licence numbers where applicable).
[ ] Health and supplement claims match what the regulator in each target country permits.
[ ] Endorsements and testimonials reflect real experiences and disclose material connections.
[ ] Promotions state the material terms (eligibility, end date, conditions) either in the ad or one click away.
[ ] Local legal requirements (Google groups these under "legal requirements" in restricted content) are checked for each targeted country.

Running the checklist without slowing launches

A six-layer checklist looks heavy. In practice most items are answered once per account or once per product, and only Layers 3 and 4 change with every campaign. A workable operating model:

Account and category layers (1, 2) are reviewed when an account or product is onboarded, and re-checked quarterly or after any restriction.
Creative and landing page layers (3, 4) are reviewed for every new campaign and every material change to a live one.
Targeting and disclosure layers (5, 6) are reviewed when a campaign enters a new country or a new category.

Keep the completed checklist with the campaign record. If an appeal is ever needed, showing the pre-launch review is the fastest way to demonstrate the account operates in good faith.

What the checklist cannot do

It cannot make a prohibited product allowed, it cannot prevent a false positive from an automated reviewer, and it cannot substitute for reading the policy text for your specific category. Platforms update policies without notice, and the checklist is only as current as your last read of the source pages. Treat it as a routine, not a guarantee, and revisit the platform policy hubs before every major launch.

FAQ

What should an advertising compliance checklist include?

Six layers: account and business verification, the product's policy category on each platform, creative claims and formats, landing page and destination quality, targeting and special ad categories, and required disclosures. This mirrors how Meta, Google and TikTok structure their own advertising policies.

Which layer causes the most disapprovals?

For mainstream products, creative claims and landing page mismatches. For regulated verticals, the policy category layer, because a missing certification blocks every submission regardless of the creative.

Do I need a different checklist for each platform?

The layers are the same across Meta, Google Ads and TikTok. The specifics differ, such as TikTok's video length range or Meta's special ad category declaration, so keep one checklist with platform-specific notes rather than three separate ones.

How often should the checklist be updated?

Re-read the platform policy pages before each major launch and after any disapproval you did not expect. Platform policies change without a fixed schedule, so the checklist should be dated and versioned.