Sex, drugs, and DTC: How “Taboo” Brands Are Owning Marketing

  • 9 February 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 348 views
Sex, drugs, and DTC: How “Taboo” Brands Are Owning Marketing
Userlevel 7
Badge +60

Ever wanted a place to air your grievances with the likes of Facebook, Google, and Amazon? This is your chance.

 

Today, we published an article on the Klaviyo blog sharing the stories of 6 “taboo” brands that have been blocked from marketing through paid social ads, paid search ads, organic social ads, and even out-of-home advertising.

 

https://www.klaviyo.com/blog/taboo-brands-marketing 

 

While this issue is especially prevalent for brands in regulated and censored markets, we know this issue is all too common for brands across all industries.

 

So we want to hear from you:

What was your most frustrating experience where your content was blocked, rejected, or removed from a third-party platform. Was it clear why? And what was the impact on your business?


4 replies

Badge +2

Hi everyone, author here :hand_splayed: I know there’s so many more brands—taboo and otherwise—that have been blocked by platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.

Super interested to hear what other people’s experiences have been! And if you’d rather submit your story to me directly, feel free to email customerfirst@klaviyo.com

Userlevel 6
Badge +21

We don’t work with a lot of “taboo” brands but our ads get flagged all of the time for really no good reason. There is so much inconsistency with what ads make it through and which ones dont that it boggles our mind sometimes, at least on Facebook. Google tends to be a little more clear on what is allowed and what isn’t. Here are a few examples of repeated ads that get flagged for us on FB:

  • A bike rack (what goes on the back of a car) gets flagged because of the term “rack” which we think has to do with gunrack?
  • The Ballistic Pouch product gets flagged because of the term ballistic, even though it is a cycling wallet/pouch
  • Stay Positive Hats - I fully understand why these would and should get flagged (they do on Google) but somehow they slide under the radar at Facebook. 
  • We had an ad account get suspended on FB because there was a picture of a beer bottle in the background. Yet, we run ads for two breweries and have never had an ad flagged for any of their ads. 
Badge +1

We got kicked out of Google Ads, Facebook Ads, PayPal, Stripe, Mailchimp (thank God, we wouldn’t have found Klaviyo which is miles better) and from a bunch of other platforms.

I work with the Seed Connect; we sell cannabis seeds.

The most stress for us working in a taboo industry is finding a reliable payment processor. Getting kicked out of Stripe and other payment merchants gutted our business in ways unimaginable.

 

Ever wanted a place to air your grievances with the likes of Facebook, Google, and Amazon? This is your chance.

 

Today, we published an article on the Klaviyo blog sharing the stories of 6 “taboo” brands and blaster pistol that have been blocked from marketing through paid social ads, paid search ads, organic social ads, and even out-of-home advertising.

 

https://www.klaviyo.com/blog/taboo-brands-marketing 

 

While this issue is especially prevalent for brands in regulated and censored markets, we know this issue is all too common for brands across all industries.

 

So we want to hear from you:

What was your most frustrating experience where your content was blocked, rejected, or removed from a third-party platform. Was it clear why? And what was the impact on your business?

My client just asked for this type of thing and now i found it, Thanks to Klaviyo. 

Reply