Meta health and wellness restrictions FAQ: the 10 questions we get asked the most, with proper answers

Two weeks of threads in, here are the questions that keep coming up. I've tried to give each a real answer.

1. Is health a special ad category on Meta? No. The special categories are credit, employment, housing, and social issues, elections and politics. Health is handled through rules on personal health claims and on sensitive data, which is why the problem shows up as blocked events and restricted accounts, not as a box you select.

2. Why do my conversions stop counting? Meta restricts data that could reveal a health condition or treatment. A page link, event name or form field can be enough. Many clinics find their conversions stop counting without any change on their end.

3. Can I advertise GLP-1 or weight loss? Yes, within Meta's rules. The trouble is usually the data sent back, like a page link naming the drug, an event name describing the treatment, or a form answer about a condition.

4. Is skincare health? It depends on the claim. Cosmetic skincare, like a moisturiser or a glow routine, usually isn't. Skincare that treats acne, rosacea, eczema, redness or rough skin often is, and Meta decides partly from your product pages and the events you send.

5. What do I do if my account is restricted? Stop sending the data that caused it, keep a record of what you send, then ask for a review. Clean at the source, so the account has clean data behind it when Meta looks again.

6. Does cleaning the data hurt match quality? Matching relies mostly on who the person is and which ad they clicked. A hashed email and phone plus the ad click still let the platforms match the conversion to the right person.

7. Can I count appointments that happen offline? Yes. HighLevel booked, showed, won and paid can go back to the ad platforms with the original ad click attached and the identity hashed.

A short glossary, because these terms come up in almost every thread. A dataset is Meta's container for the events you send, replacing the old separate offline sets. An event ID is the label that lets Meta treat a browser event and a server event as the same one. Event Match Quality is the 0 to 10 score for how well the details you send let Meta find the person. A hashed value is an email or phone turned into a scrambled string that can be matched but not read. Neutral event names are codes, like L_1 for a lead, that say nothing about what the service is. A delivery log is a record of what was sent, per conversion.

If any of those still feels fuzzy, ask under this post. Nobody was born knowing them.

9. Do you sign a Business Associate Agreement? Health mode is available on every plan. For US healthcare organisations that need a signed Business Associate Agreement, we arrange it on our Enterprise plan. Talk to sales.

10. Which platforms does it work with? Meta, Google Ads, TikTok and LinkedIn. Microsoft Ads isn't supported.

If you only remember one order of operations, make it this. First, find what leaks: read your events like a stranger. Second, clean at the source, so the pixel isn't deciding. Third, send better signals: later stages, not just the form. Almost every question above is a failure of one of those three.

Which one would you like a full post on?