What is Ad Moderation?

Ad moderation is the ad platform’s review of ads, creatives, and destination pages before and after publication. Automated systems (ML, OCR, landing crawls) and human reviewers check advertising policies: prohibited content, misleading claims, destination quality.

In arbitrage, moderation is a constant constraint: nutra, finance, dating, gambling face rejections, review delays, and re-checks after launch.

Stages

Pre-publish — ad stays “In review” until approved.
Post-publish — sample re-reviews, user reports, spend spikes.
Landing scan — crawler follows URL, including tracker redirects.

Common rejections

Creative/landing mismatch, missing privacy policy, aggressive health claims, before/after, unlicensed crypto, cloaking. Accounts with violation history get stricter scrutiny.

Practice

Launch with conservative creatives, warm ad accounts with legit campaigns, keep white-compliant landings. On disapproval — fix or appeal with specific changes, do not mass-resubmit the same creative.