After posting my previous blog message on Facebook, complete with book cover image, I received a notification, to use Facebook jargon, to “boost” my message’s reach. I almost simultaneously received a ten-dollar bonus to be used toward my next Facebook ad. So, thinking it wasn’t going to cost me anything, I shot the entire wad on a 1-day ad to American women 30 or older.

Things were going swimmingly, as far as things can on Facebook, until $7.01 had been burned without an additional like. I then received another notification informing me that Facebook had blocked my ad for the following reasons:

Your ad wasn’t approved because it doesn’t follow our Advertising Policies by featuring an image containing excessive amounts of skin or suggestive content. Facebook does not allow images that depict people in explicit or suggestive positions, or images that show nudity or cleavage – even if portrayed for artistic or educational reasons.

How to fix: We recommend using content that focuses on your product or service in a non-sexual manner.

If you’ve read our policies and think that we made a mistake, you can request a second review by our team.

Given how little value Facebook ads have provided in the past, I decided to let the whole thing drop. Advertising a book without showing its cover doesn’t make sense to me. It does seem odd that Facebook would suggest “boosting” a message that contained the offending image.