What Are the Advertising Rules for Med Spas and Aesthetic Clinics on Meta and Google?

What this means for you

• Every cosmetic-procedure ad set targets adults only. That is a hard requirement on Meta, not a best practice.
• The visuals the category is built on are the visuals the platforms restrict. Treatment explainers, provider credibility and studio imagery are what survives.
• "Look 10 years younger" and "ready to fix your skin?" are personal-attribute and inferiority violations. Describe the treatment; do not describe the viewer.
• Adding GLP-1 injections to the menu moves those pages and ads under the prescription-drug rules on Meta and Google. Keep them on separate pages and in separate campaigns.
• Testimonials and result imagery have to reflect what a typical client can expect under FTC rules, and AI-generated mock-ups draw FTC scrutiny.

MedScale Health, a patient-acquisition agency for telehealth and clinics, runs aesthetics as a visual category where the visuals are exactly what the platforms restrict, and where a weight-loss add-on quietly changes which rules apply. The sections below cover each platform and the add-on trap. This page is marketing guidance for healthcare operators. It is not medical or legal advice, and platform policies change: check the sources listed at the end before acting on any specific rule.

Meta: the health and wellness standard for cosmetic procedures

Meta's health and wellness standard requires ads for cosmetic procedures and weight loss to be targeted to people 18 or older, prohibits statements of inferiority about physical appearance, prohibits close-ups of a specific body area, and prohibits exaggerated claims. The standard permits some transformation imagery for cosmetic procedures only with adult targeting, which is why a med spa sees competitors running it, but LegitScript's guidance for regulated advertisers is to keep it out of ads entirely and use it on landing pages only with full disclosures. The safer structure is not to build the creative on it at all.

The personal attributes standard is the second collision. Copy that implies the viewer has wrinkles, unwanted fat or a problem to fix asserts a physical characteristic. Meta's own examples draw the line: a product that fights wrinkles can be described; asking the viewer whether they are ready to look younger cannot. The subject of the sentence is the treatment, never the reader.

Google: open, with realistic claims

Google's healthcare and medicines policy leaves cosmetic procedures open, subject to the general rules against unrealistic and unsubstantiated claims. Local search on treatment intent ("lip filler near me", "laser hair removal clinic") is the most reliable direct-response channel in the category. The exposure on Google comes from two directions: unrealistic outcome claims in ad text, and prescription add-ons such as GLP-1 named in keywords or ad copy without certification, which are rejected automatically under the restricted drug terms rules.

The GLP-1 add-on changes everything

The moment a med spa adds prescription weight loss to the menu, the pages and ads that mention it fall under Meta's drugs and pharmaceuticals standard and Google's prescription drug rules. Naming the medication requires LegitScript certification and Meta's authorization on one platform and Google's prescription drug services certification on the other. A page that lists compounded semaglutide with a price next to the injectables menu reads as an online pharmacy to a reviewer, and the restriction lands on the whole account, cosmetic campaigns included.

The structure that survives is separation: the weight-loss program gets its own landing pages, its own campaigns and its own ad sets, built under the rules described for medical weight loss clinics, with the compounded status stated plainly wherever a compounded product is named. The aesthetics creative stays exactly as it was.

TikTok

TikTok's healthcare policy restricts cosmetic-procedure ads by market and requires realistic claims, and injectables promoted as products are a common rejection. It is a strong organic and awareness channel for treatment content led by a provider, and a weak direct-response channel for booking treatments.

Testimonials, results and the FTC

The FTC's Endorsement Guides require that a testimonial reflect the honest experience of a real client and that any result shown be what a typical client can expect, or be accompanied by a clear statement of what is typical. Paid or incentivised reviews have to be disclosed. LegitScript's telehealth advertising guidance also notes FTC attention to AI-generated mock-ups of results. In a category where the result is visual, the practical rule is that any image presented as a result must be a real client, consented, with the treatment and timeframe stated, and that the ad itself does not rely on it.

Creative that clears review

• Treatment explainers: what the procedure is, how long it takes, what recovery looks like, who performs it.
• Provider credibility: credentials, training, the studio, the consultation.
• Offer structure that does not violate pricing rules: a consultation or a first-visit offer rather than a discount on a medical procedure framed as urgency.
• Adults-only targeting on every cosmetic ad set, checked before launch.
• Booked treatments tied to the campaign through the booking platform, with compliant tracking if the menu includes any prescription service.

Local search: where the reliable bookings come from

Aesthetics is a local category, and the most predictable bookings come from treatment-intent search rather than from social discovery. Campaigns are built per treatment family (injectables, laser, body contouring, skin) with location-level budgets, ad copy that names the treatment and the provider's credentials, and landing pages that explain the procedure, the recovery and the consultation rather than promising an outcome. Offer structure is where Google's realistic-claims rules bite: a consultation offer or a first-visit price passes; a discount framed as urgency on a medical procedure, or a price that turns out to exclude the consultation, draws the misleading-claims finding. Call tracking and the booking platform tie each booked treatment back to the campaign.

Meta as discovery, built on the studio and the provider

On Meta the job is discovery rather than intent, and the creative that survives review is the creative that shows the studio, the provider and the treatment process. Provider-to-camera explainers of what a procedure involves, short walkthroughs of the consultation, and client testimonials about the experience of care rather than the result all pass the health and wellness standard and the personal attributes standard. The pattern to avoid is building an ad on the viewer: any sentence whose subject is the person watching, and any image that invites comparison of bodies or faces, is the one the reviewer rejects and the one that, repeated, restricts the account. Adults-only targeting is set on every cosmetic ad set and confirmed in the launch checklist, because a mis-set audience fails without any creative problem.

Attribution: the booking platform is the source of truth

Aesthetics bookings happen in the clinic's booking platform, often after a phone call, and the platform's own conversion counts rarely agree with the ad platforms'. The reliable read ties each booked treatment back to the campaign through the booking tool and call tracking, reconciled weekly against what the ad platform claims. Where the menu includes any prescription service, the events that leave the site are generic and hashed, so a weight-loss add-on never turns the cosmetic account's pixel into a health-associated data source.

Pricing and offers: what the rules allow

Aesthetics is one of the few healthcare categories where price is part of the ad, and it is also where the misleading-claims rules are most often tripped. A price that excludes the consultation, a unit price for injectables that does not say how many units a typical treatment takes, or a limited-time discount framed as medical urgency all draw findings on Google and Meta and complaints under FTC guidance. The offers that survive are simple and complete: a consultation price, a first-visit price that states what it includes, or a package price for a named treatment course. Membership and financing terms belong on the page, not in the ad.

What MedScale does

MedScale Health runs med spa and aesthetics acquisition as set out on medscale.health/clinics/med-spa-aesthetics: creative pre-cleared against the health and personal attributes standards before spend, local search and Meta in one plan with offer structures that respect the pricing rules, and booked-treatment attribution through the clinic's booking platform. Where the menu includes prescription weight loss, the program is separated into its own pages and campaigns and run under the medical weight loss rules, so a restriction on one side can never reach the other.