How Should a Therapy Practice Write Meta Ads That Pass Review?

What this means for you

• Meta bars ad copy that asserts or implies a viewer's mental health, and copy that implies knowledge of a family member's medical information.
• "You" and "your" are fine on their own. The problem is pairing them with a condition.
• Therapy ads need no Meta authorization or LegitScript. Health ads must target people 18 and over.
• No outcome promises on a timeline, and no audiences built from health information.
• Meta may restrict the event data a therapy website can share, so plan campaigns that still work with less signal.

MedScale Health, a paid acquisition agency for telehealth brands and clinics, writes and runs Meta ads for therapy and counseling practices. One rule causes the rejections we see most often in this category. This page sets it out in Meta's words, then shows rejected and allowed versions of the same message, written for this page and not taken from any real account. This page is marketing guidance, not medical or legal advice. Platform policies change, so check the sources listed at the end before acting on a specific rule.

The rule in Meta's words

Meta's Privacy Violations and Personal Attributes policy says ads must not contain content that asserts or implies personal attributes, including physical or mental health (including medical conditions). Ads also can't imply knowledge of the medical information of a user or a user's family. Ads can use "you" or "your" without a personal attribute, and can run public service announcements about health issues as long as they don't assert that someone has a condition.

Meta's own examples show the line. "Depression counseling" and "Bulimia counseling available" pass. "Depression getting you down? Get help now." fails. Meta's advice is to focus the ad on the benefits of the product or service instead.

Rejected and allowed: copy pairs

• Anxiety. Rejected: "Is your anxiety keeping you up at night?" Allowed: "Anxiety therapy with licensed clinicians. Evening sessions available."
• Depression. Rejected: "You don't have to fight depression alone." Allowed: "Depression therapy, online or in our office. Book a first session this week."
• Panic. Rejected: "Had another panic attack today?" Allowed: "Panic disorder treatment with licensed therapists, in person or online."
• Teens. Rejected: "Worried about your teen's mood swings?" Allowed: "Therapy for teens and families, with licensed adolescent therapists."
• Trauma. Rejected: "Feel like yourself again after trauma in eight weeks." Allowed: "Trauma-focused therapy, including EMDR, with trained clinicians."
• OCD. Rejected: "Can't stop checking the stove? Let's talk." Allowed: "OCD treatment with exposure and response prevention, from licensed therapists."
• Postpartum. Rejected: "Postpartum depression? You're not alone." Allowed: "Perinatal mental health care for new and expecting parents."

Why the allowed versions pass

Each allowed line makes the service the subject of the sentence and says something useful about it: who provides it, where, when and how to start. None of them tells the viewer what they feel or what is wrong with their family. The trauma example fails twice in its rejected form, because Meta's Health and Wellness policy also bars promises of specific outcomes within a set timeframe without qualifiers.

The same test applies to headlines, captions spoken in video, and on-screen text. A clinician speaking to camera about how the first session works suits this category, because it shows the practice without saying anything about the viewer.

Health rules that apply on top

Meta's Health and Wellness policy requires ads promoting health products and services to target people 18 and over, so teen therapy ads speak to parents. Therapy itself needs no authorization. If the practice also offers telehealth medication management, ads that promote telehealth services generally still need none, but naming a prescription drug requires active LegitScript certification and Meta's authorization, with targeting limited to adults in the United States, Canada or New Zealand.

Targeting limits for a sensitive category

Meta's prohibited information list includes mental health and psychological states, and places of treatment and counseling, and says event names, custom conversions and custom audiences must not reflect or be based on it. Custom or lookalike audiences that reference a health condition are flagged and can't be used in new campaigns. A client list from a therapy practice is itself information about counseling, so MedScale never uploads one.

Meta can also assign a practice's website to a data source category with restrictions. Those range from core setup, which restricts custom parameters and the parts of URLs after the domain, to blocking certain mid and lower funnel events, to blocking event sharing entirely. Under the strictest level, Meta suggests objectives that don't rely on that data, such as awareness, engagement and traffic. Build audiences on location and age, and keep the ad and the landing page doing the qualifying. MedScale tracks server-side under a BAA with neutral event names, and no names, emails, phone numbers, IP addresses or browser IDs go to any ad platform.

What MedScale does

MedScale Health writes therapy ads in matched pairs of copy and landing page, pre-checks every line against the personal attributes and health rules above, films clinician-led creative where the practice wants it, and tracks booked first sessions server-side. When an ad is rejected, MedScale rewrites it as new copy rather than resubmitting the same claim. No approval or result is guaranteed. Start with the free growth audit at medscale.health/audit for a written read of your current ads.