Compliance
The rules your ads live under. And how we run them.
A banned ad account ends a clinic’s acquisition overnight. UK aesthetics advertising answers to three regulators at once. Compliance is not a constraint on the work. It is what keeps the work running.
The environment
Three regulators, one ad.
Every asset must clear all three before launch.
Platform policy
Meta advertising policy
Governs what may appear in the ad itself.
Key focus
Ad content, targeting, format
Advertising code
ASA and CAP
Requires every claim substantiated and every testimonial real.
Key focus
Claims, evidence, testimonials
Medicines law
MHRA
Prescription-only medicines cannot be advertised to the public.
Key focus
POM restrictions, medical claims
What each regulator actually polices
Meta advertising policy. Its personal-attributes rule prohibits implying knowledge of someone’s body or condition, and in our experience it is the rejection reason aesthetic clinics run into most. Repeated violations escalate from rejected ads to a suspended account.
ASA and CAP. The UK advertising regulator and its code. Every claim substantiated, every testimonial real and attributed, every urgency claim true. In our experience, body contouring is the category most likely to attract rejection.
MHRA. Advertising a prescription-only medicine to the public is a regulatory matter, not a style preference. The brand names most clinics reach for first in an ad are the ones the law does not allow there.
One failure fails the asset.
The gate
Watch a creative go through it.
Every asset the system produces, from ad copy to patient SMS, passes thirty-three checks across ten groups before any spend begins.
The full inventory: ten groups, and what each catches
| Group | Checks | What it catches |
|---|---|---|
| Personal attributes | ×3 | Copy addressing the reader’s body, assumed characteristics, insecurity hooks |
| Guaranteed results | ×3 | Absolute outcomes, missing "results vary", timeline guarantees |
| Before and after | ×5 | Any before and after for a prescription-only medicine or a body treatment; any other without written approval, patient consent and genuine, matched, typical photos; dramatic transformation claims |
| Health and medical claims | ×4 | Implied diagnosis, treat/cure/heal language, fear framing |
| Prescription-only medicines | ×6 | Brand names and near-names, phrases that can only mean the medicine, promoting the treatment instead of the consultation, a prescriber not identified |
| Urgency and scarcity | ×2 | Anything limited that is not verifiably limited |
| Call to action | ×2 | Treatment-purchase CTAs, pressure language |
| Accuracy and substantiation | ×4 | Unverifiable credentials, unattributed statistics, bait and switch, invented reviews |
| Pricing | ×3 | Any price near a prescription-only medicine; any other price without approval, or that is not the real current price, or that is sold with a deadline |
| Age targeting | ×1 | Any audience that includes under-18s |
A worked example
The gate on a real claim.
The same check every asset gets.
Three more examples, and the line per treatment area
| Treatment area | The line that matters |
|---|---|
| Anti-wrinkle | The highest-risk category for prescription brand naming; the practitioner must be identified as a healthcare professional. |
| Dermal fillers | Reversibility is a legitimate reassurance, and must be factually correct for the specific product. |
| Laser hair removal | Never claim permanence, never imply suitability for all skin types; honest limitation is a strong position in this category. |
| Body contouring | The category we see rejected most often; framed around the process, never the body. |
| Skin treatments | Discussing a concern at a consultation is fine; naming a condition and offering to treat it is not. |
The principle underneath: almost every violation is a promise about a result. The compliant version offers a conversation instead. That is why every campaign the system runs leads to a consultation, never to a treatment purchase.
Fifteen minutes on how your clinic gets customers, with this gate in the room.
The standard applies to us too: no manufactured scarcity on this website, no invented testimonial, no claim without its evidence beside it.