--- name: navigate-restricted-verticals description: >- Classifies a product against Meta's restricted and prohibited ad categories before creative or targeting is built, and turns that into a written go/no-go plus outstanding certifications. Covers gated-but-allowed verticals - alcohol (age+geo), gambling for money (permission+geo), online pharmacies and prescription drugs (certification), financial and credit products (stated terms), cryptocurrency (permission+licensing), dating, subscription services, weight-loss/supplements (18+), social casino, and CBD/hemp topicals - plus the PROHIBITED list: illegal products, tobacco and vaping, weapons and explosives, adult content, drugs and paraphernalia, deceptive/scam offers, undisclosed MLM, discriminatory practices, and hacking/spyware. Reach for it before building in a sensitive or regulated vertical. It ends at a go/no-go decision and a certification checklist - the review process is pass-ad-review-and-avoid-rejection, and SAC targeting limits live in declare-special-ad-categories. --- # Navigate Restricted-Content Verticals ## Purpose Meta treats some verticals as flatly prohibited and others as restricted-but-gateable, and conflating the two is expensive either way: submitting a prohibited product damages the account's policy record, while building a full campaign for a restricted vertical without the required permission wastes weeks on work that was never eligible to run. This skill runs before a single asset exists: classify the vertical, find its specific gate, and produce a written go/no-go plus the certifications still outstanding. ## When to run - Before building any campaign in a plausibly regulated or sensitive vertical, alcohol, gambling/games of skill for money, online pharmacy/prescription drugs/healthcare, financial services, cryptocurrency, dating, subscription services, weight-loss/supplements, social casino, CBD/hemp. - Onboarding a new client or product line whose category isn't yet checked against Meta's restricted and prohibited lists. - An account was flagged or paused for a policy reason tied to the vertical itself, not one ad's copy. ## When NOT to run - The vertical is already cleared and gated (permission granted, certification on file) and the open question is campaign-level targeting → `declare-special-ad-categories`, if the vertical is also a SAC (e.g., a lender is both a restricted financial vertical and Credit). - Ads are already built and the question is why a specific ad was rejected → `pass-ad-review-and-avoid-rejection`, or `appeal-rejections-and-restrictions` if already disapproved. - The vertical is politics or elections specifically → `set-up-political-ads-authorization`. ## Prerequisites - A precise description of the product/service/claim being advertised, HUMAN STEP, the business knows exactly what's being sold and how it's licensed, VigilDog cannot infer this from a campaign brief. - The target geography list, most gates are geo-dependent (gambling legality, crypto licensing, CBD rules all vary by country and sometimes by state/province). - Any certifications, licenses, or Meta permission grants already on file for the account, HUMAN STEP to confirm current status; these are managed outside VigilDog. ## Procedure 1. **Check the PROHIBITED list first.** Illegal products/services, tobacco and vaping, weapons/ ammunition/explosives, adult content, drugs and drug paraphernalia, deceptive or scam offers, undisclosed MLM/business-opportunity schemes, discriminatory practices, and hacking/spyware tools cannot run under any gate or certification. IF the product matches, THEN stop, the answer is NO-GO, and no copy rewrite changes that. 2. **Classify against the restricted list.** Alcohol, gambling and games of skill for money, online pharmacies/prescription drugs/healthcare, financial and credit products, cryptocurrency, dating, subscription services, weight-loss/supplements, social casino, CBD/hemp topicals. Restricted is not prohibited, it means a gate applies, not that the door is closed. 3. **Identify the specific gate per vertical.** Alcohol: age-restriction targeting plus country-level legality. Gambling/games of skill: prior written permission from Meta plus geo-restriction to legal jurisdictions. Pharmacy/prescription drugs/healthcare: certification (e.g., LegitScript for pharmacy) and no misleading or personal-health claims. Financial/credit products: clear in-ad terms, some products need permission or licensing on file. Cryptocurrency: prior written permission plus licensing/geo checks. Dating: Meta permission specific to dating-format ads. Subscription services: billing-terms disclosure. Weight-loss/supplements: 18+ age-gate. Social casino: age-gate plus platform rules. CBD/hemp topicals: region-specific legality, topical-only framing. 4. **Confirm current certification/permission status.** HUMAN STEP: ask whether the needed permission or certification is already granted (check Business Manager for existing approvals). Do not assume a prior campaign's approval carries over to a new ad account or a materially different product. 5. **Apply age/geo gating mechanics where required.** Age-gates and geo-restrictions are enforced through normal ad-set targeting (minimum age floor, country/region inclusion list), this is standard targeting, not a `special_ad_categories` declaration, unless the vertical is independently a SAC too. 6. **Write the go/no-go.** Per vertical: GO (cleared, gate satisfied, build normally), GO-WITH-CONDITIONS (build is allowed once a named certification/permission lands, state exactly what's missing and who obtains it), or NO-GO (prohibited, or a gate the business cannot or will not satisfy). Present this to the user before any campaign build starts. 7. **Hand off the cleared build.** Once GO, proceed to normal campaign-structure skills; if the vertical also triggers a Special Ad Category, route to `declare-special-ad-categories` for the targeting layer. ## Decision rules - IF the product/service is on the prohibited list THEN NO-GO, do not build, do not look for a copy workaround. - IF the vertical is restricted and the required permission/certification is already on file THEN GO, build normally, respecting the gate's age/geo/claims constraints. - IF the vertical is restricted and the permission/certification is missing THEN GO-WITH-CONDITIONS, name the exact requirement, name who requests it (HUMAN STEP, typically the account owner via Meta's business help center), and block campaign creation until it lands. - IF the vertical is geo-dependent (gambling, crypto, alcohol, CBD) THEN the go/no-go is per-country, not account-wide, a green light in one market can be a NO-GO in another. - IF a vertical is both restricted AND a Special Ad Category (e.g., some lending products) THEN both this skill's gate and `declare-special-ad-categories`' targeting rules apply, clearing one doesn't clear the other. - **Done means:** every targeted vertical classified as prohibited, restricted-cleared, or restricted-pending, a written go/no-go per market, and, for anything GO-WITH-CONDITIONS, a named outstanding certification with an owner. ## Common failure modes - Building creative and targeting before checking the vertical, then discovering the product is flatly prohibited, wasted build, plus a disapproval that dings the account's policy record. - Assuming a certification obtained for one ad account or product automatically covers a new account or a materially different product line. - Treating "restricted" as "basically fine" and skipping the permission request, the ad gets disapproved and the underlying cause (no permission on file) never gets fixed. - Ignoring geo variance, clearing a gambling or crypto campaign account-wide when it's only legal or permitted in a subset of target countries. - Missing that a restricted vertical is simultaneously a Special Ad Category and applying only one set of rules. ## Related skills - Run before: any campaign-structure build skill, once the vertical is GO or GO-WITH-CONDITIONS-satisfied. - Run before: `declare-special-ad-categories`, when the cleared vertical is also a SAC. - Run after this if rejected anyway: `pass-ad-review-and-avoid-rejection`, `appeal-rejections-and-restrictions`.