Women-owned Business

3 Marketing Alternatives to Try If You Experience Femtech Ads Censorship

Femtech ads censorship can add an extra challenge to your marketing strategy. But it's not a dead end. Read on to see three marketing alternatives you can try today. Femtech advertisement is a tricky…

Nadya OngOctober 4, 2022 · 8 min read

Femtech ads censorship marketing alternatives

Femtech ads censorship can add an extra challenge to your marketing strategy. But it's not a dead end. Read on to see three marketing alternatives you can try today.

Femtech advertisement is a tricky business. While you need to deliver your brand message to the world, there’s no predicting when your ads will be considered suggestive or inappropriate.

At one point, 60 femtech companies admitted that Facebook banned their women’s sexual health ads due to the adult products or services policies.

However, the policies appear to be inconsistent as they did not ban men’s sexual health ads.

100%of surveyed women's health companies had ads rejected on Facebook and Instagram

The Center for Intimacy Justice surveyed 60 companies on menopause, fertility, menstrual, and sexual health in 2022. Every one had ads rejected, about half had accounts suspended, and men's sexual health ads were not similarly blocked. Meta has since revised its policy, but the workaround lessons here still apply.Center for Intimacy Justice, 2022 report

While there are many organizations, like the Center for Intimacy Justice, that are fiercely fighting to bring justice to this matter, we cannot wait forever for the policies and algorithms to change, right? We need to do what we can to continue marketing and raising awareness for our business and, above all, for women's health.

When the algorithm won't carry your message, you build the channels it can't censor.

Avoiding Femtech Ads Censorship: The Creative Way

When it comes to femtech marketing strategy, let’s not focus solely on the problems. Yes, femtech ads censorship can be a pain in the neck, but there are ways around it: you just have to be creative!

Here are several marketing alternatives to try if your company experiences femtech ads censorship. You can even try them today, right after you finish reading this article!

Connect with fellow femtech founders

Birds of the feather do flock together. So, why don’t you expand your network by saying hi to these remarkable women and introducing your brand?

How to do it

Build a short list of 10 founders in adjacent categories using the Femtech Insider company database and LinkedIn search.
Send personalized connection notes that reference one specific thing about their work, and skip the pitch on first contact.
Follow the Center for Intimacy Justice and engage on shared-fight posts to warm the relationship before you ask for anything.
Log who replies in a simple sheet so you can follow up in about two weeks.

See a worked example

For example, a founder of a pelvic-health startup might set aside 20 minutes a week to send three LinkedIn connection notes to peers running adjacent brands, each note naming one specific thing she admires about their work instead of pitching. Warm, specific notes tend to get replied to far more often than cold ones, though reply rates vary by category and how established you are.

Tools to use

Femtech Insider to find founders in your category, LinkedIn to send personalized connection notes, and the Center for Intimacy Justice as a coalition around the shared fight.

Steal our AI prompt

I run a femtech brand in the [describe your category, e.g. menopause, pelvic health, fertility] space. Here is my brand's one-line description: [paste]. Draft five short, non-salesy LinkedIn connection notes I could send to fellow femtech founders. Each note should reference something specific about their work [paste the founder's bio or a recent post], acknowledge a shared challenge like ad censorship, and end with a low-pressure opener rather than a pitch. Keep each under 300 characters.

Contribute & collaborate

Saying hi and introducing your business is never enough to get the words out there. It's important that you also bring something to the table.

The good news is, that won’t be a difficult thing to do because many femtech companies are open to paid and unpaid collaboration (be it guest articles, podcast or vlog guests, speaking at events, or others).

Here are some companies that do so, to name a few:

No.	Publications	Podcasts
1	Women of Wearables	Halo Femtech
2	Femtech Analytics	Femtech Focus
3	Femtech Insider	FemInnovation

How to do it

Create a PodMatch guest profile, filter for women's health and founder-focused shows, and send three to five tailored pitches a week.
Sign up for Featured and answer journalist questions in your area of expertise in four to five tight sentences to earn quotes and links.
Pitch one guest article to a publication that already covers your space, such as Femtech Insider, leading with a specific angle rather than a company overview.

See a worked example

For example, instead of waiting for press to find her, a founder might pitch one guest article a month to a publication that already covers her space and answer two journalist queries a week on Featured. It is reasonable to expect a few weeks of lead time before anything publishes, and not every pitch lands, so treating it as a steady drip rather than a one-off usually works better.

Tools to use

PodMatch to match with podcast hosts seeking guests, Featured to answer journalist questions for quotes and links, and Femtech Insider to pitch guest articles.

Steal our AI prompt

I'm a founder in femtech. My expertise and story: [paste bio and two or three talking points]. Draft (1) a 120-word podcast guest pitch I can send through PodMatch, tailored to a show about [describe the show's topic and audience], and (2) a five-sentence expert answer to this journalist question for Featured: [paste the query]. Keep the tone practitioner and specific, with no marketing fluff.

Be cheeky with your website and ads

Having your own website gives you the freedom to execute your femtech marketing strategy and communicate your message in a way that you see fit. You need not worry about femtech ads censorship when you speak on your own website.

However, you might still need to place digital ads to gain website traffic, right?

In this case, you need to think far, far away out of the box. Here are a couple of great, creative ads for femtech marketing.

Image source: Breast cancer awareness campaign

Image source: Awkward Essentials Instagram

With this level of cheekiness, it is very likely that social media platforms won’t regard these ads as promoting the use of adult products or services. The first ad looks like an advertisement for party balloons and the other one for sea mammals education!

How to do it

Read Meta's Health and Wellness advertising standards so you know the exact line between wellness and function (allowed) and sexual pleasure (rejected).
Search the Meta Ad Library for brands in your category to see which framings are currently live and approved.
Rework the creative in Canva to lead with a metaphor or everyday-use angle, keep the fuller message on your own site where you have freedom, and drive the ad only to that page.

See a worked example

For example, a lubricant brand tired of rejections might read Meta's health and wellness standards line by line, then test a set of ad variations that lead with function and everyday framing such as 'stays comfortable on a long run.' Meta's own policy draws the line at wellness and function versus sexual pleasure, so it is worth writing your copy directly to that line rather than guessing.

Tools to use

Meta Health and Wellness ad standards for the official rules, Meta Ad Library to see which competitor framings are live, and Canva to build and test variations.

Steal our AI prompt

My femtech product is [describe the product and what it does]. Meta keeps rejecting my ads as 'adult products.' Using the wellness-and-function framing that Meta's health and wellness ad standards allow, and avoiding anything about sexual pleasure, write five ad headline-and-primary-text variations that lead with everyday use, comfort, or a playful metaphor. For each, flag the one word or claim most likely to trip a policy review. Here is my current rejected ad copy for reference: [paste].

Femtech Ads Censorship Is Just Another Stumbling Block to Get Through

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade and invite your friends over, right?

You can take a lot of different actions and routes for your femtech marketing strategy. The three alternatives above are just a small percentage of the real out-of-the-box things you can do. There’s just no stopping you when you’re set on raising your femtech brand awareness, agreed?

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Avoiding Femtech Ads Censorship: The Creative Way

Here are several marketing alternatives to try if your company experiences femtech ads censorship. You can even try them today, right after you finish reading this article!