How to Turn Off Comments on Facebook Ads

Running a Facebook ad campaign can feel like opening your front door to the entire internet - both the friendly neighbors and the unsolicited trolls. While engaging comments can offer valuable social proof and answer questions for potential customers, a single negative comment, spam link, or competitor’s jab can sour the whole conversation. This guide will walk you through exactly how to get control of your comments, from setting up smart moderation rules to turning them off entirely on specific ads.

Should You Even Turn Off Comments on Your Ads?

Before we get into the technical steps, it's worth asking: is this really the right move for your brand? The comment section is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s a brilliant source of social proof. Positive comments, genuine questions, and helpful replies from your team can build trust and drive conversions far more effectively than your ad copy ever could.

On the other hand, a comment section can quickly turn into a liability. Here are a few common situations where turning off comments might make sense:

• High Volume of Spam: If your ad is being flooded with "DM for a crypto consultation!" or other spammy links, it can overwhelm your team and make your brand look unprofessional. Disabling comments can be a quick fix.
• Sensitive Topics: If you are advertising something that deals with a sensitive subject (politics, health, social issues), a comments section can become a magnet for heated, off-topic debates that damage your brand's reputation.
• Protecting a Limited-Time Offer: For flash sales or exclusive deals, you want users to click the link and convert, not get bogged down in a comments section where competitors might try to poach your audience by posting their own offers.
• Resource Constraints: Maybe you're a one-person team or just don't have the bandwidth to monitor and reply to comments 24/7. An unmanaged comment section is often worse than no comment section at all.

Disabling comments is a strategic lever to pull, not a default setting. It sacrifices potential engagement and social proof for control. If you've decided the trade-off is worth it for a specific campaign, let's proceed. But first, let’s look at a powerful alternative to outright disabling them.

Before You Hit the Off Switch: Master Your Moderation Settings

For most businesses, fully disabling comments is overkill. A more balanced approach is to use Meta’s powerful, and often overlooked, automated moderation tools. This lets you hide the junk while allowing positive, constructive conversations to flourish. Think of it as having your own automated security guard for your comment section.

You can automatically hide or block comments containing specific keywords, profanity, or links. This is the best of both worlds: you clean up the negativity without silencing your entire audience.

How to Set Up Automated Comment Moderation

You can find these settings inside the Meta Business Suite. Here's how to get it set up:

1. Navigate to your Meta Business Suite.
2. In the left-hand navigation menu, click on “Inbox.”
3. In the top right corner of the Inbox, click the “Automations” button.
4. Here, you’ll see several automation options. The most useful one for our purpose is called “Moderation Assist.” Click on it.
5. Under the “Criteria for new comments” section, click the “Edit” button.

Now, you can set up powerful rules to filter your incoming comments automatically. Here are the most effective criteria to add:

• Profanity: You can choose from Low, Medium, or High filters to automatically hide comments that Meta’s AI identifies as profane. Setting this to High is usually a good starting point.
• Link in comment: This is a game-changer. Simply checking this box will automatically hide any new comment containing a URL. This single rule can eliminate almost all spam and competitor hijacking attempts.
• Keywords in comment: This is where you can get really specific. You can create a comma-separated list of words and phrases that will cause a comment to be hidden. Think about what words you want to get rid of:
  • Negative terms: scam, fake, garbage, rip-off, terrible, worst
  • Competitor names: If your competitor is "Brand X," add "Brand X" and "&brandx," to the list.
  • Spammy phrases: free trial, click here, follow me, PM me for info

Comments hidden by Moderation Assist aren't deleted. They are moved to a "Hidden" folder in your comments section, where they are only visible to the user who posted them and their friends. You and your team can review them later to unhide any that were caught by mistake.

Setting up robust moderation rules can solve 90% of comment-related headaches. But for the remaining 10% where you need total silence, it’s time for the nuclear option.

The Step-by-Step Guide to Turning Off Facebook Ad Comments

Facebook doesn't provide a simple "Turn Comments Off" toggle inside Ads Manager. It’s an intentional omission, as they want to promote engagement. However, there is a well-known and reliable workaround that lets you achieve the same result. The strategy involves creating your ad as an organic, unpublished page post first, disabling comments there, and then using that post as the creative for your ad campaign.

Here’s exactly how to do it.

Step 1: Create the Post in Your Creator Studio or Business Suite

Instead of creating your ad directly in Ads Manager, you need to start by creating it as a page post.

• Go to your Meta Business Suite or Creator Studio.
• Click “Create Post.”

Now, build out your ad exactly as you want it to appear. Upload your video or image, write your primary text (ad copy), create your headline, and add your destination URL. If you want a call-to-action button like "Shop Now" or "Learn More," you can add that here as well. Make sure every element of the ad is perfect inside this post creator.

Step 2: Publish the Post to Your Facebook Page

For this method to work, the post needs to be published on your Page feed first. Don’t worry - it will only be there for a few minutes before we use it for an ad. Just click the "Publish" button. Some guides recommend using an "unpublished" or "dark" post, but the easiest and most reliable method is to publish it live, then quickly make the change.

Step 3: Immediately Open the Post and Turn Off Commenting

As soon as the post is live on your page, you need to act quickly.

• Find the post on your Page's timeline.
• Click the three dots (...) in the top-right corner of the post.
• From the dropdown menu, select "Who can comment on your post?"
• A pop-up will appear giving you different options. Select “Profiles and Pages you mention.” Since you likely haven't mentioned anyone, this effectively disables comments for everyone.

The comment section at the bottom of the post should now disappear or display a message that commenting has been turned off. Perfect. Now you have a post with your ad creative where nobody can comment.

Step 4: Create Your Ad Campaign in Ads Manager

Now, head over to Facebook Ads Manager. Set up your campaign as you normally would: choose your campaign objective (e.g., Sales, Leads), set your budget and schedule, and define your target audience at the ad set level.

Step 5: At the Ad Level, Select "Use Existing Post"

This is the most important step. When you reach the Ad level of your campaign setup, you'll see a section called "Ad Setup." By default, it's set to "Create Ad."

Click on the dropdown and change this to “Use Existing Post.”

Step 6: Select Your Comment-Disabled Post

Under the "Ad Creative" section, click the “Select Post” button. A window will pop up showing the recent posts from your Facebook Page. Your new post - the one where you just turned off comments - should appear at the top of the list. Select it and click "Continue."

Your ad preview will update to show the post. Double-check that all your copy, creative, and the call-to-action button are correct. You'll notice that the option to add a comment or view existing ones is gone.

Step 7: Launch Your Ad

Once you’ve confirmed everything looks right, click the green "Publish" button. Your ad will go into review, and once approved, it will run across Facebook's network without a comment section. You won't have to worry about spam, trolls, or any unwanted chatter.

The Trade-Off: Weighing the Pros and Cons

Disabling your ad comments is a powerful move, but it has significant downsides you need to consider carefully.

Pros of Turning Off Comments

• Complete Message Control: You eliminate the risk of negative comments or false information spreading on your ad.
• No Spam or Trolls: Completely prevents competitors from poaching customers and stops bots from muddying your ad.
• Saves Time and Resources: Your team doesn't have to spend any time moderating or responding to comments, freeing them up for other tasks.
• Focuses User Action: Without comments to read or write, users have one primary focus: clicking your call-to-action button.

Cons of Turning Off Comments

• Loss of Social Proof: You lose out on all the positive comments that could have built trust and encouraged others to buy. Tags, positive reviews, and success stories are all powerful converters.
• Blocks Genuine Customer Questions: Potential customers might have legitimate questions about your product. If they can't ask them on the ad, they might just scroll away instead of trying to find the answer.
• Perceived as Untrustworthy: Some users see disabled comments as a red flag. They might think, "What are they hiding?" This can decrease trust in your brand and your offer.
• Potential Impact on Ad Performance: Facebook’s algorithm loves engagement - likes, shares, *and* comments. While not definite, an ad with zero comments may not get prioritized as highly as an ad with buzzing social proof, which could potentially lead to higher costs or less reach.

Final Thoughts

Disabling comments on your Facebook Ads isn't a one-click process, but using the "existing post" method gives you full control when you need it. By publishing a post, turning off commenting, and then promoting it, you can create a quiet, controlled environment for your ad. Just be sure to weigh the trade-offs - shutting down negativity is powerful, but it comes at the cost of valuable social proof and customer interaction.

If turning off comments completely feels too extreme, the real solution might be more efficient management. Dealing with overwhelming comment volume and spam was a huge bottleneck for us for a long time, so we built Postbase with a unified inbox to solve it. It brings all of our comments and DMs from every social platform into one simple feed, making it so much faster to spot spam, respond to genuine customer questions, and keep engagement healthy without having to disable it entirely.