You have switched on Meta job ads, the ad is ready, you click Publish — and nothing happens. The job stays on Ready and an error message appears that means nothing to you. Almost always, one thing is going on: Meta has never been given permission to create application forms on your company page.
Meta asks for a one-off agreement to its Lead Generation Terms of Service. That is a separate consent, independent of your ad account and of the connection with Booston: an admin of the Facebook page has to accept it, per page. Until that happens, Meta refuses to create the application form and Booston cannot put the ad live. After this article you have arranged that permission once, and you can publish your jobs and receive leads.
Accepting takes less than a minute and you do it yourself, at Facebook. Booston cannot do it for you — but we are happy to walk you through it. Here you will read how to arrange it, how to recognise from the error message that this is what is going on, and where in the dashboard you can read back exactly what Meta returns. You will find that last part under Campaigns & AI → Meta job ads, behind the Info button on the job.
Before you start
- You are an admin of the Facebook company page you advertise with. A role as editor or advertiser is not enough: only an admin can accept the terms.
- You know which company page is connected to your Booston environment. If you are unsure, email support@booston.io — we will look up which page is connected.
- The invitation for the company page has already been accepted. If it is still open, first follow the steps in Accepteren Facebook bedrijfspagina uitnodiging.
- Have you run lead ads with this company page before? Then this has already been accepted and you do not have to do anything. The consent has no end date and stays in place.
Why Meta asks for this
A Meta job ad works with a form that opens inside Facebook or Instagram. The candidate does not have to go to your website and does not need a CV: name, email address and phone number are already filled in. That is exactly why such a form collects personal data directly at Meta.
So Meta wants it in writing, once, that the owner of the page knows what happens to that data: that you only use the leads for what the candidate hands them over for, that you do not resell them, and that you show a privacy statement of your own. That is what you are accepting. The full text is in Meta's Lead Generation Terms of Service.
Booston cannot give this consent on your behalf. It is a statement by the page owner, and Meta only accepts it from an admin signed in with their own Facebook account.
Accepting the terms
- Sign in to Facebook with the account that is an admin of the company page.
- Go to facebook.com/legal/leadgen/tos.
- At the top of the screen, choose the company page you advertise with. Behind each page you can see whether the terms have already been accepted.
- Read the terms and click the button to accept.
- Do you have several company pages? Choose the next page in the same list and repeat steps 3 and 4.
Done. You do not have to tell Booston anything and there is no waiting time: the next time you click Publish, Meta simply creates the form.
Recognising that this is the problem
Booston does not check up front whether your page has accepted the terms — only Meta can do that. So what you see is Meta's answer at the moment of publishing.
When a job is published, creating the application form is the first step Booston takes at Meta. If the consent is missing, publishing stops right there. The result:
- the ad does not go live and stays on Ready;
- nothing is half created: no audience, no ad, no costs;
- you see an error message on screen, and the same message is kept with the job.
What Meta returns, you read back under Info
Every publication attempt is recorded on the job. This is how you look back at what went wrong:
- Go to Campaigns & AI → Meta job ads.
- Find the job in the list and click Info on that row.
- A window called Ad Activity opens with every step for that job, newest first.
On a failed attempt there are two lines you need:
| Line | What you see |
|---|---|
| AD failed publishing | Red exclamation mark. Confirms that publishing was aborted. |
| debug | The message exactly as Meta returns it. This is where the cause is. |
The line below it, Creating api lead gen, shows how far Booston got: creating the application form. When it goes wrong there, it almost always points at the terms or at the page permissions.
You only see the Info button if the System activity module is visible for your role. Who gets access to what is arranged in Users: toegang geven, rollen kiezen en inloggen via je ATS. If you cannot see the button, ask someone with admin rights to look with you, or email support@booston.io — we read the same lines.
What Booston can and cannot do for you
| What | Who does it |
|---|---|
| Accepting the Lead Generation Terms | You, as an admin of the company page. Meta only accepts this from a page admin. |
| Finding out which company page is connected to your environment | Booston, on request via support@booston.io. |
| Reading the message with you and telling you what is going wrong | Booston, on request. We read the same Ad Activity lines as you do. |
| Walking through the steps together in a screen-sharing session | Booston, on request. It is often sorted in five minutes. |
| The connection with your company page and ad account | Booston, when your environment is set up. |
In short: the clicking is yours, but you are not on your own. If you get stuck, email support@booston.io with the name of your environment and the job it goes wrong on.
Troubleshooting
I have accepted, but publishing still does not work
Check whether you accepted for the right page. The terms page lists all your company pages underneath each other, and it has happened that someone accidentally picks their personal page or an old page. If you are unsure which page is connected to your environment, email support@booston.io.
The ad is live, but no leads arrive in Booston
Then the terms are not the problem — without the consent the ad would never have been published in the first place. Usually the page's lead permissions have been withdrawn, for example after an admin change. You restore that in a few clicks, see Facebook Lead Import werkt niet? Controleer de paginarechten.
I cannot select my company page in the list
Then you are not an admin of that page, or the invitation is still open. The steps for that are in Accepteren Facebook bedrijfspagina uitnodiging.
It worked fine for months and now suddenly it does not
The consent does not expire. If you switched company pages, or a new page was added, that is the explanation: nothing was ever accepted for that new page. Check the message under Info to see which page it is about.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to do this per job?
No. Once per company page, and after that it applies to all your jobs and ads on that page.
Do I have to do it again when a different colleague becomes admin?
No. The consent belongs to the page, not to the person who clicked it. It stays in place even when that colleague leaves the company.
Does this apply to Instagram too?
Yes, and you do not have to do anything extra for it. Your Instagram account advertises through the connected Facebook company page, so that page's consent covers both networks.
Does it cost anything?
No. It is only a consent statement from Meta; there is no subscription or amount attached to it.
What happens to jobs that were already waiting when I accepted?
Nothing automatically — they stay on Ready. Click Publish again on those jobs and they will go live after all. How publishing works is described in Meta job ads.
Coming soon
- Ruling candidates out based on their answer. You will be able to mark an answer in your application form as disqualifying. That candidate does not finish the form and sees a closing screen of their own, so you only receive leads you can actually work with.
As soon as this is live, we will update this article.
Need help?
Cannot work it out, or unsure which setting fits your situation? Email support@booston.io or call 085 0044 215 and mention:
- the name of your environment;
- what you want to achieve;
- the message you see, if there is an error message.
Would you rather go through the settings together? Book a free 30-minute online demo — then we will walk through it with you. Job Done!
