It’s a monumental day for Facebook advertisers as the platform has recently announced that it will now include unconnected Facebook and Instragram accounts in its Accounts Center and will list them as ‘separate’ entities for ad purposes. It is said that Facebook will now operate under the notion that if your Facebook and Instagram accounts are not connected, then the platform will assume that both profiles are two different people, aka “unique-users”.

In Facebook’s own words:

“Starting today, if someone does not have their Facebook and Instagram accounts linked in Accounts Center, we will consider those accounts as separate people for ads planning and measurement. Facebook and Instagram accounts that are connected in Accounts Center will continue to be counted collectively as a single person. This change will roll out over the next few weeks.”

Facebook’s Account Center is essentially the command hub across all of its owned platforms. Through the accounts center, which you can access via your respective profile settings either on FB, IG, or Messenger, allows you to link your accounts together to enable cross-posting and content-sharing; cross-logins; use Facebook Pay and more. Varying functionality between these Facebook channels had most users synching their accounts, especially those that used Facebook Pages for ad purposes. Still, many didn’t and now, Facebook advertisers have something to really look forward to as Facebook will now count unconnected accounts separately in its ad performance stats.

Prior to the update, Facebook cited one example:

“Previously, we counted someone with multiple accounts as one person for ads purposes if they linked their Facebook and Instagram accounts via those apps, or if we believed that the accounts were owned by the same person. For example, if someone used the same email address across their Facebook and Instagram accounts or accessed both platforms from the same device, we counted them as one person when they interacted with ads.”

Obviously, this will no longer be the case after implementation of the new protocol. In turn, the update, based on variable accounting, would have a significant impact on Facebook Ad numbers, potentially seeing big improvements in both quantity and scope.

By The Numbers

Along with this new ad methodology, Facebook is also in the process of broadening its campaign reach estimates where ‘Potential Reach’ data now displays a range instead of specific numbers. This change followed a series of legal challenges concerning Facebook’s inclusion of fake and duplicate accounts in its approximations. Tensions only grew as advertisers attest to the claim that Facebook had knowingly done so for years.

Facebook implemented this change just last month and now looks to do it again; they plan on adjusting audience estimates once more which could, theoretically, expand (bloat) reach estimates through means that it probably is aware of are “erroneous” at best.

In that regard, what future legal challenges could the platform encounter? Working with the same premise behind the concept of ‘Estimates’, which Facebook seems to be keen on right now, we all can just “Take A Wild Guess.” 

The Wrap

Facebook says that it’s making the change due to the want to respect user choice and in how they want their information to be used for ads by giving people the option to decide how their personal data is reflected in interpretations. It’s unlikely that that’s what Facebook is really going for, especially after its scuffle with the Wall Street Journal, but let’s give them the benefit-of-the-doubt.

We won’t know how such a change will really impact Facebook advertising unless we allow it time to actually run and gather results. Either way, it’s here and it’s happening, so we might as well make the most of any opportunity that would present itself.

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Sources

https://bit.ly/3j01M3p