As part of its broader cleanup and reorientation efforts, Facebook is taking additional steps to better align with evolving privacy regulations by removing at least a thousand ad targeting options relating to potentially problematic elements.
Facebook explains:
“Starting January 19, 2022 we will remove Detailed Targeting options that relate to topics people may perceive as sensitive, such as options referencing causes, organizations, or public figures that relate to health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual orientation.”
In layman’s terms, you will no longer be able to target your ads based on certain topics, such as ‘World Diabetes Day’ and other health causes. Elements involving or relating to sexual orientation and political and/or religious ideology will also be disallowed.
Hard Hitting
Noting the previous statement, that’s quite a range of targeting qualifiers, but Facebook doesn’t seem too fazed; not even at the idea of removing thousands of options Let’s have an example to better grasp the potential impact/s of such an update. Right now, say you want to target an audience interested in politics, you’ll be able to choose from various affiliation-based topics. Soon however, most of these options will no longer be available, potentially greatly stifling your marketing efforts, with a specific impact towards political parties, healthcare brands, SMBs, and even advocacy marketers.
From an economic perspective, businesses that have already assimilated certain issues as part of their brand messaging will have to change their approach. Shifting mid-way from an already established strategy and methodology is difficult, but sometimes also necessary to ensure a business’ survival. More so, as shown by various studies, younger generations are more likely to support brands that champion causes and movements that they align with. With Facebook changing the setup, significant changes are coming that would most likely challenge businesses that have already grown accustomed to the previously mentioned approach.
All is not lost, and Facebook does ensure that users will still have some capacity to target audiences. For one, brands will still be able to use Engagement Custom Audiences to reach those who’ve liked their page and/or have watched their videos. The same parameters can also be used as a basis to set up ‘Lookalike Targeting’, along with personal email lists.
Within these categories, targeting is still technically there, just not too specific. While it does cause a conundrum even for avid users, for the most part, it also lessens Facebook’s responsibility for cases of misused targeting.
The Wrap
To make it known to all, the EU, whom Facebook has gone back and forth with on several occasions regarding its regulations, has more stringent data protection laws (GDPR), that basically disallows Facebook “to legally target users based on these parameters without explicit consent from each individual.” In-force since 2018, Facebook, until now that is, has been at constant odds with the regulation, but has seemingly decided to concede, taking into account the broader shift towards more online privacy for all.
While it’s another reduction towards Facebook’s overall ad performance stats, it also serves as a reminder to all platforms that they should build-up their own set of first-party data; to gather audience and segmentation information where they can in order to establish better focus lists. Though this appears as a setback, it may yet prove to be a boon for Facebook should they manage to act appropriately on existing, evident insights and trends.
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