Meta’s New Changes for Facebook Ads 2022

Facebook ads are the hub for all businesses to reach customers and a prime option for digital marketing agencies in India. With about 2.7 billion people using Facebook every month, this platform is a wonderful tool for brands to connect with their customers.

However, Meta recently dropped a huge announcement informing massive changes to their ads which has businesses wondering about its impact on their reach. Here, we bring you all the important information on Facebook’s recent ad changes.

Removing certain ad-targeting options

From January 19, 2022, Facebook has removed Detailed Targeting options that relate to certain sensitive topics. These include options referencing causes, organizations, or public figures that relate to health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual orientation. Examples include:

• Health causes (e.g., “Lung cancer awareness”, “World Diabetes Day”, “Chemotherapy”)
• Sexual orientation (e.g., “same-sex marriage” and “LGBT culture”)
• Religious practices and groups (e.g., “Catholic Church” and “Jewish holidays”)
• Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and figures

What is detailed targeting?

Detailed targeting is a targeting option that allows businesses to refine the group of people that see their ads. Typical markers for identifying prospective audiences include information such as additional demographics, interests, and behaviors. These detailed targeting options may be based on:

• Ads they click on
• Pages they engage with
• Activities that people engage in on Facebook related to things such as their device usage and travel preferences
• Demographics such as age, gender, and location
• The mobile device they use and the speed of their network connection

Having announced these changes, Facebook stated that the interest targeting options they are removing are not based on people’s physical characteristics or personal attributes, but instead on things like people’s interactions with content on the platform. While this may be a blow for advocacy groups and social institutions, Facebook is making these changes in an attempt to minimize negative experiences on its platform. A leading digital marketing agency can help you adjust your ads with these new changes.

Helping business reach their audience

The announcement also stated that Facebook remains committed to helping small businesses, non-profits, and advocacy groups reach their audiences. In addition to broad targetings such as gender and age, below are some other top tips for improved ad targeting:

Engagement Custom Audiences can help businesses reach people who have liked their Page or people who have watched their videos that may have appeared in News Feed (Video View Engagement Custom Audiences).

Website Custom Audiences and lookalikes based on these audiences can help reach people who have already engaged with a business or group’s website or products.

Location Targeting can be used to reach people in the vicinity of a business’s brick-and-mortar store or within the radius of their shipping capabilities if they are online-based.

Additionally, businesses and groups that have permission from their customers are able to use their customer data for targeting via customer lists from a custom audience.

Impact on advertisers using the Marketing API

Starting January 19, 2022, businesses should acquire the list of ad set IDs targeted at affected objects via the Deprecated targeting terms API. Implementing this logic will help minimize the potential impact of this update. In instances where the specific term is not flagged, businesses may have to recreate the ad set.

In most cases, campaigns will be able to continue to deliver to impacted targeting options until March 17, 2022. They will be able to make most edits made at the campaign level (e.g. campaign name, spending limit, etc.) without impacting targeting. Some changes at the ad set level may update the target audience (e.g. changes to placements, targeting options, etc.).

After March 17, 2022, edits for impacted campaigns will not be possible – at the campaign, ad set, or ad level. For most targeting segments, duplication of ad sets can continue until March 17. For a small subset of targeting options, they will not be available for duplication after January 19, 2022.

Once the targeting options are removed on March 17, 2022, the API will return the following error message when a user attempts to use them or modify targeting specifications that contain such options: “Error code 100, subcode 18157520: Cannot Use Invalid Detailed Targeting Options: Some of Your Detailed Targeting Options Have Been Removed: This ad set includes detailed targeting options that are either no longer available or unavailable when excluding people from an audience. You may need to remove items from your ad set or confirm the changes to turn it back on.”

To help modify your ads to better reach customers without getting flagged, be sure to reach out to the best digital marketing agency today.