Facebook is a business’s best friend and what makes it such a compelling advertising platform is the ability to get hyper-focused on the specific audience you want to reach. This feature (custom audiences) is unfortunately soon to be changed. Due to the recent press and privacy concerns, Facebook is now holding their advertisers and themselves accountable for how prospects are reached and targeted with ads. Over the course of the next few months, changes will be made. This doesn’t mean you should fret and stop advertising on Facebook. What this does mean is that you’ll need some creativity to work around these changes and have the same success with your Facebook advertising campaigns. Let’s go over these changes and when they will be going into effect.
Removal of Partner Categories
Partner categories are a subset of Facebook targeting where information is drawn from third-party data. These third-party data mining companies provide information on people based on their offline activities away from Facebook. There are hundreds of partner categories but here are a few examples:
- Homeownership
- Retail purchase price behavior
- Car owned
- Tax bracket
- Business travelers
Partner categories are only available in seven countries, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As of today, you are still able to create ads using partner categories, but over the next few months, the ability to do so will be removed. Below is a timeline of when and where they will be removed.
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May 11, 2018 – Partner Categories for audiences based in France, Germany, and the UK are no longer available for campaign creation, editing, or duplication.
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May 24, 2018 – No campaigns will deliver to Partner Categories for audiences in France, Germany, and the UK after this date.
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July 2, 2018 – Partner Categories will no longer be available for campaign creation, editing, or duplication.
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October 1, 2018 – No campaigns will deliver to Partner Categories after this date.
Addition of Custom Audience Permission Tool
Along with the removal of partner categories, a new step will be added for when you are creating Custom audiences via third-party data, authentication via the Custom Audience Permission Tool. The custom audience permission tool will be going into effect sometime in May. What this means is through the tool, you are now responsible for obtaining consent to advertise to someone. Not much is known about the tool but in a few weeks, we will know for sure!
Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full?
Although these changes could have a large impact on how advertisers will approach their targeting in the near future, there is a bright side to these changes. With the recent press and privacy concerns, these changes could help foster more trust amongst the public who are a bit more skeptical about their privacy.
Facebook campaigns can play a huge role in generating quality leads and generating high revenue for your business. With the number of changes happening, managing advertising on Facebook could become difficult or overwhelming for first-time users. To get more information and guidance on using Facebook advertising to achieve higher ROI, contact our team at Robb Digital today!
