Facebook Advertising Changes: What You Need To Know
To all you ninjas in the art of social advertising: times are a-changin’. Facebook has been rapidly rolling out updates to tighten their data security in light of recent scandals, and will likely mean limitations for advertisers. Prepare for what may be a roller coaster of changes in coming months.
But, hey, before you run for the hills, Facebook advertising is still one of the most effective online advertising platforms of our generation. Despite these adjustments, I don't foresee that changing.
If your clients haven’t begun asking for your perspective on the impact yet, they surely will, and here’s what you need to know.
Advertising Tool Updates
Audience Size:
Audience size estimates tool was one of the first to go. You probably noticed the custom audience size functionality disappear almost immediately after the news broke of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In fact, the change was so prompt, they left some typos in there... Why our friends at Facebook jumped to turn this tool off so quickly remains to be seen.
Implication: Minor. You might not be able to estimate KPIs/reach with the same amount of ease, but those figures were estimates at best. Additionally, you may lose a bit of transparency into whether the customer list you uploaded is large enough to build lookalikes from.
Audience Insights:
Bummer. As of now, audience insights have been turned off for custom lists. As of now, the pop-up modal upon entering insights still lists "Custom Audience" as an option, but upon clicking, it just closes the modal.
Implication: Mild. My sources (aka FB rep) indicated that this will be temporary, just until they sort out data best practices. Although, if they do bring insights back, better believe the actual insight value will be marginally less telling. In all my year's advertising, I rarely used this feature in a capacity other than as a novel curiosity. Most brands and advertisers should have a pretty good idea of their target audience already.
Customer Data Protection (Email Lists): Don't worry - email audience lists are still here! Facebook is in the process of vetting out new processes for protecting customer data. This will likely involve a warrant/permissions agreement required when uploading lists. They are evaluating whether this will be a one-time term of service type agreement for the advertising business or on a per list-uploaded cadence.
Implication: Likely minor, hopefully minor. Sounds like this will be more of a formality, basically to assure the company takes full responsibility and in turn taking the liability off Facebook in the case of misuse. I'd be surprised if this became anything more than a simple checkbox.
Political Advertising:
Facebook is tightening its policies around political advertising. Political ads will now be archived so that users will be able to see what political ads entities have supported in the past. There will also be another layer of verification required for issue advertising. Abortion, budget, civil rights, crime, etc. will now be scrutinized more heavily by the company. Idea is to reduce the chaotic political atmosphere on the platform in past years.
Implication: Politics . . . can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Am I right? Not in my wheelhouse.
On the Horizon...
Ad Transparency:
I’ve heard murmurs that Facebook is considering making a company’s active ads visible to everyone on the business’ FB page. So, virtually anyone can pop in and look at all of the ads a brand is running at any given time.
Implication: Mild - Hot. If this does develop into a reality, perhaps average consumers won't even look at this new tab. I mean, how often to users actually escape their newsfeeds to visit a brands page? Regardless there are a few potential implications that arise with a change like this…
Audience-specific ads: Great thing about dark ads - you can select who you want to send ads to. Special incentives for audience groups, win-back messaging, segmenting different audiences... Let's look at the sports vertical for example. Season ticket members pay for their tickets up-front before the season begins. While most know what they’re getting into, brands don’t want to emphasize cheaper and/or discounted ticket prices to games with that audience. A bit insensitive considering they already paid higher prices for their tickets.
Competitive visibility: advertisers would be able to see what competitor brands are running and the messaging they are using. Upside and downside here, depending on what side of the spectrum you're on.
So, that's the gist of what's been revealed so far. I'd anticipate other platforms following suit and making advertising policy updates on their own respective platforms as well. At the end of the day, one thing is for certain, social advertising isn't going anywhere. This whole situation may be a blessing in disguise for Facebook, and for privacy-concerned citizens everywhere.