What you need to know about Facebook's new ad targeting change
On November 9th of 2021, Facebook announced a change to its ad targeting options as well as new ad controls. The post says:
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. 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
You can read their full post here.
What does this mean for advertisers, small businesses, and non-profits? Simply put, it means that we will have less ability to target our exact audience. We will no longer be able to target based on the topics listed in the quote. This means that to reach the same audience you will have to get creative with your targeting and take advantage of the other methods of building your ad target audience.
One method you can use to target the right users is through the Engagement Custom Audiences. This method allows you to target users who have engaged with your content in the past. If a user has engaged with a video, lead form, an event, or your Facebook page they can be targeted through an ad.
A secondary method you could use is Lookalike Audiences. "A lookalike audience is a way your ads can reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they share similar characteristics to your existing customers." This will help you reach users that are similar in demographics and interests to an already made audience. This is an effective tool in reaching as many similar users as your budget will allow.
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Thirdly, you can use Website Custom Audiences. Website Custom Audiences allows you to target users who have visited your website. To do this you need to have the Facebook Pixel connected to your site. The Facebook pixel will also allow you to retarget users who have visited your site if they have items in their online cart or if they visited a certain page recently. For example, if a user visited your store and took no action you could run an ad that would target that user so they would be more likely to return to your online store and make a purchase.
You can also target users based on location. This feature is great for local small businesses and nonprofits who don't need to reach users hundreds of miles away from the city they operate in. For example, we ran ads for a local client promoting their annual rummage sale. We set the ad to target adults within a 30-mile radius of the rummage sale location.
This new update to the Facebook ad targeting options does mean marketers, business owners, and nonprofit owners may have to build a different strategy for 2022. To learn more about creating a Facebook ads strategy that will convert and increase sales schedule an appointment with one of our expert marketers.