The Changes Meta Have To Offer In The Coming Year

As we’re all aware, Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has been a staple part of social media, with at least some of us or all of us having a profile on the platform. It has been a part of our lives for a long time now, from how we interact with friends’ businesses selling their products or services to the way marketers use targeted Facebook advertising to draw in users. However, we have seen some changes, particularly in its advertising policies. 

Meta plans to remove the ability of advertisers to target users based on sensitive information such as race, political affiliation, sexual orientation, religion or health. Additionally, Meta plans to remove the way marketers target based on interests such as organisations people follow, the causes they support and public figures. For instance, marketers will not be able to target words such as “chemotherapy” as this is a health-related category, and “Diwali” or “Eid” are religious-based.

“It is important to note that the interest targeting options we are removing are not based on people’s physical characteristics or personal attributes, but instead on things like people’s interactions with content on our platform,” Mudd wrote. “However, we’ve heard concerns from experts that targeting options like these could be used in ways that lead to negative experiences for people in underrepresented groups.” – Forbes.

Meta’s vice president stated that this was based on the feedback presented by its users and to help prevent abuse on the platform from happening. 

Meta already gives users the option to opt-out of ads they see if they are not relevant to them already. However, they will also be adding tools that further users’ ability to remove any content they deem uninteresting and give them more control over what they are being targeted.

Actions advertisers can take to adapt to the change:

• Exit the learning phase: Consolidate and reduce the number of ad sets in the learning phase. You can also exit the learning phase by increasing the budget and the audience size.
• Adhere to 50 conversions per week: Reducing campaign structures can also help meet the 50 conversions per week threshold. It will allow Facebook to optimize the campaign for the best possible results through machine learning. It will assure that you are getting your ad to the right audience at the right time for the best results. 
• Analyse reporting at the campaign level. While ad set and ad level assessment is possible, some estimated conversions may directly inherit the timestamp of observed activity and are noted accordingly after a delay. As a result, they may not reflect the actual conversion time for modelled conversions.
• Follow Meta’s aggregated event measurement best practices.

In conclusion, Meta is changing the way we interact with one another, and as we prepare for these changes in the coming new year, we may also have to prepare for more changes to come. 

Some of which may benefit us, and some will need a workaround. Marketers will need to get used to the restricted targeting, and some users may like that they have more control over what kind of content they can see and interact with.