Changes to Facebook Ad Targeting Options
If you advertise on Facebook, you might already be aware of the elimination of ad targeting options that come from third-party data miners. The revamp of available data will mean rethinking your audience targeting and social media advertising strategies. The reason for this change stems from concerns about data privacy violations and audience targeting manipulation. In an effort to win back trust, Facebook is eliminating partner categories.
There are four places that Facebook gets their data for targeting. First, comes from advertisers who provide information, like membership status in loyalty programs. Second, comes from the information users voluntarily give, such as your birthday, different likes and interests, and your job title. Third, comes from any type of interaction users have on posts and pages. Fourth, comes from data supplied by third-party commercial brokers, also known as advertising partners.
Partner categories allow you to target people based on their offline behaviors taken outside of Facebook. There are four types of partner categories of data provided for targeting. The first category includes people in the market for a sports car or owners of luxury SUVs. The second category includes heavy cleaning supplies buyers and heavy hair care buyers. The third category includes credit card holders or likely investors. The fourth category includes discretionary spenders, seasonal spenders, and brand buyers.
By cutting these data sources, advertisers are left wondering how their Facebook advertising efforts will be effected. The good news is that Facebook has so much data on its users that this restriction of data will not be that big of a deal. It will not be hard for Facebook to take a deeper look into user activity strictly on the platform and create basic consumer profiles. No matter what, Facebook will figure out a way to keep advertisers happy considering they contribute to the majority of their revenue.
Possible work arounds during the current change in data providers can include, creating lookalike audiences, directing your targeting toward user interests, and using the Facebook pixel to create new audiences and similar audiences. So don’t panic, Facebook is still a powerful tool for connecting advertisers to relevant audiences, and it will continue to serve advertisers to its best ability.