Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, said it plans to limit advertisers' ability to target users based on certain sensitive categories. Starting next year, Meta will remove thousands of "detailed targeting" keywords in categories such as health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, and sexual orientation.
Facebook's ability, until recently, to provide advertising tools with detailed targeting has long been the driving force behind its enormous digital advertising business.
Meta's vice president of product marketing for ads, Graham Mudd, said the move was a "difficult decision" made to "better meet people's evolving expectations about how advertisers can reach them on our platform and address feedback from the rights community, lawmakers, and other stakeholders about the importance of preventing advertisers from abusing the targeting options we make available to them."
The announcement comes as the company faces scrutiny over the real-world harm caused by its platforms, revealed in the " Facebook Docs," a trove of internal documents offering unprecedented insight into some of the company's biggest problems. The documents were given to lawmakers by former employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen and obtained by dozens of news organizations.
In an effort to clean up its already battered image and reputation, and as some think of having a new beginning or "fresh start", the announcement coincided with the elimination of the facial recognition program last week and the name change.
"We firmly believe that the best advertising experiences are personalized," Mudd said. He added that advertisers will have other options for targeting users, such as directing ads to people who have engaged with their pages or videos.
Meta's recommendations for getting there These audiences are:
The change will be applied globally to the Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger apps, as well as to Meta's "audience network," through which it places ads in third-party apps. It will begin rolling out on January 19, 2022, when advertisers will no longer be able to select keywords from sensitive categories for new ad campaigns, and in March, existing campaigns that rely on those keywords will stop working.
Meta also said it plans to give users more control over the types of ads they see.
"Today, people can choose to see fewer ads related to politics, parenting, alcohol, and pets," Mudd said. "Early next year, we'll give people control over more types of advertising content, including gambling and weight loss, among others."
While the changes to ad targeting will apply to Meta's existing products, it's unclear whether the company will apply the same rules to future platforms as it pursues its ambitious plan to build the "metaverse".
Now more than ever, it's important that, if you haven't already, you start building your own customer base. This will allow you to implement other types of strategies that don't rely entirely on digital advertising, such as Lifecycle Marketing .
With Keap's CRM system, you'll be able to control your data, your customers, and use this information to create similar and personalized audiences for your Facebook ads.
Keap does not require a contract and includes free access to Keap's only Spanish-language support and mentoring group.
Want to know more about Keap? Click here.