Starting Monday (January 15, 2024), social media giant Meta will start the process of getting rid of some detailed targeting options, the company confirmed today.
Facebook’s parent firm mentioned through a Business Help Center post on how it was making the updates for those that aren’t currently in use or redundant. Others are said to have legal complications or pertain to domains that some see as sensitive. The latter includes those linked to health, ethnicity, and race.
The tech giant will make an effort to inform marketers along the way if any campaigns running through Facebook or its Instagram app would be impacted by these series of changes through alerts running across the company’s Ads Manager initiative.
Once the update is done, the ad sets will still run unaffected throughout March 18. But after that, they would be paused.
For now, there are no specific details in terms of which categories are going to be removed completely. But from what we see, it’s quite clear the decision is being taken to take a step back from ad targeting practices considered to be granular and therefore has been called out by critics in the past for its discriminatory behavior.
For so long, the company’s ad targeting behavior has led to widespread criticism that forced the firm to keep on changing options related to advertisers in the industry.
Meanwhile, in the year 2018, we saw the firm remove 5000 names from its advertising platform that were reportedly said to be involved in the high-profile Cambridge Analytica case. The latter was accused of trying to sway voters’ opinions relating to the American Presidential elections campaign that targeted citizens having a more divisive view on politics.
One year later, the tech giant was deemed guilty of the sales of pre-populated advertiser lists that added ads for jobs and housing but excluded people of certain races and ethnicities. This includes discriminatory behavior against those with disability arising from certain statuses or origins.
Those affected in the world of marketing would be compensated with alternative means for targeting as such changes come into place, Meta added.
Meta’s website also makes it very clear how they plan to currently allow other targeting products so marketers can reach their respective target audiences. This includes options like broad targeting where the platform’s delivery system is used to search for a desired audience. Secondly, they can use Custom Audiences to find any existing audiences from those using its apps. The latter would entail using tools like customer lists and app traffic.
Third, the firm’s Advantage Custome Audience enables systems to give ads beyond a specific audience if they feel it can enhance performance. And similarly, there’s the option of Lookalike audiences that can optimize the reach.
For more information on who to review and make changes to the affected sets of ads, you can visit the company’s website as Meta has laid down a step-by-step approach for users’ ease.
Photo: Digital Information World - AIgen/HumanEdited
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Facebook’s parent firm mentioned through a Business Help Center post on how it was making the updates for those that aren’t currently in use or redundant. Others are said to have legal complications or pertain to domains that some see as sensitive. The latter includes those linked to health, ethnicity, and race.
The tech giant will make an effort to inform marketers along the way if any campaigns running through Facebook or its Instagram app would be impacted by these series of changes through alerts running across the company’s Ads Manager initiative.
Once the update is done, the ad sets will still run unaffected throughout March 18. But after that, they would be paused.
For now, there are no specific details in terms of which categories are going to be removed completely. But from what we see, it’s quite clear the decision is being taken to take a step back from ad targeting practices considered to be granular and therefore has been called out by critics in the past for its discriminatory behavior.
For so long, the company’s ad targeting behavior has led to widespread criticism that forced the firm to keep on changing options related to advertisers in the industry.
Meanwhile, in the year 2018, we saw the firm remove 5000 names from its advertising platform that were reportedly said to be involved in the high-profile Cambridge Analytica case. The latter was accused of trying to sway voters’ opinions relating to the American Presidential elections campaign that targeted citizens having a more divisive view on politics.
One year later, the tech giant was deemed guilty of the sales of pre-populated advertiser lists that added ads for jobs and housing but excluded people of certain races and ethnicities. This includes discriminatory behavior against those with disability arising from certain statuses or origins.
Those affected in the world of marketing would be compensated with alternative means for targeting as such changes come into place, Meta added.
Meta’s website also makes it very clear how they plan to currently allow other targeting products so marketers can reach their respective target audiences. This includes options like broad targeting where the platform’s delivery system is used to search for a desired audience. Secondly, they can use Custom Audiences to find any existing audiences from those using its apps. The latter would entail using tools like customer lists and app traffic.
Third, the firm’s Advantage Custome Audience enables systems to give ads beyond a specific audience if they feel it can enhance performance. And similarly, there’s the option of Lookalike audiences that can optimize the reach.
For more information on who to review and make changes to the affected sets of ads, you can visit the company’s website as Meta has laid down a step-by-step approach for users’ ease.
Read next: Search Engine Giants, Google And Bing Under Fire For Adding AI Deepfake Explicit Content At The Top Of Search Results
