It seems as though Facebook is forever changing and updating its platform to perform better for users. This includes its advertising strategies. After getting caught in controversy surrounding its targeting mechanism, Facebook announced that advertisers would see some changes to ads to prevent discrimination and make ads available to more users regardless of their backgrounds.
You might be wondering how this will affect you and your marketing. Don’t panic, you’ll still be able to maintain your presence while reaching key audiences. Facebook’s main challenge is balancing its typical users’ needs with its advertisers’. They want to guarantee users their privacy and still have successful advertising to sustain their platform. To fully understand the changes Facebook will make to ads, it’s important that you read up on what to expect.
Here’s a list of some of the changes Facebook intends to execute for ad targeting:
Housing, Employment or Credit Card Ads
After the National Fair Housing Alliance accused Facebook of allowing advertisers to exclude women, members with disabilities, and families with children, Facebook announced it would institute restrictions for how housing, employment and credit card providers targeted their ad campaigns. They include:
- They will no longer be allowed to target by age, gender or zip code.
- They’ll have less targeting categories to use in campaigns.
- Detailed targeting options appearing to relate to protected classes will not be accessible to these businesses.
- Multicultural affinity will be unavailable.
- Facebook will create a tool anyone can use to search for all current housing ads in the nation targeted to different places across the country, even if the ads aren’t targeted toward you.
How Will Facebook Targeting Changes Affect Your Business
If your business doesn’t fall under opportunities for employment, housing, or credit cards, then you should feel little effect from these alterations. However, if it does, then you should be aware that you might need to rearrange your audience groups to maintain engagement. You’ll still be allowed to boost posts and run the ads you’d like for your pages. Focus on the quality of your content and make it customizable to a wide range of different demographics. As long as you follow Facebook’s protocol, using ads will still be an effective tool to drive traffic to your business.
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