Have you checked on your Meta Ads recently? We’re now in the final quarter of 2022 and Meta continues to roll out changes that directly impact the success of your Facebook ad campaigns. Despite changes, Meta ads are still one of the most cost-efficient paid advertising platforms available, making it worth your time and money to continue to optimize and experiment with your ads campaigns. In the last year or so we’ve seen changes to targeting, changes to naming, new ad types, and more, which, to be honest, is pretty par for the course when it comes to anything digital marketing. To say it simply, we’re used to all of this. But, what are the biggest opportunities? biggest changes? Most notable differences? Thought you’d never ask.
Updates to detailed targeting strategies
One of the most important Meta Ads updates is changes in the platform’s detailed targeting options.
Facebook’s granular targeting options are one of the platform’s biggest appeals to small businesses looking to create highly targeted ads. However, as of January 19th, 2022, Facebook has removed any detailed targeting options that may be sensitive to some users. These targeting options include:
- Health causes: i.e. “breast cancer awareness day” and “chemotherapy”
- Sexual orientation initiatives: such as LGBT culture and same-sex marriage
- Religious groups: i.e., “catholic church” and “Jewish holidays”
- Anything related to: politics, social issues, organizations, and political figures
The reason for this change was due to ongoing expressed concern that these types of targeting options may negatively affect the user experience of users within underrepresented groups. While this will help with “overall user experience”, it does mean you’ll need to understand how this impacts your targeting and what you need to do to now reach these audiences. Meta’s algorithm based ads based on broad audiences work really well. But up to us to understand new targeting within Facebook and Instagram and how to use first party audiences will be important.
Teen age groups may no longer be targeted in certain forms
Following on from the previous updates, advertisers targeting teens can no longer target them based on interest and online activity. Instead, they can only target them based on their age, gender, and location. This rule may apply to 20 & 21-year-olds in some countries.
The primary reason for this for Meta was creating a more safe and more secure experience for young people using the platform. Their experts believed that targeting based on activity may breach vital privacy policies, leading to a more predatory experience for younger age groups.
The impacts of this are positive, and means that teens will be protected from any content that Meta deems harmful – such as online dating apps or weight loss advertisements that may promote unhealthy attitudes towards weight loss and body image. This step forward is designed to promote more healthful mental health practices and help advertisers market more ethically to younger age groups.
Advertisers can now boost reels for greater impact
Looking to hit your engagement KPI? With recent Facebook ad updates, You can now boost reels directly on Instagram. With the increasing popularity around vertical content for things like search, this update is particularly groundbreaking for local businesses or businesses targeting Gen Z.
Instagram reel ads are also shown to 10.9% of the world’s population aged 13+ on average, so this is a Facebook ads update that you’ll want to pay attention to if you want to boost your reach with ads in the last half of 2022.
The Meta Advantage Automation Ad Suite
The Meta team launched their “Meta Advantage” Automated Ad Suite to help advertisers reach goals leveraging their powerful machine learning. Facebook’s automated ads were created to give users the option to set up highly targeted, relevant, and impactful ads. Users are now able to use existing ad automation features, which are rebranded to the Meta Advantage Suite, significantly streamlining the process of creating automated ads.
Key features of the Meta Advantage Suite include a content creation workflow option, optimization tools, and personalization tools that will improve the delivery and results of your ad. Though this automated ad suite strives to simplify the ad creation process, users still have the option to add additional customizations and to create more complex campaigns through Advantage+.
Facebook Ads are worth it for your business
As a marketer, it can be challenging to stay on top of Facebook’s constant stream of changes for both advertisers and users. It can feel completely overwhelming to attempt to set up ads in a way that will allow you to maximize your facebook ads performance.
However, Facebook’s most recent 2022 ad changes offer game-changing potential impacts for businesses in every season of growth through hyper-targeted and successful ad campaigns, through swaps such as:
- New rules around targeting options to offer a more diverse and positive experience for unrepresented groups
- Limited teen targeting for a better and safer experience, allowing you new opportunities to make brand impact
- Capabilities for direct-posting your reels for maximum engagement and reach
- The rollout of Meta Advantage for more advanced ad optimization
Want more than insights? Our team will be able to help take over your Facebook Ads Management and drive efficiency and the results your business needs while ensuring that your ads remain compliant with Facebook and Instagram’s ever-changing guidelines.
