Starting 15 January, 2024, Meta has declared its plans to eliminate and streamline certain detailed advertising options in a critical update for Facebook advertisers. This decision stems from Meta’s recognition that these options, related to potentially sensitive topics such as health, race, and ethnicity, may not align with user preferences.
Ad sets with affected targeting options will run until March 18, 2024, necessitating advertisers to update their selections. After the set date, PR managers and social media handlers are advised to update their strategies as discontinued options will cease to receive ads, potentially impacting ad campaigns.
As explained by Meta:
“Existing ad sets with impacted targeting options will continue to run until March 18, 2024, but will require you to update your targeting selections.
After this date, we will stop delivering ads to the discontinued detailed targeting options and impacted ad sets may be paused.”
This move follows Meta’s ongoing efforts to address ethical concerns and misuse of ad targeting options. While Meta has not disclosed specific categories being removed, the shift away from granular targeting is apparent. The company encourages advertisers to utilize broad targeting and Advantage+ options, relying more on Meta’s automated systems, signaling a broader industry trend away from manual targeting.
Advertisers will be given a notification to heed the warnings in Ads Manager and consider alternative targeting strategies to meet this significant adjustment to Facebook and Instagram ads, alerting them if any of their campaigns require updating after the change goes into effect. Meta also notes that it’ll provide alternative targeting recommendations where possible.
As of right now, there is no announcement yet on which specific ad targeting options Meta will remove, making measuring the potential impact and the full scope of changes being rolled out difficult.