With the new year propelling forward with full force, it’s time to renew, refresh and retarget your Facebook Ads Strategy for 2023. As your digital marketing gurus, we are here to keep you in the loop on all the latest updates, so you can stay ahead of your competition. Here’s everything you need to know about Facebook Ad’s latest updates.
The 411 on Facebook Detailed Targeting Changes
If you manage your own ad account, you may have noticed this notification pop up:
Facebook continuously reviews, updates and removes targeting options to simplify the system and ensure high-value advertising for brands and audiences. From February 6, 2023, Facebook began removing a small selection from Detailed Targeting, including at least one option you’ve used previously.
Ideally, it would be best if you had begun reviewing your targeting selections when Meta first notified you. If not, go check your running ad sets and remove any old targeting options to avoid impacting your ad performance.
Why is it so important to update my campaigns?
From April 6, 2023, Facebook may pause any existing campaigns that use or rely solely on one of the deprecated targeting options for audience inclusion or exclusion purposes. To resume your campaign, you will need to update your detailed targeting. Therefore, we HIGHLY recommend checking your campaigns before April 6 to avoid campaign downtime.
Will Meta provide a full list of targeting options that are being removed?
After chatting with policymakers and civil rights experts, Meta has determined that most topics relating to health, religion, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, and others are too sensitive for advertisers to target.
However, they will not be sharing the list of impacted targeting options. Instead, advertisers will receive in-product notifications in Ads Manager. Within this notification, you will see the specific targeting options you are currently using that will be discontinued for inclusion and exclusion purposes – meaning you will no longer be able to target or block people associated with these topics.
How will this impact advertisers who use the Marketing API?
This is not a 90-day breaking API change, so if you use the Marketing API, you will receive existing error codes.
Important data reporting info
- If you use 1-day Click or View optimisations – Evaluate your campaign performance at least 72 hours after running without any additional significant edits.
- If you use 7-day Click optimisations – Consider waiting up to 10 days to review ad performance (7 days for the optimisation window to close and 72 hours for any delayed data).
- For CAPI advertisers only – Change the default attribution window to a 7-day click or 1-day view attribution.
Instagram Story Changes
As of February 1, 2023, all CTA links on Instagram Stories ads will appear as a fixed sticker on top of the ad creative, instead of the current ‘Swipe up’ prompt. This update will help the Paid Ads experience to feel more like the organic experience, encouraging more audience interaction.
While the link sticker size, design and placement will remain consistent across all Instagram Stories ads, end users can tap on the sticker or swipe up on the Story based on their online behaviour.
For best results, we strongly recommend you update your ad creative to follow new standards by January 2023. Leave the bottom 20% (340 pixels) of their assets free from text, logos, and other key creative elements to avoid covering them with UI elements like the profile icon, caption, or call-to-action. Here’s the full format breakdown:
- Size: 44 pixels
- Position: Fixed in the bottom 20% of the Stories ad creative
- Please note: The exact positioning changes depending on the device and device size. As a result, we’re sharing recommended “safe zone” guidance of leaving 20% at the bottom to account for this variance.
- Colour: Dynamically chosen by IG to match the ad
- Interactivity: Double tap with a detailed tooltip
- Please note: While the CTA sticker is replacing the ‘Swipe up’ design prompt, IG Stories ads will still support ‘Swipe up’ capability to account for users’ preferred behaviour (tap vs swipe).
Tip: Violating safe zones can impact your click-through-rate
On average, the click-through rate on ads within studies identified as violating the Reels UI
Safety Zone are 28% lower than ads within studies which did not.
Get the most out of your Paid Ads with Eightball Media
At Eightball Media, we’re all about helping our clients navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape. Not only do we keep our finger on the pulse of all industry ebbs and flows, we know how to adapt and harness our strategies to maintain ad performance and ROI.
If you want to learn more about our professional Social Media and Paid Ads services or have a general enquiry about these latest Meta updates, call our friendly team! Or fill in the form below, and we’ll be in touch ASAP.
Give us a call on 07 3122 9888 or fill in our form below and we’ll get in touch!
