Are you up to date on changes from Facebook? Wondering which recent Facebook updates are important to marketers and business owners?
In this article, we explore Facebook changes that affect your marketing.
#1: Facebook Groups Changes
On January 23, Meta announced it would shut down the Facebook Groups API within 90 days. The API allows developers and businesses to schedule posts to Facebook Groups. Meta explained that a significant use case for the API was a feature that let developers privately reply in Facebook Groups, but said another change in the new API removes the need for the Groups API.
Our Take: Meta's upcoming changes to Facebook groups remain worryingly vague, and the surprise announcement is throwing some businesses and social media marketers that relied on the Facebook Groups API into disarray as they determine how to adjust. The livelihoods of these companies and marketers' clients now seem jeopardized without a clear explanation.
Meta owes more transparency to group admins and third-party developers that are dependent on open access to the API. If Meta now sees higher value in keeping group data and engagement in-house, cutting ties with outside tools should have come with fair notice and transition time.
Groups admins feel reasonably anxious as they face poorly defined restrictions that are arriving in mere months, and Meta should clarify its roadmap and philosophy to empower, not undermine, the communities relying on Facebook's infrastructure.
#2: Facebook Ads Features
Consolidating Ad Targeting Options
On January 15, Meta removed and consolidated some granular ad targeting options. The discontinued options were either not widely used, redundant, too specific, related to sensitive topics like health and race, or prohibited by regulations. Meta will provide alternative targeting suggestions when available.
Campaigns using the discontinued targeting options will receive warnings in Ads Manager and can continue running unaffected until March 18, 2024. After that date, impacted ad sets will stop delivering to the removed targeting options and may be paused.
Our Take: Marketing expert Allie Bloyd is concerned by Meta's removal of these granular ad targeting options. While details remain vague, the pattern shows Meta is continuing to prioritize its machine learning and Advantage Plus tools and forces reliance on Meta's still-evolving algorithms versus the proven value of nuanced human-directed targeting.
Newer, higher-ticket advertisers seem especially at risk for generating lower-quality leads as Meta's systems must learn who their ideal customers are. Although a few new targeting methods have been added, businesses are losing some targeting capabilities without receiving clear replacements. If this pattern continues, Meta risks alienating valuable advertisers who have yet to see Meta's internal tools deliver quality leads and conversions.
Expanding Advantage Detailed Targeting
Meta is expanding access to their Advantage detailed targeting product, which uses automation and machine learning to help improve campaign performance. As of January 23, Advantage detailed targeting will be available as an opt-in option for campaigns optimized around impressions, video views, reach, engagement, or ad recall lift.
For campaigns optimized for leads, Advantage detailed targeting will be automatically applied with the ability to opt out. New and duplicated lead-focused campaigns will have it enabled by default. Finally, Advantage detailed targeting will be unconditionally applied for campaigns optimized for link clicks or landing page views with no opt-out.
This expanded access requires updates to Meta's Marketing API code by April 22, 2024. Advertisers and partners leveraging the API must implement the necessary code changes over the next few months. The forced activation for some campaign types means developers cannot leave existing integrations unchanged.
Our Take: Allie says Meta should be more transparent about what is gained and lost in these API changes. The rapid expansion of Advantage Plus shows Meta believes in its potential. But potential does not help advertisers who are losing detailed options right now.
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GET THE DETAILSMeta would do well to earn the trust of these advertisers by better spotlighting added capabilities, providing access to quality training with transition guides, etc.
If Meta expects businesses to lean on its guidance and tools, it must guide them completely and clearly through targeting evolutions—not simply erase past options. Meta, advertisers, and customers all stand to lose if communications remains murky during this pivotal transition period.
Engaged-View
Meta introduced a new attribution setting for video ads called Engaged-view to help advertisers optimize and analyze better campaign performance.
With Engaged-view, conversions that occur within 1 day of a video ad play can be counted as attributable to the ad if the video was viewed for at least 10 seconds or 97% of the length if under 10 seconds. This excludes unskippable Facebook in-stream video ads. Engaged-view aims to enable advertisers to more effectively measure impact and conversions from video ads across objectives like purchases, form fills, site/app engagements, etc.
Our Take: So far, too many video impressions likely drove conversions without proper credit. Meta's new Engaged-view metric for video ad attribution takes an essential and overdue step toward proper attribution because tracking conversions within one day of a 10-second video view (or 97% for under 10-second ads) better captures the reality of consumer journeys.
The one-day conversion window makes practical sense but still risks being too limited. Consumer research and decisions, especially for large purchases, can take weeks. And emotional connections to ads can compel conversions even later. Allie would like to see Meta test extended attribution periods to find the ideal balance of accuracy and insight.
Overall, though, Engaged-view gives advertisers the improved optimization capability they deserve while asking for little added effort on their part. This update shows Meta addressing advertiser needs—a positive sign during a period of otherwise restrictive API changes.
Providing marketers with better data to attribute performance empowers sound, data-driven decisions. Decisions that help advertisers succeed sustain Meta’s key revenue sources. In that sense, this attribution expansion means progress for all sides.
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Link History
Meta is rolling out a new Link History feature to Facebook mobile app users globally over time.
Link History shows a list of websites a user has visited in Facebook's mobile browser over the past 30 days. The feature is off by default and can be toggled on or off at any point. When Link History is enabled, any links tapped inside Facebook that open in the Mobile Browser will be saved to the user's history for 30 days, excluding Messenger chat links.
Our Take: For consumers, easing the rediscovery of websites they've browsed recently on Facebook's mobile browser can provide genuine utility, making it easier for them to make a purchase later.
However, the need for users to opt-in hints at wariness from Meta itself. And for a good reason—tracking and retaining records of user browsing activity generally raises alarms around data privacy today.
Right now, Link History's value to the average consumer remains unclear while amplifying Meta's visibility into behavior offline. Meta needs to engage in proactive communication explaining how Link History practically helps people and consumers. And to ease consumer concerns, Meta must also detail how browsing data is secured, anonymized if shared internally, and provide account-level control for deleting history.
Boosted Posts
Due to Apple's recent App Store policy changes, businesses that boost posts in the Facebook and Instagram iOS apps will paying Apple a 30% service fee on the ad spend. To avoid passing this commission cost to small businesses who rely on affordable boosted posts, Meta has enabled post boosting directly through the Facebook and Instagram websites on desktop computers and mobile web browsers. Boost posting via these sites provides identical features and reach as boosting through the iOS apps, without the Apple tax for payments processed outside iOS apps.
Additionally, payment for posts boosted via the iOS app is shifting from post-campaign charges to upfront deposits from which ad costs will draw during the boost. Topping up balances can also happen on the web to circumvent Apple fees. Meta is first applying these changes in the United States, expanding globally later in 2024.
Our Take: Consumers often benefit from innovation but rising arbitrary costs and corporate jockeying for profit share benefit no one. Meta's workaround merits praise as they are defending small advertisers, which is especially helpful amid inflation and a possible recession.
If app stores can impose fees and policy changes unilaterally, commerce will suffer at their whim. Given Apple and Google's shared control of mobile platforms, regulatory scrutiny will become warranted at some point. Oversight should ensure fair play for all businesses building on or advertising via dominant distribution channels.
#3: Influencer Management Tools
Meta is launching new Creator Management Tools in its Business Suite to streamline agencies' management of content creators on Facebook. Alleviating common pain point for agencies and creators by easing creator onboarding, optimizing payouts, boosting security, and providing earnings visibility.
Our Take: Allie feels Meta's Creator Management Tools still cater more to agencies' priorities than solo creators however, the simplified account connectivity and termination features should increase creator openness to working with agencies. She also notes that other platforms lacking comparable tools will face competition from Meta and these features may one day prove a competitive advantage.
#4: Brand Safety Tools
Meta is announcing updates to better protect businesses from harm across its platforms. This includes launching an enhanced Brand Rights Protection system to monitor and report intellectual property violations and business impersonation efficiently. Key improvements include saved searches, cross-surface searching, and an expanded reference library.
Additionally, Meta introduced a new Intellectual Property Reporting Center for logging copyright and trademark complaints. The centralized hub saves account information for quicker reporting and tracks submission history.
For creators specifically, Rights Manager automation capabilities have expanded to block matched infringing images automatically. A new image attribution feature also allows creators to add ownership links and calls-to-action to direct viewers.
Finally, Meta launched a “Protecting Businesses” site explaining its comprehensive brand protection strategy with tools to verify accounts, monitor brand usage, and resolve issues.
Our Take: Meta's expanded brand rights protections bring necessary but incremental change. Saved searches and cross-platform visibility do offer some efficiency to document and report violations at scale but the onus to track and report infringement remains on brands rather than on preventive enforcement by Meta.
Allie Bloyd is founder of Allie Bloyd Media, a leading training and consultancy specializing in social advertising for small businesses. She also hosts the Marketing Ink Podcast.
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