Have you noticed the recent changes to Facebook's ad policies? Getting a bunch of new 'your ads have been disapproved' emails? If you haven't, you most likely will the next time you go into your ads manager to create any new ad campaigns.
Any financial institution that's running Instagram or Facebook ads needs to listen up!
If you're targeting U.S. audiences with Facebook ads relating to credit opportunities or housing, you now MUST select a special ad category. So what does that mean? First, lets break down the categories...
These special ad categories include, but are not limited to, credit, housing and employment ads. While you may not regularly run ads about current open positions at your financial institution, you likely do run ads about credit opportunities and housing.
Here is a more detailed explanation of each category from Facebook:
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If your ad is related to any of these categories and you do not specify that in the campaign creation, the ads will not be approved and will not run.
*Note: Any current campaign will continue to run unless they are edited, this will only affect new ads moving forward.
For a Special Ad Category campaign, create a new campaign and select Special Ad Category at the top of the page. Add your category, then select your marketing objective and follow the prompts.
If your campaign is part of this new Special Ad Category, you can’t use a previously saved audience, so you will need to build out your audience from scratch. You are also not allowed to target lookalike audiences, you must use a special ad audience.
A special ad audience uses existing information you have about the people you want to reach to create a new audience with similar online behavior. It's like Lookalike audiences, but adjusted to comply with the audience selection restrictions associated with your campaign's chosen Special Ad Category and our ad policies.
You can create special ad audiences while creating a new campaign in the ad set section, see below:
Once you’ve chosen your audience source, use the available ad targeting criteria to refine your audience. The following audiences options will be different or unavailable:
With these changes, we as marketers will have to get a little more creative when it comes to targeting and audience creation.
Facebook encourages you to broaden—not restrict—your market, which will ensure your targeting is inclusive and not discriminatory.
If you have questions about this new policy, or would like to talk to us about how we can help your financial institution, contact us today!