Meta Brings Transparency To Electoral & Political Ads

Meta making adjustments to Electoral and Political Ads

For advertising relating to social concerns, elections, and politics, Meta is making adjustments to its openness. Find out how this will affect your advertising efforts in the future.

With the midterm elections approaching, consumers in the United States (and throughout the world) are requesting openness from social media companies.

 

Combating the spread of false information is a difficult task.

 

In response to consumer concerns, Meta (previously Facebook) announced enhancements to its ad transparency capabilities.

 

Meta's VP of Business Integrity, Jeff King, added new ad transparency features to the following tools:

 

• Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) tool
• Facebook Ad Library

 

Specifically, the following ad categories will be impacted:

 

• Social issues
• Electoral
• Political

All nations that currently use Meta's ad authorisation and disclaimer solutions will receive updates to these capabilities.

 

Advertisers will be impacted by these modifications, which are prompted by customer feedback. Let's take a closer look at the changes and what advertisers may do to prepare.

 

Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) Tool

The Facebook Open Research and Transparency (formerly known as FORT) tool is only available to vetted academic academics and is not open to the general public.

 

The purpose of the Meta Impact Tool, which was first launched on January 11, 2022, was to give a tool for researchers to better assess Meta's impact on society.

 

The software is a cloud-based research platform that is cost-effective, adaptable for researchers, and safe in terms of data storage.

 

The FORT environment will feature precise ad targeting information (such as interest categories) for social problems, electoral, and political commercials starting at the end of May.

 

For affected ads, detailed targeting information will be available at the ad level.

 

Facebook Ad Library Changes

The Facebook Ad Library, on the other hand, is open to everyone.

 

Ad Library updates will be available in July 2022. Consumers will now be able to see the following if your adverts fall into one of the three categories listed above:

• Summary of targeting information for each affected ad , Location, Demographics and Interests 
• The total amount of targeted ads that a Page has run in each of the three categories.
• Ad spend on social issue, political, or electoral commercials as a percentage of total ad spend
• Whether or not a Page made use of custom audiences.
• If a Page made use of Lookalike audiences.
• The Implications for Advertisers

Meta is well-known for cracking down on detailed targeting.

  

While you can still target advertising based on demographics like age, gender, and geography, depending on the ad content, you may see a lot more ads denied.

 

Even if your commercials don't directly relate to social topics, elections, or politics, you could be impacted in the future.

 

Don't despair if you think Meta audience targeting is hopeless. Here are some helpful hints and tools to get you started.

 

1: Start With Broader Targeting

Even if you know exactly who your target market is, demographics may not be as useful as they once were. 

Create a huge "interests" category that is not divided by demographics for greater reach and awareness.

 

During the learning period, you may observe a higher CPA at first, but Meta's algorithm usually finds your top quality targets quickly.

 

2: Use Remarketing To Your Advantage

Keep track of those who are engaging with your advertising if you're starting with broad targeting (as mentioned above).

 

Quick video advertising are a great way to raise awareness, but did you realise that those who engage can be added to retargeting lists?

 

Create a remarketing list of users who have previously engaged with your page if you don't have video content.

 

This removes demographic targeting from your ads and replaces it with a better qualified audience that is more likely to make a purchase.

 

3: Use Custom Audiences

Users will now be able to see whether you've utilised Custom or Lookalike Audiences, although if they're a previous client, for example, this is unlikely to bother them.

 

You shouldn't have any trouble having advertising approved as long as you're populating these lists with first-party data.