On January 19, 2022, Meta will remove certain targeting options related to sensitive topics. Among the targeting options slated for deprecation were “health causes,” “sexual orientation,” “religious practices and groups,” and “political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and figures.”
Why do we care?
Facebook advertisers should avoid relying on the targeting options listed below, as well as any other targeting options that may be related to sensitive topics, as these will most likely be deprecated at some point.
Although the options listed below will be phased out on January 19, 2022, campaigns will continue to deliver for another eight weeks, until March 17, 2022, giving advertisers time to test out alternatives.
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Sensitive targeting options
“We will be removing some Detailed Targeting options because they relate to topics that people may perceive as sensitive, such as targeting options relating to health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual orientation,” Meta said in the announcement. The following are some examples of targeting options that will be removed, according to the company:
- Health-related causes (for example, “Lung Cancer Awareness,” “World Diabetes Day,” and “Chemotherapy”).
- Sexual orientation (for instance, “same-sex marriage” and “LGBT culture”).
- Religious practices and organizations (for example, “Catholic Church” and “Jewish holidays”).
- Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and public figures are all examples of political beliefs.
Campaigns can continue to deliver to impacted targeting options “in the vast majority of cases” until March 17, 2022, according to Meta. Until March 17, advertisers can make most campaign-level changes without affecting targeting. However, some changes at the ad set level may bring your target audience up to date (for example, changes to placements, targeting options, etc).
Edits to impacted campaigns will be unavailable after March 17 at the campaign, ad set, or ad level.
Meta will also remove redundant targeting options.
The company will also remove targeting options that haven’t been widely adopted, citing the possibility that they are redundant with other options or are too granular, though it didn’t say which ones. Meta has also done this in previous updates.
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Learn more from Facebook and read Here’s How Meta Is Changing Facebook Ad Targeting in 2022.
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