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Facebook Ads

4 bold changes Meta made in Facebook Ads Targeting

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While creating an audience for a Facebook ad campaign for one of our clients, I noticed some changes in Facebook ads targeting options. Facebook no longer gives the targeting option related to breast cancer. Digging deep into the issue, I found that Facebook has removed some categories from their audience targeting option.

It was a pleasant surprise to see that Meta takes some initiative by removing some sensitive parameters from Facebook’s audience targeting options.

What changed in Facebook ads targeting

After doing some more research, we found that four categories in the audience targeting options are gone.

  • Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and figures
  • Religious beliefs and religious groups (like “Catholic Church”)
  • Sexual orientation (like “LGBT community”)
  • Health issues and causes (like “Breast cancer awareness”)

These changes in Facebook’s ad campaign started today, January 19, 2022, and the rollout will happen throughout the week across different regions.

From the past couple of years, the growing concern related to personal data of people being used through different advertising platforms has challenged companies like Meta to scale back their targeting options and stay away from individual characteristics.

How to minimize the potential impact of these changes

These changes will not drastically impact how most businesses create their Facebook ads. However, if it will somehow affect your marketing strategy or target audience, there is still a way to minimize the impact of these changes on your ongoing campaigns.

Meta has released a statement on their developers portal. They have mentioned that the campaign-level edits can still be made (like budget amount or campaign names) on campaigns created before January 19, 2022. But after March 17, 2022, it will no longer be possible to edit previous campaigns without triggering audience changes.

Edits at ad set level or ad level will trigger audience changes immediately from today itself. 

What to expect in future

This update will not go unnoticed by other digital advertising platforms, and soon we can expect similar changes to them as well. 

For the time being, it is interesting to see that finally, Meta is listening and taking some action for the enormous amount of feedback related to data privacy that has been mounting up for the past 2 to 3 years.

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15 Awesome Facebook Marketing Statistics You Need to Know in 2021

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Facebook connects more people online today than any other company. Its popularity has prompted businesses to rethink their marketing efforts and how to best engage with potential customers online. 

Here are 15 statistics that will help you understand the social network better and craft your Facebook marketing strategy accordingly.

1. For your Facebook marketing your daily active users has risen to 1.91 billion

About 1.91 billion users are active on Facebook each day, up 7% or 123 million compared to last year. Daily active users represented approximately 66% of the 2.90 billion monthly active users in June. Meanwhile, monthly active users grew by 194 million (or 7% compared to last year).

(Facebook, 2021)

2. Users between 25–34 years constitute the biggest demographic group

As of July 2021, amongst global Facebook users, 18.8% were male between 25 and 34 years old and 12.5% were female in the same age range. While Facebook users are a diverse age group, 71.9% are within the 18–44 years old range.

(Statista, 2021)

3. India has the highest number of Facebook users in the world

India far outnumbers other countries with its 340 million users. It is followed by the United States with 200 million users and Indonesia with 140 million users. Since global usage distribution is widespread, businesses and brands who are considering an international expansion can not ignore Facebook when it comes to marketing.

(Statista, 2021)

top 15 countries based on number of facebook users

4. 1.1 billion Facebook users talk in English

Every marketer knows that Facebook is fundamental to most marketing strategies on an international scale – with the capacity to reach billions of users. Despite living across diverse locations it is heartening to know that 1.1 billion Facebook users speak in English. 

(WeAreSocial, 2021)

5. Almost all users exclusively use mobile to access Facebook

98.5% of users accessed Facebook via any kind of mobile device and 81.8% of users accessed it via only a mobile phone. Businesses with Facebook Pages should keep this in mind. When creating ads and posts, you should focus not on desktop only but ensure that they look good on mobile devices as well.

(Statista, 2021)

6. More than 1.8 billion people are using Facebook Groups every month

As people seek new ways to stay connected due to COVID-19 social distancing, Facebook group activity has seen a significant uptick, with more than 1.8 billion people actively using Facebook Groups every month.

(Facebook, 2021)

7. Facebook’s total ad revenue was $28.5 billion in Q2 2021

In the second quarter of 2021, Facebook’s total revenue was $29.1 billion, which is a 56% year-over-year increase. Of which, their advertising revenue amounted to roughly $28.5 billion. In 2020, Facebook’s advertising revenue worldwide amounted to $84.2 billion. Needless to say, Facebook is still one of the most important platforms for advertising and growth.

(Statista, 2021)

8. Facebook has the most ads & highest CTR

Facebook Ads Manager offers four different ad placements: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network. Of these four, Facebook is the dominant platform with the most ads (45.2%), the highest average CPM ($5.82) and the highest CTR (3.90%), while the CTRs on Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger fall under 1%.

Facebook – $5.82 CPM & $0.33 CPC

Instagram – $5.33 CPM & $0.98 CPC

Audience Network- $4.47 CPM & $0.52 CPC

Messenger – $4.15 CPM & $0.52 CPC
(Social Insider, 2020)

Average facebook ad click through rate by placement

9. Conversions are the main campaign objective for 26.94% of Facebook ads

There are various options to choose from – from metric goals like engagement, reach, or clicks, to broader objectives such as brand awareness or store visits. The main of most Facebook ads is to achieve conversions (26.94% of ads). Meanwhile, 24.19% of ads are aiming for post engagement, and 22.64% are seeking link clicks. Brand awareness, event responses, and store visits are even less popular objectives and ads with either of these three aims make up only 2.03% of the total.

(Social Insider, 2020)

Most common campaign objective in facebook ads

10. Status ads have the highest click-through rate

Among the creative types available in Facebook ads, status ads have the highest click-through rate (6.65%). This is a little surprising, given that status ads are averaging only $58.27 in ad spend while video ($157.15) and share ($146.16) have the two highest average spends.

(Social Insider, 2020)

11. 15% of all Facebook content is video

Between Facebook Live and native videos, video content totaled 15% of all content. In 2020, 71% of video content was published by Pages with over 100k fans.

(Social Insider, 2021)

12. Vertical videos generate the highest engagement rate

Vertical videos with a description length of up to 10 words increased engagement rates from 0.29% to 0.44%

(Social Insider, 2021)

Average engagement rate by video format over time

13. There are more than 200 million small businesses around the world using Facebook marketing tools

One of Facebook’s most popular tools is the Facebook Page where businesses can publish and share their information like address, contact details, and a description of their products or services. Using this tool brands can greatly increase their online presence and connect with people who might be interested in what they have to offer. There are over 200 million small businesses on Facebook from around the world.

(Facebook, 2021)

14. Users spend an average of 19.5 hours per month on Facebook

Facebook plays a big role in consumers’ lives. It’s the most popular social media app. People spend a similar amount of time on WhatsApp (19.4 hours per month). This is followed by Instagram at 10.3 hours per month.

(DataReportal, 2021)

15. 48.5% of B2B decision-makers use Facebook for research

Facebook is amongst the topmost social networks for B2B research. Only YouTube comes in higher at 50.9%.

(Hootsuite, 2021)

If you are interested in scaling your Facebook ads, read about the 6 advance techniques for scaling facebook ads in 2021

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