If you’re wondering what to do about Meta’s new advertising restrictions, you’re not alone. Policy changes on social platforms can pose opportunities and threats for businesses, making it important to keep up with them. This is now true for businesses promoting health and wellness products on Facebook, Instagram, Threads or any other Meta platform. Let’s break down these important meta ad policy updates in simple terms and understand what actions you need to take.
What’s Changing in Meta’s Advertising Policy?
- Health and wellness industry: Now deemed a sensitive category. In order to prevent the misuse of data, sharing ‘bottom of the funnel’ sales information is about to disappear.
- General policy affecting all users and industries: Meta is loosening control over policy violations and supporting more freedom of speech.
Meta has implemented the following:
- New restrictions on health and wellness ads. They’re limiting the use of key event data such as ‘Purchase’ or ‘Add to Cart’ for campaign objectives and optimisations. Industries that fall under this new classification include:
- Health and Wellness: Supplements, fitness programs, or wellness products.
- Pharmaceuticals and Medical Services/Healthcare Providers including pharmacies.
- Legal Firms: Personal injury law practices.
- Fitness and Lifestyle Apps: Those focused on workouts, dieting, or mental health.
- A more lenient stance on policy violations, which may result in fewer posts and ads being rejected. All posts and ads will be published and visible until enough people report the content. It will then go through Meta’s new review process before it can be taken off the platform. Previously, all content went through a processing/review system. If AI deemed it to be violating a policy, it wouldn’t get published. This resulted in a lot of mistakes and content being censored when it shouldn’t have.
- Ending third-party fact checking in the USA (with an eventual global rollout). They’re also moving to a community-notes model that’s less prone to bias. Instead of fact checkers moderating content (who, being human, have their own biases and perspectives), content will now be rated and reviewed by the community – essentially by the masses. This will empower people across all walks of life and perspectives to decide when posts could be misleading, need more context or more evidence. Like it or not, according to Meta this helps decide what content is genuinely helpful for others to see.
How These Changes Affect Business Owners
If your business falls under the new health and wellness classification as mentioned above, these meta advertising policy updates mean:
- You will need to use strategies tailored to a ‘top of the funnel’ approach, such as using traffic, reach, or engagement objectives.
- Your existing ads may need significant revision (or entirely new campaigns created) to comply with the new meta ad policy guidelines. The approval process may also take longer. This means what worked before may not be acceptable now, and you may face more rejections until you fully align with Meta’s new ad policies.
- You will see an impact on your Meta ad performances. These changes may not be seen right away, however they will come with time, especially if your ads and targeting/measurement objectives are focused solely on high-intent events such as ‘Purchase’ and ‘Add To Cart’.
- While active campaigns won’t be paused, you’ll receive notifications via Ads Manager or Events Manager about any impacted ad sets so you can update them where required.
In terms of the general policy update, these updates mean:
- Potentially more flexibility for posting content and advertising on the Meta platforms.
- Increased competition: With fewer barriers for ad approvals, the number of active advertisers may rise. This could affect ad costs, performance and results – and is something we will be monitoring carefully for our clients.
- Brand safety concerns: As policies become more relaxed, a greater variety of content could slip through the cracks, such as violent and/or malicious content. This means your ads could be seen with types of content they would not have previously been seen with.
Meta Ad Policy Action Steps for Business Owners
Wondering what to do about Meta’s new advertising restrictions? If you’re in the now ‘sensitive’ health and wellness category, here’s your action plan:
- Shift to Non-Restricted Events: For new campaigns, focus on events like ‘Landing Page Views’, ‘Engagement’, ‘Search’, or ‘ViewContent’ as your main campaign objective. Do not fear, these objectives can drive great results with the right strategy and content driving them!
- Review and Adjust Current Campaigns: Identify restricted events in your account and explore alternative events (such as those mentioned above) aligned with your objectives.
- Avoid Custom Loopholes: If you’re thinking, ‘aha! I can use custom events to imitate the restricted ones’, think again. Using custom events to bypass restrictions could violate Meta’s policies and cause more problems with your campaigns.
- Request a Review: If you think your business has been miscategorised, submit a review through Events Manager. This process can take awhile so do it fast – you don’t want your ads to be restricted if they don’t have to be!
- Consider working with a Meta advertising specialist (like us!) if you’re unsure your ads meet all requirements. We do this day in and day out so can make sure you’re on the right track as soon as possible.
Moving Forward Successfully with the new Meta Ad Policies
While these meta ad policy changes might seem challenging at first, they present an opportunity to completely review your strategy, campaigns and content.
With a more relaxed stance on policy violation and content overall, use this time to hone in on what you stand for – people want authentic content now more than ever.
By adapting your strategy to the new Meta ad policies, you’ll position your business for long-term success on Meta’s platforms while avoiding potential account restrictions or ad disapprovals.
Need help navigating these changes? We are a certified Meta advertising partner meaning we are fully up-to-date with platform policies, strategy and know-how. Contact us today to see how we can help you tackle these changes and thrive in business this year.