Why Facebook’s limits on teen targeting are all part of its algorithmic ad playbook

By Kate Kaye

When Facebook announced late last month it would soon end targeting to people under 18 years old based on their interests or activity on other apps and sites, the company said the move was in response to demands from youth advocates and represented “a more precautionary approach” to advertising aimed at young people. But agency execs who eat, sleep and breathe Facebook advertising say the company’s automated ad targeting algorithm could continue doing a good — possibly even better — job of targeting ads to teens whom the platform deems likely to respond to their ads.

Indeed, the agency execs say Facebook has encouraged advertisers to ditch the old way of setting targeting parameters for Facebook and Instagram and instead pushed a different approach: leaving it up to Facebook’s seemingly omniscient targeting algorithm to take the reins.

“Advertisers can probably still be profitable in reaching people under 18 simply by setting a broad age and gender audience target and feeding Facebook the conversion data that enables its algorithm to decide who to reach with ads,” said Ty Martin, founder of Audience Kitchen, which helps advertisers uncover targetable audiences on Facebook and Instagram. “Most advertisers are treating Facebook and Instagram pretty much the same and letting Facebook do the work of allocating the budget between those, serving the creative format that performs the best,” he said.

Facebook said it will not allow targeting to specific lists of people or so-called lookalike audience targeting to reach people under 18, though it will continue allowing advertisers to set up campaign targets to reach people under 18 according to gender, location and age parameters.

Martin and others familiar with Facebook ad targeting say the new targeting limit on Facebook, Instagram and in Facebook Messenger — set to come into effect “in a few weeks,” according to Facebook — probably won’t affect how advertisers currently use the platform. Not only do advertisers hoping to reach young audiences tend to avoid Facebook proper, with an audience that skews older, but some spending to reach those younger people has also shifted to platforms such as Snap and TikTok, said Shamsul Chowdhury, vp of paid social at digital agency Jellyfish.

Agency execs said they expect little impact from the targeting limit on ad spending across Facebook’s properties. Chowdhury said any effect on the amount of money advertisers spend on Facebook is likely to be “nominal.” The agency’s brand clients that typically seek to attract younger audiences tend not to target people under 18 on the platform anyway, he said. “These audiences don’t perform well,” because they tend not to have much discretionary income, Chowdhury added. He also said when advertisers do want to reach those younger people they have shifted some budget to platforms such as Snap and TikTok.

Playing ball on an algorithmic court

The new targeting restriction actually aligns with Facebook’s longer-term strategic playbook, said Joe Kerschbaum, vp of growth labs at 3Q Digital. The ability for Facebook to deliver its bread-and-butter retargeted ads based on tracking whether someone viewed a product on a retailer’s site is slipping away with the rise of tracker blockades erected by Apple and the impending demise of …read more

Source:: Digiday