Meta’s New Data Restrictions: What Advertisers Need to Know
Starting January 2025, Meta is tightening its data-sharing policies in response to growing privacy concerns. This change is expected to affect advertisers in sectors such as health and wellness, financial services, and politics. These updates may impact how brands target audiences and measure campaign performance.
Want to know how these restrictions could impact your brand? Read on to find out more and prepare for the changes ahead.
What’s Changing and Why It Matters
In late 2024, Meta announced stricter data-sharing restrictions for certain website categories using its business tools. This move reaffirms Meta’s commitment to user privacy and its existing policies around what data brands can and cannot share through its platform’s business tools.
These restrictions will primarily affect brands handling sensitive data—intentionally or not—through their websites or elsewhere within Meta’s platform tools.
Meta’s Data Source Restrictions
- Core Setup: Meta plans to limit how custom parameters and parts of URLs following the domain are shared with its business tools. This could impact how advertisers track specific data points for their campaigns.
- Mid/Lower Funnel Event Restrictions: Meta may restrict events further down the funnel, so it is advisable for advertisers to focus more on top-funnel events (e.g. awareness and reach) to maintain effective audience targeting and campaign optimisation.
- Full Restrictions: In certain regions, Meta may fully restrict events, meaning business tools won’t be able to optimise campaigns where these restrictions apply. Advertisers may need to consider adjusting their strategies by prioritising campaign objectives such as awareness (e.g. reach and impressions), engagement (e.g. likes, comments and shares), or traffic (e.g. link clicks).
What Meta’s Data Changes Mean for Advertisers
With these policy updates, Meta is working to protect user privacy and ensure compliance by companies using their platform for advertising, particularly when dealing with sensitive information such as health data.
For advertisers in these affected categories, the impact of these restrictions will vary. Some brands may experience limited access to certain advertising tools, but will still be able to use conversions and pixel-related data for performance marketing tactics. Other brands, particularly in health and wellness, may need to rethink their Meta advertising strategies entirely due to restrictions on full-funnel targeting capabilities.
Next Steps for Advertisers
Affected brands should understand the implications of these restrictions and plan their next steps accordingly. Advertisers will need to decide whether they need to make adjustments to their Meta advertising strategy, shift more budget to other platforms, or refine their current approach to ensure ongoing campaign success.
To stay compliant and minimise disruptions, advertisers should review their Meta data sources and confirm they are categorised correctly in Meta’s Events Manager. If you believe your data has been miscategorised, you can request a review.
Need help navigating these changes? Get in touch with an ADMATICian today for expert guidance and ensure your strategy stays on track for 2025.
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