In an effort to streamline and fine tune their advertising/targeting options, Meta (formerly Facebook) has decided to trim down some of the less popular options in their Ads Manager. They may be less popular because they are too redundant or similar to another option, or, they may be too granular and specific.
One example they gave was removing multicultural affinity segments, thus encouraging advertisers to use other targeting options like language/culture to fill the role of multicultural content targeting.
They would also take the minutiae of military related searches (such as military bases or regiments) and consolidate them into one “military” category, so you can still reach that audience without having to check a million boxes that may or may not be helpful since they were too specific.
This isn’t the first time that Meta has trimmed down their advertising categories. Over the past 2 years, they have cut down thousands of unneeded and redundant categories from their targeting options related to personal attributes such as race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. So this isn’t something new, and most likely will be a change that will not affect most users or will go mostly unnoticed.
Aside from these Detailed Targeting options that are being modified, you can still make full use of the other targeting options. Such as: Broad Targeting (age, gender, and location), Custom Audiences (existing audiences using customer lists, website/app traffic, and Meta engagement), Lookalike Audiences (similarities taken from custom audience to expand reach), Lookalike Expansion (automatically applied if you use lookalike audiences), and Targeting Expansion (uses advertisers’ Detailed Targeting inputs as a guide to delivery).
These changes will go into effect on January 19, 2022. Make sure to go into your Ads Manager and check your affected campaigns, as well as update any detailed targeting selections as they are needed.
For more information, you can read the official statements made by Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/business/news/update-to-facebook-ads-targeting-categories
https://www.facebook.com/business/help/458835214668072#
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